Hey
As you all know, it's been a long time already. Again. Reason this time: studying.
The IANS has already proven to give me more work than Skyguide (no offence there). As soon as we got here, we were starting the course, with subjects like Human Performance, Law, Navigation, Equipment, ... Also, there was a lot of studying to be done on the LOP-test, as it was a requirement to pass it before we could start in the simulator.
On the first go last week, 6 of 8 passed it and I wasn't among them. With 76%, I was just 4% short of the required 80%, which meant I had another week of studying ahead. The resit-exam, and also the deadline actually, was two days ago as sim was planned to start yesterday. For the resit, 80% wasn't enough anymore. To prove that you knew your stuff, 90% was the requirement to pass it. Fortunately, the extra week gave me the time to catch up on things and that resulted in a resit-score of 93%. The other person who failed the test initially did a tremendous job with 98% on the resit-exam.
And that of course meant we were all allowed in the simulator yesterday and have a go at the controls that are a (near-to) exact replica of the real MASUAC-control stations. Very impressive, I must say. Screens with a resolution of 2000 * 2000 pixels, I'd like to have them for my computer. If only they weren't so bloody expensive. Just one costs about 30.000 euro. Better not throw your mouse into it, when you get frustrated. ;-)
Yesterday, we just used a basic exercise to get used to the interface and the input system. Today, we are already starting to resolve conflict situation by vectoring. It's still a bit slow, as there is a lot more to be done now, than we had to do before (instruct, put it in the system, scan, pre-scan, plan, conflict searching etc), but I'm sure we'll become masters in it, once we get used to the HMI (Human Machine Interface) and the exact correct working methodology.
That's actually just about the basic quick run-through of what's been happening here in the past weeks. I know it's not a lot, but in reality there's not much to tell. I just have class, go home, study a bit, do some homework, relax a bit, go to bed, get up and repeat the same process. Luckily, it might change a bit now, with simulator starting and the days are getting shorter (today, I started at 10 and finish at 2, for example).
As the days are shorter, I might be back faster as well, though I actually think I'll have less to tell then. Most of what we are doing from this point on, will be simulator runs (300 coming up in the next months) and I'm not sure if I'm at liberty to discuss that in this blog. I guess I'll have to ask someone.
Again, if you have comments, suggestions, questions, anything related to the blog/training, leave something in the box below. Maybe I can get this blog alive more by giving (short) answers to questions instead of having to come up with stories of what I'm doing all the time.
Speak to you later.
Friday 25 February 2011
Monday 7 February 2011
Quick update
Hey,
It's been too long since I wrote a blog and the reason is just plainly a lack of time. Therefore just a quick update on how things are going.
We've all finished our Basic Course and left with the consent of Skyguide in the meantime and have moved to Luxembourg to do the Rating Course, which we started last week already, at the Institute of Air Navigation Services (IANS) in Luxembourg.
We haven't started sim as yet, but during our stay until July, we are planned to do some 300 simulator runs and by the time we end those, we are expected to be capable of handling somewhere about 60 planes per hour, all in our sector, whereas until now we had about 15 at most during a 40-minute exercise. Quite a change, but luckily, we have a few months to get used to it. :-)
Why haven't I written a blog before? As said before, too much to do. Been studying the pre-course study material EUROCONTROL sent us before we arrived at the IANS, been studying the subjects of which we still had exams in Switzerland on our last day there. My parents even arrived in Switzerland to come pick me up well before I even started my last exam. The irony of leaving a place, I guess. They don't want to let us go easily which, I guess, is a fair attitude in this business.
After moving, I've been busy keeping up with the theoretical subjects and the LOP which we have to know by heart by next week. This includes, but is not limited to, the map of the (fictitious) sector we'll be working on in the sim, the (fictitious) letters of agreement, separation standards, ...
That's about what I can tell you right now, before I go to bed. I might put another blog online soon, maybe going into a bit more detail about our life during the last days in Switzerland (I actually started it already, but it just doesn't finish) and our first in Luxembourg, but that is still to be decided really. Could be I just omit it, but if you really want to know, feel free to leave something in the comment box. The more requests, the more likely you'll get to read and see (photo report) about our visit to the Zurich Zoo.
Good bye for now.
It's been too long since I wrote a blog and the reason is just plainly a lack of time. Therefore just a quick update on how things are going.
We've all finished our Basic Course and left with the consent of Skyguide in the meantime and have moved to Luxembourg to do the Rating Course, which we started last week already, at the Institute of Air Navigation Services (IANS) in Luxembourg.
We haven't started sim as yet, but during our stay until July, we are planned to do some 300 simulator runs and by the time we end those, we are expected to be capable of handling somewhere about 60 planes per hour, all in our sector, whereas until now we had about 15 at most during a 40-minute exercise. Quite a change, but luckily, we have a few months to get used to it. :-)
Why haven't I written a blog before? As said before, too much to do. Been studying the pre-course study material EUROCONTROL sent us before we arrived at the IANS, been studying the subjects of which we still had exams in Switzerland on our last day there. My parents even arrived in Switzerland to come pick me up well before I even started my last exam. The irony of leaving a place, I guess. They don't want to let us go easily which, I guess, is a fair attitude in this business.
After moving, I've been busy keeping up with the theoretical subjects and the LOP which we have to know by heart by next week. This includes, but is not limited to, the map of the (fictitious) sector we'll be working on in the sim, the (fictitious) letters of agreement, separation standards, ...
That's about what I can tell you right now, before I go to bed. I might put another blog online soon, maybe going into a bit more detail about our life during the last days in Switzerland (I actually started it already, but it just doesn't finish) and our first in Luxembourg, but that is still to be decided really. Could be I just omit it, but if you really want to know, feel free to leave something in the comment box. The more requests, the more likely you'll get to read and see (photo report) about our visit to the Zurich Zoo.
Good bye for now.
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