Hey hey,
Here I am again with the probably long awaited new blog. In case you're wondering why I didn't write one for nearly 2 months, I have a few reasons.
First of all, I mainly had sim runs in Learning Unit 2, again sometimes up to 25 runs per week, so repeating everything over and over again seemed a bit pointless to me.
Second, I've been going through a bit of a rough ride in the rollercoaster called my life.
Third, I've been wondering how to write this particular blog, which brings me straight to the meaning of the title of this blog.
Even before I started writing this blog, I knew I would be able to write almost everything about the training. There would, however, be one thing where I would have to let the future decide: passing or failing the course.
Those who have me on Facebook may already have read it that for me, the training was stopped after the assessed runs at the end of Learning Unit 2, which is about 2 weeks ago by now. Along with me, one other person's results were also insufficient at this stage of training, so (s)he was also stopped. The reason behind the decision to end my training was mainly the lack of building in safety buffers.
There is however still a bit of hope for me left. After I got the news that the training ended, some of our group had a drink with some instructors. One of them said that he actually would have wanted to give me another two weeks to see if I made further progress (another instructor confirmed I had improved in the final days/weeks already, but that I didn't have the statistics to prove this).
Next week, I am invited for the Review Board (an obligatory meeting with the Head of Training and Head of Recruitment) in which my entire training is reviewed. In the same meeting, I am allowed to fight the decision to terminate my training, should I want to. With what my instructors said during the drink in the back of my mind, I think I will ask for the possibility to join the next course in Luxembourg, starting in June. It's a long shot, I know, but sometimes a long shot can go in, so who knows...
Should I not be able to continue my training with EUROCONTROL, I'll probably apply for ATC training at LVNL (Dutch ANSP), Belgocontrol (Belgian ANSP) or try to become a military ATC. Another option would be to get back in touch with Skyguide (Swiss ANSP) as they said we were allowed to contact them should we fail at EUROCONTROL.
As you can see, the motivation to become an ATCo is still very much alive, despite having received quite a blow. It's strange actually how I all of a sudden realize what impact the training, which only lasted 5 months, had on my life. I can't even drive around in my car without thinking about how it relates to ATC.
So next week, I have my review board, which means I'll write at least one more blog to tell you the outcome. I'll give myself the deadline to put this blog by the end of next week (May 8th), so stay tuned. :)
To end with, I'll give answers to the questions asked in my last blog.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
hi,
about this mental-note stuff! Do applicants must have some perfect memory to do this job? If you have 20 aircrafts under your control, you have to make at least 20 notes in your head and you will remember everything?
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Of course, you don't have to have some sort of super-mind, but a good memory is invaluable. While working the traffic, you can also forget things at a certain stage. For example, if an aircraft requests climb, it's useless to keep that note in your head after it has been cleared to/reached its altitude. Sometimes, if you're "lucky", this means you can forget about this after just 10 seconds.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
A I thought of a question,
Could you describe what the coordinators task is?
I have the following picture:
Tactical, responsible for separation. Solves the conflicts within the sectors.
Coordinator, answers and makes phone calls.
Marks (and solves?) conflicts entering the sector.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I have 2 pages in my Local Operating Procedures document, explaining the roles of each controller.
In short, the Executive Controller (EC) is responsible for the radio frequency and moving the traffic. The Coordinating Controller (CC) is responsible for the coordination with adjacent units, planning the traffic and looking for entry and exit conflicts. If possible, the CC should also monitor the frequency and inform EC about things he may have missed (wrong read-back, request etc).
Of course, if one of the ATCo's makes a mistake, the other should inform him/her about this as soon as possible. Examples could be an exit conflict that slipped the CC's attention or a conflict in the sector that went unnoticed by the EC.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Another question:
What lists do you have available in the system? I know the eurocat system works with Sector Inbound List (SIL) and Sector Exit List (SEL), is that similar to what you use?
Can you sort the lists according to the different entries (so you can change sorting between callsign, XFL, CFL etc)? If you can, do you use that when scanning for conflicts or is it more of a "nice to have" feature?
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't know the name of the EUROCONTROL-system, but I actually think it is the Eurocat-system. We can sort the lists with two buttons. One button gives the options Entry, Exit, ABC. The second button gives the options COP, Level and Time.
Selecting EXIT and COP will list all aircraft according to their Exit Coordination Point. Selecting ENTRY and TIME will list all aircraft according to their estimated time of entry into the sector. Etc.
How you use the list is a bit different for everyone and differs per role as well. As EC, I actually didn't look at the list at all. As CC, I (and probably every ATCo) used the list for exit planning.
That's it for this blog. Until next week. Wish me luck. :-)
