It's been three years...

Hey everyone,

It’s been a very long time since I wrote here, yet earlier this month, someone still found this blog and contacted me about it. As today marks the three year anniversary of me leaving EUROCONTROL, I thought it was a proper time to write one final blog, to share what I've been doing, what I've learned and answer the frequently asked questions I've been getting the past years.

So, as you just read and as was expected after my review board, the decision to end my training was not overruled by higher management and my contract was indeed terminated. The main reason behind this decision was that I failed to be a good trainee, who followed the procedures as laid down by the IANS and build proper safety buffers into his work accordingly. (more on this later in this blog)

These are basic skills required to make it to the end, and despite a very noticeable improvement over the last few weeks of my training, I was unable to recover completely. As a result, the risk of me slowing down, and possibly compromising, the rest of the group’s development was too high and no chances could be taken.

The question I heard most throughout the past years was without a doubt if I could still apply somewhere else. The answer to that question is: I can, but it depends on the ANSP.

After I was sent home, I contacted several other ANSP’s with the question if I could or could not apply with their company and go through their selection process. I haven’t done a check-up now, so some of these may already be dated by now, but in alphabetical order, these are the answers I received:

Belgocontrol (Belgium): YES

è As far as I understood, this had something to do with anti-discrimination laws that prohibit withholding me from participating in the selection procedure because of previous results.

Belgian Air Component: YES

è Civil and military ATC are completely different, meaning they hardly have a connection to each other in terms of training success rates.

DFS (Germany): NO

è EUROCONTROL’s training course is very similar to that of DFS, so failing in either one of them, will most likely result in failing the other as well.

ENAC (France): NO

è As far as I can remember, in order to apply with ENAC, you need to be a French citizen, and have passed several high-level mathematical courses. Perfect knowledge of the French language is also a prerequisite.

EUROCONTROL (supranational): NO

è Quite obvious why not, I suppose, but added it here just to be complete.

LVNL (Netherlands): NO

è After requesting and analysing my results with EUROCONTROL, LVNL decided they were not willing to take the risk of allowing me to apply, only to fail mid-course again.

NATS (United Kingdom): YES

è NATS uses slightly different procedures (CAA), so bad results in ICAO-training would not automatically imply bad results in their training.

Skyguide (Switzerland): NO

è Like LVNL, this decision was made based on my results with EUROCONTROL.

So, that leaves me with three options, if none changed their recruitment procedures between then and now. While Belgocontrol just didn't look for Ab Initios throughout the years, NATS has recruited several times but I have never applied. I don’t know why exactly, but I always felt like something was holding me back in actually taking the step to send in my application.

What about the Belgian Air Component then… Have I signed up with them? Yes, I have. Just yesterday actually, meaning I still have all the selection tests ahead of me. So … Why only now, you’re probably wondering?

To be perfectly honest, after getting the word that my career at EUROCONTROL came to an end, I've been pretty deep. Don't worry, all is fine now and it wasn't to the extent that I got into a depression or anything, but I did spend a lot of time thinking of what to do with/in my future, as my dream had shattered into pieces. At some point, I convinced myself that perhaps, it just wasn't meant to be and tried to forget all about getting in somewhere. 

Coincidentally, this was just around the time my sister finished high school and started looking into university studies. The day she went to enrol, I also decided to start a Bachelor’s degree in Communication and Media Sciences, which is what I've been doing for nearly 2 years now. With that degree, I hoped to eventually get a job in the PR-department of some (preferably aviation-related) company, or become a (writing) journalist.

I definitely find the course and its material very interesting, but from the get-go, I've felt it's not exactly what I really wanted to do, and with people still occasionally asking me if I wouldn't like to get another chance, I always kept feeling that pull towards the aviation sector. Add the fact that more and more people began pointing out I should do what makes me happy, rather than what pays the bills, and I come back to my lifelong interest in and passion for aviation, more particularly the military kind, which is where it all actually started for me

So that's it, in a nutshell, a quick-forward to today, where I'm registered to take the selection tests to become either a:

- military pilot

- military air traffic controller (ATC) or assistant

- military air defence assistant (ADC)

I've applied for these four to keep all of my options open. After getting the results, I will see if and what I am allowed to choose from, and decide what my choice will be.

But enough about me, as that's not the only - or even most important - thing I want to talk about. The main purpose of this blog has always been to inform you - the reader- and I have learned that there are serious pitfalls that need to be taken into account when considering a future in the aviation business.

After my contract with EUROCONTROL ended, I fell back upon the online network where I learned most about ATC: IVAO. With my real life experiences, I became Head of Training in the Belgian division almost instantly, but soon discovered that my newly created mindset did not work well with the general expectations and possibilities of the network. That's when I realized that IVAO has been both a blessing and a curse for me.

Thanks to IVAO, I have been able to discover the world of ATC, teaching me everything I needed to get into EUROCONTROL and make it as far as I did.

Due to IVAO, and especially its lack of guidance, however, I had taught myself a number of wrong procedures, which I had to unlearn in order to accomplish the procedures set out by the course, in particular the one at the IANS. My failure to do so in time, is a significant part of what eventually lead to the ending of my training.

Therefore, a VERY IMPORTANT WARNING TO ANY ASPIRING PILOT OR ATC out there:

Flight sims (any Microsoft Flight Simulator, X-Plane, Falcon-modification, DCS-module ...) and online networks (IVAO, VATSIM, ...) are nothing but a virtual experience. They CAN indeed be a great asset in your training, but ONLY when used properly and with expert guidance. ALWAYS keep in mind that it is not real life, even when the developers claim it to be very authentic and an exact copy of reality, and may therefore be entirely wrong.

This in turn leads me to a question I've been getting a lot: How much do you need to know about aviation to try for the selection tests or start the course. The answer is pretty simple: none is required, but having a base to build on does help to some extent. Some of my classmates had absolutely no experience with aviation at the start of the course, and they are now fully licensed air traffic controllers, so it's not impossible, but it will require dedication and persistence.
For me, as mentioned above, my base was formed by my early interest in aviation and my subsequent virtual experiences. Nevertheless, if you are planning to apply or start a course in the near future, I would suggest to stay away from flight sims and online networks until AFTER you've learned how to do it all properly. It's a lot easier to start with a blank sheet, than to have to erase and overwrite stuff.

Another important advice I'm forwarding here, for those that don't (always) check the comment section:

I'd like to give you some advices though for your next training, if you get in somewhere, and of course if you're interested.

Keep a low profile, don't write a blog about everything - it will come out sooner or later and during training the only reason you wanna draw attention to yourself is your extremely good performance, nothing else. Beside the fact that people don't like the whole training being published, there might be some other issues as well (security).

The other advice is to spend more time with studying and less in front of the computer. Although the pass marks might be "only" 70%, but it's not enough if you control only 70% of your traffic safely. Always strive for the best performance, it'll impress your instructors and even if something goes wrong one day, they'll be more likely to give you a second chance. 

 - Viktor

Thank you, Viktor, for your reply. Looking back at it now, I have indeed spent far too much time on other stuff than my course, including this blog, which obviously did not help my professional progress in any way. I now realize this, and if I were to get through the military selection tests, I'll be sure to follow this invaluable advice.


To conclude this blog, it's very long overdue and I don't know if this will ever reach the respective people, but I've also come to realize that my blog has at times put some staff- and my class-members, both at Skyguide and EUROCONTROL, in a corner they'd rather not find themselves in. I am also aware now that the knowledge I (thought I) had before starting the course, often lead me to being too confident - and most likely arrogant, even - in my actions, and towards the instructors.

To this day, I still vividly remember some instances where I clearly overstepped and for that, I wish to apologize dearly to anyone I may in any way have offended, hurt or caused problems towards.


Kind regards,
Mathias Jacobs-Anseeuw