FAA CRASHPADS Just 5m from the FAA Academy!

Hiring Bid Air Traffic Control Specialist - Trainee: FAA-ATO-18-ALLSRCE-57792

KAB said:
I 100% agree, but maybe this is their attempt at getting the infrastructure in place to hire more people at a faster rate since they're behind hiring goals. There will be an instructor there to answer questions or explain anything you don't understand, but for the most part, it's you reading the ATBs and answering the ELT questions by yourself.
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The rate at which they hire isn't at fault to the academy, it's the process before getting to the academy that's the issue. They need to reevaluate the process and see what they can fix, like tier 2. Sure, this will possibly allow more people to get through the academy quicker, but that doesn't fix anything when you are bottlenecked at having people available to go to the academy.
 
StealthChain said:
The rate at which they hire isn't at fault to the academy, it's the process before getting to the academy that's the issue. They need to reevaluate the process and see what they can fix, like tier 2. Sure, this will possibly allow more people to get through the academy quicker, but that doesn't fix anything when you are bottlenecked at having people available to go to the academy.
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I was under the impression that they pretty much fill all their class dates and that the dates are based on how many can fit in their class structure.

I mean obviously I haven't been to the Academy lol

That's just how the basics instructor that also teaches at my school made it seem.
 
StealthChain said:
The rate at which they hire isn't at fault to the academy, it's the process before getting to the academy that's the issue. They need to reevaluate the process and see what they can fix, like tier 2. Sure, this will possibly allow more people to get through the academy quicker, but that doesn't fix anything when you are bottlenecked at having people available to go to the academy.
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Not only is this not true, it's also not logical. If the Tier 2 system didn't exist, certain individuals would get to the academy 1-2 years earlier than they otherwise would have, but the actual number of students going through the academy wouldn't change. Statistically speaking, at the same time that you were notified of Tier 2, some guy from 1-2 years ago was probably notified that he cleared his Tier 2, so the number of students available never changes. Obviously being Tier 2 sucks, but that's not the reason for missing hiring goals.

Classes tend to run pretty close to max capacity most of the time, and the biggest obstacle is instructor availability. Many of them now are working 1-2 doubles per week or more, which means they're teaching for 17 hours in a day. The job is difficult, thankless, underpaid, and there's just not that many qualified and willing instructors. The new class shrinks the length from 5 weeks to 3 weeks and reduces the number of instructors needed, but almost everyone I've talked to who's taking or taken the CBI class really dislikes it. Obviously this is an attempt to increase the number of students they can train at one time, but if the failure rate in basics goes up, it may not be much of a net improvement in successful graduates.

KAB said:
The house has passed a bill to make a preference for Vets and CTI. They are working with the Senate to get a bill passed there so it seamlessly gets passed.
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IIRC, part of the reason they scaled back CTI preference several years ago is because they consistently found that CTI students on average were no more successful than true OTS hires. I'm sure there are excellent CTI schools, and yours may be one of them, but I've known a surprising number of CTI students who think they're way better than they are, or were too stubborn to acknowledge what they don't know, and they end up washing out or just barely graduating at the bottom of their class. Veterans preference obviously makes sense for a federal agency, but I'd be surprised if the CTI part of the bill stays in there for long.
 
randoturbo33 said:
Not only is this not true, it's also not logical. If the Tier 2 system didn't exist, certain individuals would get to the academy 1-2 years earlier than they otherwise would have, but the actual number of students going through the academy wouldn't change. Statistically speaking, at the same time that you were notified of Tier 2, some guy from 1-2 years ago was probably notified that he cleared his Tier 2, so the number of students available never changes. Obviously being Tier 2 sucks, but that's not the reason for missing hiring goals.

Classes tend to run pretty close to max capacity most of the time, and the biggest obstacle is instructor availability. Many of them now are working 1-2 doubles per week or more, which means they're teaching for 17 hours in a day. The job is difficult, thankless, underpaid, and there's just not that many qualified and willing instructors. The new class shrinks the length from 5 weeks to 3 weeks and reduces the number of instructors needed, but almost everyone I've talked to who's taking or taken the CBI class really dislikes it. Obviously this is an attempt to increase the number of students they can train at one time, but if the failure rate in basics goes up, it may not be much of a net improvement in successful graduates.
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What I was trying to get at is that the process can be improved, enabling the hiring of more applicants in a quicker period. If they plan on pushing more students through how do they fill all of those additional classes? They can only fill them as fast as the applicants are cleared on everything. Without solid numbers, which I don't have access to, it would be hard to make an argument, but there has to be a reason that the FAA is undermanned on controllers I would imagine. If the process is more streamlined they could hold multiple application bids a year, allowing them to process more applicants and hire more controllers to go through the academy.

Regarding tier 2, as I am dealing with that currently, my understanding is that there is one coordinator handling all tier 2 cases (I could be wrong though) which has been consistently "backed up" since I applied to the 2017 bid. I understand this is the government, but there has to be someone in the line of leadership that can see an issue in the length of time it takes to hire someone based off a "failed" personality test.
 
StealthChain said:
there has to be a reason that the FAA is undermanned on controllers I would imagine
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I'm a student at the academy now, just this week we had a briefing by the Director of the Eastern Service Area (rah-rah, you're all super great, people are depending on you so do a good job and don't crash planes together). He took some questions and talked a bit about staffing. He said they've hired a bunch of people since they saw the staffing numbers declining, which is great BUT all those people have to certify at their facilities and they don't have enough trainers, which is where a lot of the backlog is coming from. He put some blame on NCEPT, because apparently there are a lot more movements now than there were under the old ERR program and of course everyone who transfers has to re-certify at their new facility.

He didn't seem super open to the suggestion that they go back to the way they did it a few years ago, where they at least tried to place graduates in their desired region...
 
randoturbo33 said:
IIRC, part of the reason they scaled back CTI preference several years ago is because they consistently found that CTI students on average were no more successful than true OTS hires. I'm sure there are excellent CTI schools, and yours may be one of them, but I've known a surprising number of CTI students who think they're way better than they are, or were too stubborn to acknowledge what they don't know, and they end up washing out or just barely graduating at the bottom of their class. Veterans preference obviously makes sense for a federal agency, but I'd be surprised if the CTI part of the bill stays in there for long.
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I haven't graduated yet, hence applying Pool 2 in this bid, but from the people I see in the CTI program, I can completely see that. Haha It definitely needs to be improved on as well. As long as the touch on some specific things, they can teach the class any way they like which means it's going to be different than the Academy which itself is going to be different than the facility you go to. That said, my specific school has a very high pass rate at the Academy, but I think it's because we are told at the beginning that they aren't the Academy so take the optional basics and work your butt off because this is just to get your feet wet and give you a slight advantage, not to train you to go straight to a facility. I feel like that will help students in my class, but honestly, if we get to option to skip Basics, they should probably teach us Basics well. haha
 
yup said:
I'm a student at the academy now, just this week we had a briefing by the Director of the Eastern Service Area (rah-rah, you're all super great, people are depending on you so do a good job and don't crash planes together). He took some questions and talked a bit about staffing. He said they've hired a bunch of people since they saw the staffing numbers declining, which is great BUT all those people have to certify at their facilities and they don't have enough trainers, which is where a lot of the backlog is coming from. He put some blame on NCEPT, because apparently there are a lot more movements now than there were under the old ERR program and of course everyone who transfers has to re-certify at their new facility.

He didn't seem super open to the suggestion that they go back to the way they did it a few years ago, where they at least tried to place graduates in their desired region...
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That’s unfortunate. My first choice facility is a ten minute drive away. It’d be nice to have some sort of priority there ☹️
 
KAB said:
I haven't graduated yet, hence applying Pool 2 in this bid, but from the people I see in the CTI program, I can completely see that. Haha It definitely needs to be improved on as well. As long as the touch on some specific things, they can teach the class any way they like which means it's going to be different than the Academy which itself is going to be different than the facility you go to. That said, my specific school has a very high pass rate at the Academy, but I think it's because we are told at the beginning that they aren't the Academy so take the optional basics and work your butt off because this is just to get your feet wet and give you a slight advantage, not to train you to go straight to a facility. I feel like that will help students in my class, but honestly, if we get to option to skip Basics, they should probably teach us Basics well. haha
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What state is your school in?
 
KAB said:
I haven't graduated yet, hence applying Pool 2 in this bid, but from the people I see in the CTI program, I can completely see that. Haha It definitely needs to be improved on as well. As long as the touch on some specific things, they can teach the class any way they like which means it's going to be different than the Academy which itself is going to be different than the facility you go to. That said, my specific school has a very high pass rate at the Academy, but I think it's because we are told at the beginning that they aren't the Academy so take the optional basics and work your butt off because this is just to get your feet wet and give you a slight advantage, not to train you to go straight to a facility. I feel like that will help students in my class, but honestly, if we get to option to skip Basics, they should probably teach us Basics well. haha
Click to expand...
My CTI told me the same thing. It’s definitely a lot of info to learn in 5 weeks so I guess our advantage is the refreshing/relearning part of it, not having it be all new stuff. But they definitely said skipping basics was a bad idea, cti or not.
 
Dumb question, feel like an old person.

On the medical pre-employment form (where you punch in prescriptions and whatnot), is it bad if the text is cutoff? If I download it seems like I can scroll and read all the cutoff info from my end. Hoping it's the same situation for them too.

note: i used preview on mac to put in all the info. I just couldn't really figure out how to adjust the font size. I could resend it using chrome on windows (seems to autoadjust the font but makes it real damn tiny).
 
Last edited:
memosmi, I did the same thing (Preview on Mac) and it worked just fine on their end. It prints out without respecting your line breaks, I think, so make sure to double-space at the end of a line or put in a dash or something.
 
StealthChain said:
What I was trying to get at is that the process can be improved, enabling the hiring of more applicants in a quicker period. If they plan on pushing more students through how do they fill all of those additional classes? They can only fill them as fast as the applicants are cleared on everything. Without solid numbers, which I don't have access to, it would be hard to make an argument, but there has to be a reason that the FAA is undermanned on controllers I would imagine. If the process is more streamlined they could hold multiple application bids a year, allowing them to process more applicants and hire more controllers to go through the academy.

Regarding tier 2, as I am dealing with that currently, my understanding is that there is one coordinator handling all tier 2 cases (I could be wrong though) which has been consistently "backed up" since I applied to the 2017 bid. I understand this is the government, but there has to be someone in the line of leadership that can see an issue in the length of time it takes to hire someone based off a "failed" personality test.
Click to expand...
I haven't been tier 2ed yet, but it infuriated me to see so many of our TOL recipients get tier 2 over a fucking personality test. Meanwhile, facilities are running their controllers to the mental limit , understaffing is a huge issue, but HANG ON, TIMMY THE VET SAID HE DOESN'T LIKE SOCIAL GATHERINGS!
 

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