When I started at my facility, I worked with the last of the old timers that went through the "old screen" in the late 80s/early 90s. Legend has it that it was brutal, something like a 40-50% pass rate, but if you made it through the screen, you'd have a 95%+ chance at checking out at your first facility. Somehow 30-40 years ago they were smart enough to develop a screen that did a great job of weeding out idiots and picking up hot prospects.... and it all went downhill from there.
Another layer to this: with a decline in controller quality comes a decline in OJTI quality. It’s a cyclical conundrum… the shittier the workforce gets, the less effective they will be at training the incoming trainees. Round and round we go.
When I started at my facility, I worked with the last of the old timers that went through the "old screen" in the late 80s/early 90s. Legend has it that it was brutal, something like a 40-50% pass rate, but if you made it through the screen, you'd have a 95%+ chance at checking out at your first facility. Somehow 30-40 years ago they were smart enough to develop a screen that did a great job of weeding out idiots and picking up hot prospects.... and it all went downhill from there.
So just go back to the legendary "old screen".
Supervisors actually worked back then. Now you have level 6 tower controllers transfer out to centers and tracons as sups certifying people on shit they can’t even work themselves
Supervisors actually worked back then. Now you have level 6 tower controllers transfer out to centers and tracons as sups certifying people on shit they can’t even work themselves
This is yet another thing NCEPT is making worse. Nowadays for OS bids to be considered “career progression” the candidate needs to be moving to a higher level than their current facility. There goes any chance of someone who can actually work the traffic making decisions about the operation. Supes are scabs etc etc but the only ones at my facility worth a damn are the ones who were certified on all positions.
This is yet another thing NCEPT is making worse. Nowadays for OS bids to be considered “career progression” the candidate needs to be moving to a higher level than their current facility. There goes any chance of someone who can actually work the traffic making decisions about the operation. Supes are scabs etc etc but the only ones at my facility worth a damn are the ones who were certified on all positions.
This. It's hard to expect a controller from a terminal 5 who bids a supe gig at an en route 12 to actually have the flick and make good operational decisions when the extent of their en route/12 experience is limited to some pencil-whipping position certs and a walkthrough of TMU when they got to the facility.
How does the Cat B work if you had 12 people pass? Would 3 (25%) have to choose ZNY? Or does the "no more than 2 per class to the same facility" guideline kick in
How does the Cat B work if you had 12 people pass? Would 3 (25%) have to choose ZNY? Or does the "no more than 2 per class to the same facility" guideline kick in
There was only 2 slots on the list so yeah, that guideline does kick in
Prior experience doesn't go to the Academy, or get assigned enroute (generally)
If they apply to an OTS bid they do and they get assigned enroute or tower that way the same as everyone. But yeah most skip it and apply for prior experience bids
Really wish the FAA would have done an actual experiment to gather real data, especially at Zs. For example, take 3 groups:
100 random academy grads
100 random academy failures
100 random high school graduates that take a 2-week crash course at their first facility
and send them to random Zs (make sure they are balanced). Compare the check out rates.
If the academy grads and failures are checking out at similar rates, then the evals are useless and should be skipped. That would save time, but more importantly, save many people the massive headache/heartbreak of going to OKC and potentially getting washed out.
If the high school graduates are checking out at the same rates as the academy groups, then get rid of OKC altogether and do some extra training onsite at the facility.
Right now low level tower flowers at my Z are checking out at roughly the same rate as OTS enroute grads. If enroute-specific OKC training is producing the same enroute results as terminal training + limited experience working tiny traffic, I think there is a massive problem with OKC enroute.
I keep hearing a rumor that they are going to change enroute training at the Academy so you're actually working the radar and not just being the assist... anyone know if this is actually true?
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