May (Q3) 2023
- Thread starter Phanatical
- Start date
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lilgazpacho
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Raz
Active Member
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Northwest Mountain Region
I received my call last Thursday before the holiday weekend.
lilgazpacho
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Anyone going to AWP get their TOL yet?
Jay-Jay Jet Plane
Active Member
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I've said for a long time I can solve this in three steps.
First and foremost, hire more people more often. Like others have said, 1500 hires a year is pathetic.
Secondly, make the Academy far more difficult. There is ZERO justifiable reason when its about the almighty dollar, to allow morons through the academy and then pay them AG or D1/D2 pay at whatever facility for 3+ years before the third TRB finally sends them to a different facility or flight data shop. Once they actually pass the Academy, the Agency needs to be sending 2-3 devs each quarter to every 7 and down in the system. These people getting 9s, 10s, and some 12 tracons right off the bat are killing the small "training facilities."
Finally, there needs to be a panel that deems "Recency and Relevance" of all "prior experience" bids. I've seen enough "priors" that can't work 2 touch and gos in the pattern because they got out 4 years ago and only worked 3 helicopters on some island in the middle of nowhere twice a week. That's neither recent nor relevant, and those people should be required to go through all appropriate parts of the Academy. Thank you for your service, but thats not going to cut it here. All the while, controllers that were working some of busiest bases in the country just months ago are getting passed up.
Thats just my rant on the hiring process. I could do a whole other essay on the transfer policies. But I'll leave that to the other disgruntleds
GulfBravoPapa
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So hire more but also wash more out of the Academy? How do you expect that to work? There are only so many labs at the Academy. They have trouble staffing the instructor and RPO positions now... to hire more you'd likely need to add a midnight shift.... I don't see a lot of people signing up for that... so HOW do you hire more???
ManBearPig
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Not to mention some of the stuff they teach at the academy is pants on head retarded, and in no way representative of the real world. Then throw in the crap shoot of having a halfway decent instructor.
Captjacksparrow
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kombucha23
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The only real way to guarantee more consistent staffing and backfill of the small places is to change the hiring methods.
Hire local and your small town facilities will stay staffed more regularly. I have a few friends who refused to even try ATC because they’d be moved from their families. If you go to the academy and know you’ll be heading home or close to home, that anxiety is not a factor and people can focus on the six other anxieties of the academy.
You’re still gonna get people who want to try new places and things, but keep people close to home if they wanna be close to home. Less wild movement around the NAS as a result if people feel their ability to leave is less at risk. Black hole facilities are staffed fully with lifers and those that wanna try out big or new places can.
The academy is plenty difficult for folks. But prior experience should (and often has to) go through the academy anyway these days, so make the hiring process streamlined for prior experience. If you’re prior, the hiring process takes less than a month and you’ve got an academy date for a “prior experience class”.
Prior experiences still get a list, but if they pass the academy, their list includes 8s and maybe some 9s. Now you’re filling those mid-level spots with people who have at least shown basic competency at the job. It’s definitely true some of these people are getting through with bogus experience telling helicopters once a month to depart and land. Weed those folks out at the academy and stop wasting time at facilities themselves.
And obviously, get competent instructors and RPOs at the academy. Pay them a good wage to work there and stop cheaping out. If the federal government actually had a balanced budget, more funds should and could be allocated to improve the health of the FAA overall.
I know most of this is pure fantasy with the way reality works, but I’ve seen 8 prior experiences enter a building and only half make it at a lower level facility. There’s obviously not a consistent way prior exp people are being selected, so it’s pointless they get a “free” ride directly to facilities.
Hire local and your small town facilities will stay staffed more regularly. I have a few friends who refused to even try ATC because they’d be moved from their families. If you go to the academy and know you’ll be heading home or close to home, that anxiety is not a factor and people can focus on the six other anxieties of the academy.
You’re still gonna get people who want to try new places and things, but keep people close to home if they wanna be close to home. Less wild movement around the NAS as a result if people feel their ability to leave is less at risk. Black hole facilities are staffed fully with lifers and those that wanna try out big or new places can.
The academy is plenty difficult for folks. But prior experience should (and often has to) go through the academy anyway these days, so make the hiring process streamlined for prior experience. If you’re prior, the hiring process takes less than a month and you’ve got an academy date for a “prior experience class”.
Prior experiences still get a list, but if they pass the academy, their list includes 8s and maybe some 9s. Now you’re filling those mid-level spots with people who have at least shown basic competency at the job. It’s definitely true some of these people are getting through with bogus experience telling helicopters once a month to depart and land. Weed those folks out at the academy and stop wasting time at facilities themselves.
And obviously, get competent instructors and RPOs at the academy. Pay them a good wage to work there and stop cheaping out. If the federal government actually had a balanced budget, more funds should and could be allocated to improve the health of the FAA overall.
I know most of this is pure fantasy with the way reality works, but I’ve seen 8 prior experiences enter a building and only half make it at a lower level facility. There’s obviously not a consistent way prior exp people are being selected, so it’s pointless they get a “free” ride directly to facilities.
Acquired Taste
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Tell me you don't know what having a balanced budget means without telling me.
CaptainObvious
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Yeah we’d have to massively increase revenue to spend more
Acquired Taste
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We don't have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem. Too much spending on entitlements, defense, and other wasteful programs. Politicians promise everyone something for nothing but the only way they can make up the difference is by having the Fed print money and spend it to cover the revenue shortfall, but that only results in more inflation. The only way to actually balance the budget would be massive spending cuts and people not getting everything they were promised, which is why it'll never happen. It would be political suicide.
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It’s not how they’re selected…
kombucha23
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My point is there’s no consistency in prior experience hires, whereas anyone “off the street” is consistent enough in that they go through the same academy process so you generally know the skill level coming into a facility (aka at least able to pass the academy). Prior experience is anywhere from clueless to extremely capable, but there’s no weeding process since they just get to skip past the academy either way.
It’s like they should actually calculate based off of complexity and traffic numbers like they do for every faa facility lol. Problem is the people in OKC that don’t work traffic and just deal with numbers. Same could probably be said about NCEPT and some of their selections….
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Right, I agree with this.
HappyController
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Why is it such a low success rate?
Phanatical
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Resignations and hardships.
Acquired Taste
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Because there aren't many happy controllers there like yourself
