Training hour requirement per trainee

Initially I agree MJ , but then overtime maybe the ncept won’t send so many trainees to a facility. The ncept will then distribute personnel more appropriately, maybe academy placements will be better, direct hire might be better.
That's been the excuse since it began... "just wait until xxx happens then NCEPT will be great." Blaming training times is a straw man. Training times have been on a downtrend since the hiring push ended and have been below or near agency goals for the past several years.
 
The best is the new Monday morning call to the tower from the ATM now..
ATM: “why did only one trainee get only 2 hours of training all weekend?”
Me: “uhhh we were Minimum staffing all weekend.”
And that’s with me taking two 30 minute breaks the entire shift to get the trainee any training. That’s the last time I attempt to get someone training to get my balls busted—the older guys at my facility were mad at me for taking shorter breaks to accomplish training, saying don’t do that because MgMT will start expecting that.. I learned my lesson.
 
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The best is the new Monday morning call to the tower from the ATM now..
ATM: “why did only one trainee get only 2 hours of training all weekend?”
Me: “uhhh we were Minimum staffing all weekend.”
And that’s with me taking two 30 minute breaks the entire shift to get the trainee any training. That’s the last time I attempt to get someone training to get my balls busted—the older guys at my facility were mad at me for taking shorter breaks to accomplish training, saying don’t do that because MgMT will start expecting that.. I learned my lesson.

I wish people would change this attitude. The more training that gets done the faster people get certified and faster you are getting away from min staffing and you getting your leave approved or you get to move on to another facility.
 
I wish people would change this attitude. The more training that gets done the faster people get certified and faster you are getting away from min staffing and you getting your leave approved or you get to move on to another facility.

Yikes. in a perfect world that is true. in the real world it is often not possible to train properly with poor staffing. The CBA says you should not normally work more than 2 hours on position at a time, and also should have an uninterrupted meal break between the 4th and 6th hour. It sounds like you are either at an extremely easy and possibly overstaffed facility, one where you dont follow the CBA at all, or a manager who doesn't work or understand the ops. Not running yourself ragged is not indicative of laziness or some sort of misguided attitude, it is the proper thing to do. Training merely for training sake when there is little traffic, little staffing, fatigued controllers, et al.... is bad for everyone. Including the trainee and the flying public. It is absolutely not the case that "the more training gets done the faster people get certified"; unless your goal is merely to reach minimum hours and give a rubber stamp. It would maybe be most important teach the trainee how to properly use ATSAP in that case :lol:
 
Yikes. in a perfect world that is true. in the real world it is often not possible to train properly with poor staffing. The CBA says you should not normally work more than 2 hours on position at a time, and also should have an uninterrupted meal break between the 4th and 6th hour. It sounds like you are either at an extremely easy and possibly overstaffed facility, one where you dont follow the CBA at all, or a manager who doesn't work or understand the ops. Not running yourself ragged is not indicative of laziness or some sort of misguided attitude, it is the proper thing to do. Training merely for training sake when there is little traffic, little staffing, fatigued controllers, et al.... is bad for everyone. Including the trainee and the flying public. It is absolutely not the case that "the more training gets done the faster people get certified"; unless your goal is merely to reach minimum hours and give a rubber stamp. It would maybe be most important teach the trainee how to properly use ATSAP in that case :lol:

True, there are definitely facilities where this doesn’t apply. But there are definitely facilities where people get upset when they have to be on position for an hour instead of 45 minutes for training.
 
Yikes. in a perfect world that is true. in the real world it is often not possible to train properly with poor staffing. The CBA says you should not normally work more than 2 hours on position at a time, and also should have an uninterrupted meal break between the 4th and 6th hour. It sounds like you are either at an extremely easy and possibly overstaffed facility, one where you dont follow the CBA at all, or a manager who doesn't work or understand the ops. Not running yourself ragged is not indicative of laziness or some sort of misguided attitude, it is the proper thing to do. Training merely for training sake when there is little traffic, little staffing, fatigued controllers, et al.... is bad for everyone. Including the trainee and the flying public. It is absolutely not the case that "the more training gets done the faster people get certified"; unless your goal is merely to reach minimum hours and give a rubber stamp. It would maybe be most important teach the trainee how to properly use ATSAP in that case :lol:
I agree ? . Who’s buying the deal my trainee creates on my Friday when I have an hour or 2 left in my shift because I’m exhausted and have been working to get training done...me... and then MgMT is up my ass again. ?
 
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The best is the Monday morning call to the tower from the ATM now..
ATM: “why did only one trainee get only 2 hours of training all weekend?”
Me: “uhhh we were Minimum staffing all weekend.”
And that’s with me taking two 30 minute breaks the entire shift to get the trainee any training. That’s the last time I attempt to get someone training to get my balls busted—the older guys at my facility were mad at me for taking shorter breaks to accomplish training, saying don’t do that because MgMT will start expecting that.. I learned my lesson.
Yikes. in a perfect world that is true. in the real world it is often not possible to train properly with poor staffing. The CBA says you should not normally work more than 2 hours on position at a time, and also should have an uninterrupted meal break between the 4th and 6th hour. It sounds like you are either at an extremely easy and possibly overstaffed facility, one where you dont follow the CBA at all, or a manager who doesn't work or understand the ops. Not running yourself ragged is not indicative of laziness or some sort of misguided attitude, it is the proper thing to do. Training merely for training sake when there is little traffic, little staffing, fatigued controllers, et al.... is bad for everyone. Including the trainee and the flying public. It is absolutely not the case that "the more training gets done the faster people get certified"; unless your goal is merely to reach minimum hours and give a rubber stamp. It would maybe be most important teach the trainee how to properly use ATSAP in that case :lol:
i don’t know how it works at tower. At center the trainee basically just takes a spot the cpc that is training you would take. Is tower different?
 
So many sides to this coin. Raise the target hours and anyone can certify. But don't raise them and I wouldn't want to burn time on a dead day low level fac. I even understand Management's argument "someone has to sit on position even when it's dead and go from zero to 80 in 2.5 seconds". I see our side as well, level 5 tower, two staffed positions. 5 devs on local and 1 ground with min staffing at 3, hard to get 5 devs on the same shift 4 hours each and there will be overlap as sat/sun are just dead days to even train on.

We have 3 devs now and have been able to up our numbers from 8 hours a week per Dev to 18-20 on average. However, we are also lucky that a decade ago, the FacRep at the time and local area fought to get local 450 hours so you can sit, as at the time, dead, 15 minutes of chaos, than dead again. If the dev wasn't in the cab, they missed all the wroth while training, so now we sit them on and rot.

NATCA IMO is on board as people said, ncept. Allow movement, seems like a fair deal to keep ncept and people moving. Hard to justify moves if no one is getting adequate times on position.

There will always be people who want to move for whatever reason. However, the FAA could have easily done a better job at starting people where they want. Sure not everyone can work at DFW, however, when you have a guy, we can call him me, state they want to stay on the west coast, specifically San Diego, and be offered 3 in Florida and nothing west coast, goes to first fac and starts with a controller who asked for Ohio, and had San Diego on their list... Thus an option, is insane. Do I want to be at a 12? Yes. If I got San Diego, would I have tried to leave? Eff no. Sure, not everyone can start at SAN either. Also get that. But it was a need and an option and I asked for it, but wasn't offered it.
 
So many sides to this coin. Raise the target hours and anyone can certify. But don't raise them and I wouldn't want to burn time on a dead day low level fac. I even understand Management's argument "someone has to sit on position even when it's dead and go from zero to 80 in 2.5 seconds". I see our side as well, level 5 tower, two staffed positions. 5 devs on local and 1 ground with min staffing at 3, hard to get 5 devs on the same shift 4 hours each and there will be overlap as sat/sun are just dead days to even train on.

We have 3 devs now and have been able to up our numbers from 8 hours a week per Dev to 18-20 on average. However, we are also lucky that a decade ago, the FacRep at the time and local area fought to get local 450 hours so you can sit, as at the time, dead, 15 minutes of chaos, than dead again. If the dev wasn't in the cab, they missed all the wroth while training, so now we sit them on and rot.

NATCA IMO is on board as people said, ncept. Allow movement, seems like a fair deal to keep ncept and people moving. Hard to justify moves if no one is getting adequate times on position.

There will always be people who want to move for whatever reason. However, the FAA could have easily done a better job at starting people where they want. Sure not everyone can work at DFW, however, when you have a guy, we can call him me, state they want to stay on the west coast, specifically San Diego, and be offered 3 in Florida and nothing west coast, goes to first fac and starts with a controller who asked for Ohio, and had San Diego on their list... Thus an option, is insane. Do I want to be at a 12? Yes. If I got San Diego, would I have tried to leave? Eff no. Sure, not everyone can start at SAN either. Also get that. But it was a need and an option and I asked for it, but wasn't offered it.
I agree with that, I am from New England, said no to working in Puerto Rico, The closest I got to New England was New York, and SJU was on my list. While many of the people I am training with who came in around the same time, got several places in New England. It seems like it is a test by the FAA to see if you want the job as to why they seem to never offer you a location near your home.
 
i don’t know how it works at tower. At center the trainee basically just takes a spot the cpc that is training you would take. Is tower different?

Trainee takes the position the CPC would be working, CPC is plugged in on same position with the override plug. Furious scribbling on notepad and monitoring for mistakes with a thumb on the pickle switch to fix shit if it gets too much for the trainee.
 
I agree with that, I am from New England, said no to working in Puerto Rico, The closest I got to New England was New York, and SJU was on my list. While many of the people I am training with who came in around the same time, got several places in New England. It seems like it is a test by the FAA to see if you want the job as to why they seem to never offer you a location near your home.
“It seems like it is a test by the FAA to see if you want the job as to why they seem to never offer you a location near your home.”

I think there is a good chance this is literally true.
 
If trainee is required to maintain currency then, they are expected to get 12-15hrs per week. If trainee is not required to maintain currency then, they are expected to train 15-18 hrs per week. Then each facility will need to report the reason as to why each individual did not meet that expectation.
 
If trainee is required to maintain currency then, they are expected to get 12-15hrs per week. If trainee is not required to maintain currency then, they are expected to train 15-18 hrs per week. Then each facility will need to report the reason as to why each individual did not meet that expectation.
Did the math for last week for me. I trained for 15 hours 22 minutes plus had two skill checks and a training team meeting. That felt like a lot. I couldn't imagine 18 hours...
 
I’ve been at two centers. At both, the expectation is that you will train your first 4 days and your fifth day is currency.
 
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