ATC IssuesA place where pilots may enter the 'lions den' that is Air Traffic Control in complete safety and find out the answers to all those obscure topics which you always wanted to know the answer to but were afraid to ask.
I am flying to Southampton for my stage 1 tests on 24 July. Having read the last couple of pages on shuttle buses etc, i was wondering how far the Southampton airport parkway station is from the actual airport(is it right next door, or a few miles away), so i could then get the shuttle bus to CTC.
Also, with the s/d/t questions, is it possible for someone to post a couple of example questions using actual values along with the answer, or is there somewhere i can find example questions like the actual test questions that i can use for practice.
Southampton Airport Parkway is right next to the airport - come out of the terminal and turn left (or just follow signs for Trains).
I'm sure someone else more recently sitting Stage 1 can provide more examples, but the type of dst questions I got were like the following (I hope I don't get them wrong!):
Q: An aircraft is travelling at 420mph - how far does it travel in 4 minutes?
A: 28 miles.
Q: An aircraft travels at 4.5 nautical miles per minute. How fast is that in knots?
A: 270 knots.
Q: Aircraft is 24 miles from a beacon, has a groundspeed of 360mph and is at 28000 ft. What rate of descent does the aircraft require to be at 26000 ft when it passes over the beacon?
A: 500 ft per minute.
Q: Two aircraft are heading directly towards each other at the same altitude and are currently 55 miles apart. Aircraft 1 is travelling at 300 mph, and the other at 360 mph. How many minutes will it take for them to collide?
A: 5 minutes.
Last edited by paperclip810 : 2nd July 2009 at 19:53.
Thanks paperclip810, wonder if you can help me a bit more. How do you know which bus to get? Is it the only one there? And does it drop you off at CTC or is there a short walk from the stop?
Also, in response to your post a couple days ago about it maybe being worth getting a work experience at an airport if you are an aviation novice, i second that idea. I spent 5 days at Edinburgh in April this year which i organised myself having been for a more unofficial visit in 2008. During that time, i spent time with the ATCOs, assistants, ops and engineers. It was all very interesting - the engineer who i spent an afternoon with was a real fountain of knowledge and he even took me out and showed me the radar and other navigational equipment around the airport as well as explaining the new technology they'll be receiving in the near future.
With ops, i spent most of my time racing down taxiways in a jeep that was squawking like five different types of bird to scare the real ones away! However i also got to go to the operations room and see everything ops do around the airfield.
With the ATCOs, they were all very friendly and answered all the questions i had as well as sharing extra pieces of information with me as well. If you want to try and understand a bit more about the rules and regulations around ATC and UK airspace, a visit to an operational unit to see the radar used and how it's used is definitely worthwhile.
The shuttle bus goes from the car park on the airport side of the station next to the bridge between the station platforms (the old, scruffy concrete bridge at the south end, not the new one with lifts near the terminal building).
The buses are blue 15-seaters with 'AIRLYNX' in yellow.
Work experience is great - I did something very similar to Adam but at Glasgow airport (although when I was quite a bit younger!). Good fun, especially if you get nice people to shadow, and very informative too. Glad to see it's still happening even though security has increased a bit!
I too did something similar to Adam and paperclip in work experience at a local private airfield. I found it very informative allowing an insight into the bigger perspective of ATC, in how VFR flights operate outside of controlled airspace with different navigational methods etc.
paperclip, i'm not sure how security was when you were there, but for me it did take a while to organise due to the security issues, though in the end i did manage to persuade them that my hobbies didn't include terrorism!
I'm going to my S3 at the end of July and contacted HR with the same question as I am travelling from Scotland, this is their reply.
"You can claim up to £120 of expenses. You are expected to pay for the first £50. You can fill in a claim form after your interview and attach the receipts."
They scrapped expenses for stage 2 back in May, although I think I remember reading that there are exceptions for certain candidates if they've travelled very far, although candidates from Scotland/N. Ireland possibly only qualify for stage 2 expenses at the moment.
I had my stage 2 back in may and as i was travelling from northern ireland i thought there might have been some exception with the expenses, but unfortunately there was not, they told me they do not pay any expenses for stage 2 at all!
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