Right, well I had better start
I sat my MCC course in mid June over a period of 9 days. 3 days were dedicated to groundschool and 5 to a full-motion flight simulator. Now for those of you who now think I can’t add, one day was spent visiting the London ATC Centre at West Drayton. I must say it was a fantastic experience and one that I would recommend to anyone given the opportunity.
As I said before, I don’t want this diary to be perceived as a ‘plug’ for the organisation who I conducted my training with. So I’ll get this bit out of the way. If anyone wants to know more about these guys, feel free to PM me.
Anyway my MCC training was conducted at a well known airfield in the South of England who use a Saab 340 Turboprop simulator as the training platform. One thing that I will say about them is that they are a very professional outfit. You get that ‘feel’ for the place when you walk through the doors. So I immediately felt happy about my choice of course provider before the course actually began. Piece of mind assured and plug over!
DAY 1…..Groundschool
Groundschool…….yuk……the word often sends shivers down my spine. Having spent hours upon hours listening to poorly delivered ATPL lectures using crap notes in poorly ventilated rooms, I know. Glad to say that my experiences on the MCC were refreshingly different. Again, naming no names, our MCC GS instructor was of a unique ilk…..HE COULD INSTRUCT. Well, not so much instructing here, more listening, taking information in and discussing. However it was clear that our lecturer had two important assets – he knew how to talk to an audience and he was interesting. One thing that I was especially happy about was that he possessed years of experience operating on both military and commercial multi-crew aircraft. He could therefore relate to every incident that we would discuss. CRM itself was, as you’d expect, a specialist subject of his, so the knowledge level was unparalleled. Piece of mind again assured.
Anyway, I digress. Should be telling you all about day one. Well we started at 0900 and finished close to 1700. Sessions lasted between 45 minutes to one hour, with 15 minutes break for coffee, visit to the wee boys room etc. I, for one, thought that this teaching system employed on my MCC course was a very good one. Some people often like to ‘press on’ with what may be thought of as being the less exciting stuff in order to get it out of the way. I’m glad we didn’t, especially as after an hour my concentration span really suffers. I also felt that the 15 minute break allowed you to think about what you had just discussed and indeed discuss it further. So that was all good in my book. Day 1 itself concerned the ‘HUMAN ELEMENT.’ Without going into broad details, as anyone either studying for the ATPL Human Performance Factors exam or indeed who is going on an MCC course, will come across these. One thing that I will mention is the SHELL Model. I was aware of this before the course began, but really hadn’t given it much thought in relation to CRM. Well, it’s at the centre of CRM and any MCC course. We spent a lot of time talking about it, and I’m glad we did. Pretty much every CRM related incident or accident can be related to the breakdown of this model. We discussed personal experiences and shared opinions on previous incidents where people have learned the importance of good SHELL interaction, especially the ‘Liveware – Liveware’ element. So some advice, if any, is don’t underestimate it’s importance. It seems to be at the foundation of all good CRM practices – this too me was demonstrated in the sim at a later stage. So keep it in mind and understand it’s interfaces.
Well, that was Day 1 pretty much. I will continue with Day 2 for all those still awake!
