Same boat, same picture, same game
Louby has a point. And a good one. It does make sense to increase the awareness and understanding of pilots and ATCOs about their work and "turf".
In growing amount of branches of businesses the customerfeedback is highly valued and appreciated. It carries within a possibility to make the system better. If there is the understanding AND the will to see through the imminent frustration that an imperfect or malfunctioning system produces to the CUSTOMERS.
And my humble opinion is that this is clearly the case behind these occurrences that lead the original poster to speak up his opinion bravely in the first hand. It was a system that is widely recognized as a valid one to train the trainee with live traffic. Although there are alternatives. They might cost a few more "beans", but to my understanding even modern flight simulators are quite an expense. Yes, there are some advantages cost wise to the flight sims: the need of people running it is smaller etc. But on the other hand the tower sims do not have to have 6 axel 3 dimensional full motion systems, which are quite expensive too. Or if they had, it might be quite a ride...
It is quite much a matter of priorities of the ANSP:s and the ATC training organizations. What are the priorites? It comes really down to the point that one must put money on the other end of the scale and let's say safety on the other end. Or even customer satisfaction.
And of course it is a matter of change: Things have always been done like this, why do we have to change it?
There is a proverb, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". In some branches of business customer feedback such as the one that started this thread might be understood that it has a pointer showing a clear need to upgrade the system. A customarily situation that leads to a great customer pain is a brightly coloured flag that is raised to give notice that the SYSTEM has some malfunctions or glitches and the system CAN and should be upgraded.
At the same time one must admit that also the beliefs and assumptions that lie behind the present system, that causes this kind of occurrences might need some adjustment or even upgrading also. One strong belief, that many ANSP:s might have has to do with the "beans": If it is expensive, there must be a way to avoid it.
The systemic upgrade that leads to lowering the waiting time of the customers (airlines) on the tarmac AND at the same time eases customers (airlines) jet fuel bills, might be very very welcome. At least for the customers. But this kind of feedback is very very rare even to be collected and leading to the system to be corrected.
One factor is also the inertia that comes with all kinds of organizations. Even the training organizations have inertia for change.
But I am positive that ATC training will follow the guidelines of pilot training. As in many good cases have been. It is merely a matter of time. It is a fact that ATC training is younger than pilot training. The good point is that some things have been already tried and found out to be enhancing safety.
Another topic for another thread is what Louby also pointed out that in many towers and other ATC units it is a current belief that SMO:s (single man operations) are the only choice available, because the alternative also costs more "beans".
And actually one more topic that might need some thinking is that pilot training has something of an advantage at the moment that might be helpful for the ATC. Especially in such ATC units that have more positions than one or where the work is done in "pairs", like area control centres. Pilots training has nowadays a CRM part with it (Crew Resource Management). It is clear to see that a CRM trained dynamic duo, (crews in cockpits) , have an astounding advantage over a crew without the CRM training. And not only in emergencies, but also in the normal flow of daily routine work.
Does anybody know if any ATC training system has anything like CRM training nowadays?
E.g. in many cases it is quite much left to the individuals to figure out what is good and benefitial kind of co-operation and what is not. And in many cases the interpretations have quite far too large a variation. This kind of variations could and should be reduced with CRM-training or equivalent (ARM=ATC resource management) training.
Which ATC training system around the world might be the first one on this subject also?
Last edited by Slo Moe; 13th Mar 2008 at 20:05.
Reason: correcting typos