Hello again everyone.
I went to the pilot information night last week down at Melbourne airport. It was really great to check out Melbourne center and the simulator room.
The simulator was quite cool, I got to sit down and play with it for a few minutes, accepting aircraft and changing the altitudes etc. It reminded me of a video game in a way. It seemed quite complicated, but I guess that's what all the training is for.
Melbourne center itself was really interesting and fascinating. To think half of aus and more is controlled from that one room is quite amazing. It was around 22:00 when we got to look in MC so the western Australia side of the room had a lot more controllers than the Melbourne side. Got to look at the aircraft/airspace around Melbourne (there wasn't too many so the controller was quite happy to point some things out to us.)
It was quite a good night and has really got me wanting to do this as a job more, now that I have seen it closer.
Anyway I managed to have most of my questions answered by one of the trainers and one of the controllers, but I have a couple more that I forgot to ask last week. So hopefully you guys might be able to help.
1. On average how many aircraft would you guys manage at once (Per person) and what would be the maximum you would handle?
2. How is the support if you think you have too many A/C and you want some help with them? One of the guys I spoke too said you can allways ask for some help to manage the A/C. But how does this work generally? can someone pull up your sector and take a couple of A/C or does someone just stand next to you and have a look?
3. How long do you stay on one sector? Do you generally learn an area with several sectors or just a sector?
4. They guys were saying that AsA is severely understaffed (as suggested by people on here also) and working 10 days is not uncommon. But After 10 days you must be given time off right? anyone know what that would be?
Also I don't quite understand how overtime can be forced. If your busy or unreachable or not at home on your day off, It seems a bit silly to be expected at work in say an hours time. I'm sure there are days when your not busy and you may as well go into work, but I'm just wondering how often you get called for extra shifts?
5. Anyone know a rough hourly rate for controllers (base rate of $83,000PA I think)? Just curious if anyone has worked it out.
6. How tough is the training? Is it mostly dependent on each individual (some people can ace it without studying and others have to study 24/7)? Or is it really quite tough. The trainer guy I spoke to said it changes person to person, but its structured quite well (building block style) and its not as bad as its made out to be. I would assume, you have to really work hard (just being on the safe side), but anyone have any personal stories about the training? Did you enjoy it? Some parts easy? some parts hard?
I'll leave it at that for now. I dont want to bother people with hundreds of questions, I just want to get an idea of the job before going through with it.
I have my application in, so here's hoping I'm what AsA is looking for!!
Also good luck to the rest of you guys who have put your applications in.