Chugalug,
How could I have forgotten my Chinagraph ? I have one still, I used it to write on sellotape stuck over the title strips on the old VHS cassettes, so as I could rub off and rewrite as required. WHS up here stocked them up to quite recently, but "Chinagraph" got blank looks, you had to ask for "wax pencils/crayons". (And have you tried to ask for "toothpicks" at a chemists recently ? They look at you as if you've come off another planet ! (it's "Dental Sticks" now).
In action, you jotted down callsigns etc on the glass or perspex on ths desk in front of you. The best cleaner was a duster, spit on the end and dip in the nearest ashtray (things of the past now, I suppose)......D.
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Now I'm really hanging on to the last shreds of my memory, and using my imagination to supply things which
must have been there, and I would more than welcome any additions to the story, and corrections from my readership.
(written before the foregoing came in).
The basic idea was simple enough. You created a simple facsimile of a typical Local Control Room and seated your "victim" at a control desk. He would have a headset (or were we still in the old days with hand mike and monitor ?), a telephone connection to an imaginary "ATC switchboard", R/T selectors, R/T to the Crash vehicles and the usual squawk box to an imaginary "Runway Controller".
He would have a dummy "Airfield Lighting" panel. I don't remember there being a remote simulator CR(A)/DF console (although all the more modern Towers had them, so that a single Controller could handle both Local and Approach up in the top Tower in quiet periods). Of course there was no "GCA" to complicate matters (or
was there ?).
(In any case, all the QGHs and other approach work would be practised in the separate D/F simulator suites).
At the other end of his headset (or whatever) would be the Instructor, who had to play
all the parts himself (if he were a good mimic of various voices and accents, this would be an enormous advantage).
Again I must stress that the foregoing is just a rough sketched outline of the general set-up to "put you in the picture". (the details are mostly guess-work - it's almost 50 years ago, after all).
What is more important is how this Heath Robinson assembly was used as a training aid, and here I feel myself on firmer ground. The sessions were about a half-hour long (IIRC). The student did not have an Instructor by his side to murmer the odd word of advice (as in the D/F sims): the idea was to let him make his mistake(s) and then develop the scenario so that these would come back (perhaps twenty minutes later) to haunt him with the consequences.
Really it was a case of "throwing him in at the deep end", seeing how he got on (and nobody got hurt whatever happened). Naturally the Instructor acting as "Ringmaster" was at the back out of his sight (but I think we could watch him through a panel), and make hurried notes.
It would have been a great help if we could have taped the Instructor/student line, but I don't think that technology had got that far then. It would have made the "wash-ups" after the exercise much more productive if we could run "replays" (and cut out many an argument !).
Now we come to the nitty-gritty: how were the "plots" decided for each exercise ? I was quite surprised to find that, when I was first there, they were "ad-libbed" by each instructor: he would simply feed in a story "off the cuff". Of course, you couldn't have a fixed scenario, because the situation would change every time the student reacted to an "event", and you had to adapt your plot to it.
There were "staples" which were regularly trotted out: the call from the Fire Section asking permission to release the standby vehicle to put out a garden fire which was out of control. If he fell for that, it led in smoothly to the most regular item of all - the Crash on the Airfield ! (this was such a "cert" that they "boned it up", and would swing immediately into the correct "Crash Action" at a drop of a hat). In years to come, many an ATC Local would say "Thank God for Shawbury Mock" - and mean it !, when the day came (as it always must).
There was always a balance to be struck. While you must always "temper the wind to the shorn lamb", and take it easy in the first few weeks, there was always the underlying serious question at the back of it all - how will he cope when the heat comes on ? A Controller who buckles under a reasonable amount of pressure is in the wrong shop. You must make him sweat a bit, otherwise there's no point in the exercise.
Some Instructors overdid it. Everyone has a breaking point
somewhere, but it is cruel (and counter-productive) to push the student to the point of collapse, just to see how far he
can go, and I never (
AFAIK) did so myself.
Now that is enough for the moment. More next time.
Goodnight, chaps.
Danny42C.
You never know what you can do till you try.