Originally Posted by
ZOOKER
parkfell,
Been there, done that. In the 1980s, NATS commissioned a well-known firm of trick-cyclists to develop suitable aptitude tests, having sent a couple of their bods to sit alongside us in the ops room for 2 or 3 weeks.
They went away and came back with said tests and gave us a presentation all about them. Very few of us understood what we were shown. All those present were valid ATCOs, several of whom had CPLs or previous RAF pilot/navigator experience.
When these tests were introduced, the ATCO Cadet Course dropped from around 90% to 20%. I'm not sure what it is today though, but it has improved.
When I went through the selection procedure in 1978/79, there were rudimentary tests which I and a couple of my unit colleagues were borderline on. We all did well (95%+ each) on the 3-man 'final selection boards' and all wnt on to become valid ATCOs.
HD is spot on too. In my time as an OJTI I met several u/ts who had sailed through the college, writen, simulator and oral-board exams all passed. As soon as they sat down with live traffic, they couldn't do it. Really nice folks who, NATS kindly found work for, elsewhere in the organisation.
Aptitude tests were formulated long before that. On my terminal course in 1974, the people from personnel gave us some proposed pictorial aptitude tests to see how we did.
One of the tests consisted of a series of pictures supposedly of a radar display and we were supposed to say which two had collided.
Having spent 2 years out of our 3 year cadet course looking at radar tubes, we found this test so unreal we just chucked all our test papers in a pile in the middle of the room!