technical interview senario questions.....again!

[cptlaury]

Hi people, i have second interviews coming soon (second time), and i would like some answers of the following questions as they were asked on the day:

1: if you was handling a plane which was approaching to land at a particular air strip, but your supervisor has another plane which he wants to land before yours, what action would you take?
rights of way of landing applies?

2: if one day you was handling aircrafts directly from your fellow atco from another adjacent airspace sector, but your fellow atco had been out the night before (still not completely recovered. ie drunk), therefore he was passing more work to you than usual because of his state, what action would you take?
report him?

3: if you was in control of a particular aircraft which was flying through an airway but there was a thunder cloud (cb) straight ahead of it,
i)you cannot climb or descend the aircraft because of other aircrafts above and below it,
ii)you cannot direct it right because the zone is in range of a military missile firing area
iii)and cannot move it to the left, there is another aircraft within 5 nm of it.
What action would you take?

4:what is the minimum horizontal distance for a light or small category aircraft which is about to land behind a medium or large category plane and vice versa?
five and three miles?

cheers

[Lock n' Load]

First of all, work on your grammer. If you WERE controlling an aircraft, etc etc. The plural of aircraft is aircraft. There are plenty of instances in which phraseology cannot help you and you must resort to plain English, in which case it had better be correct English.... However....

1) Not a situation I can imagine, but if you are in a control position vectoring aircraft to final approach, no one can tell you the order in which to put them. YOU are the CONTROLLER.

2) I would imagine the right answer is something along the lines of "talk to him before he takes a control position, and suggest he takes the day off. If he won't, take it up with the watch manager/sipervisor."

3) If the aircraft really has nowhere to go but through the CB, allow it to hold until such time as you can give it a vector to avoid the CB.

4) I spent the last 8 months forgetting the UK vortex wake minima on purpose, so ask someone else.

[Spitoon]

I would agree with Lock's comments about English. When you go for your interview they will be looking not just for controller skills potential but also your ability to express yourself clearly and succinctly.

As to your questions, there are no right or wrong answers to many of the scenario questions that you may be asked. The interviewer will be looking to for your ability to explore practical options. Knowledge of the rules will be helpful - but most of them are common sense so, if you don't know what the rules are, say so but also that you imagine there will be a specific criteria to be applied in the situation.

More particularly,

If a supervisor really did do something like this there will be a reason - a reason that you must establish - with this information you will be able to make a sensible judgement. If the supervisor's aircraft has an emergency, unless you have one with an emergency that trumps the sup's, his gets priority. When ATC is being provided, different flight priorities are more important than rights of way.

There is new legislation about the amount of alcohol that a controller can work with. The question is probably trying to find out whether you know about it. Each unit will probably have procedures for such situation. The textbook answer would likely be that you would advise a responsible person so that the procedures can be applied. You also need to ensure that you do not become overloaded so you would need to tell your colleague the maximum number of aircraft that you are prepared to accept. If that makes no difference, put some aircraft into a hold so that they are safe. Like I say, perhaps that's a textbook answer.

You probably shouldn't have got yourself into the situation withthe Cb. If you know there is bad weather about you want to leave yourself options. If you can't turn left or right you probably can't do a U-turn either. You're up a dead end. Much of the job of a controller is to have a plan B waithing for every aircraft. If the worst comes to the worst, it would be better to vector the aircraft away from the Cb even if you have lose separation - use 500ft instead of vertical for example than to allow it (or send it) into dangerous weather.

Wake votex separation. Look it up - MATS Part 1 (http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/CAP493PART1.PDF).

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

I can't believe this thread... Either cptlaury is illiterate... or the people asking the questions were a bit OTT.. or I'm hallucinating!

However....

1. A supervisor simply cannot magic up a "plane" and demand that it be given priority. That just doesn't happen in real life (except, perhaps, if you wear a blue suit). If an aircraft is approaching which requires priority then the supervisor will liaise with the controller sensibly and work out a plan of action. (I'm seriously wondering who interviewed you - "planes" and "air strips" are not the usual terms one expects to hear in professional ATC interview boards - and if you're controlling "planes" at "airstrips" there sure won't be a supervisor!).

2. Tell your supervisor - you could save lives.

3 & 4. Agree with previous answers.

Good luck.... but you need to do a lot of work unrelated to ATC before thinking of a professional career.

[cptlaury]

cheers for the positive and productive reponses, and pardon for the informal words used!!

i'm off to london city and gatwick atc visits this week and next, any suggestions on how to make these dates more productive and informative??

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

<<i'm off to london city and gatwick atc visits this week and next, any suggestions on how to make these dates more productive and informative??>>

Jeez cptlaury... sentences and proper nouns start with capital letters! Don't write like this in your exams (if you get that far).

When visiting an ATC unit try and ask as many questions as possible, even if they might sound daft. Ask the controllers what particular problems they might have and if they have any new equipment and how it has helped them in their task. You might bring up the subject of electronic flight progress strips as there is a lot of discussion about that. (Can you think of any single, very significant advantage of paper strips over electronic?)

[Lock n' Load]

HD - You bring up an interesting point that's worthy of its own thread, though there's probably been one already! Here in Canadialand, we have EXCDS which has been sold to NATS as EFPS, but on my sector it's only used for departures. Overflights and VFRs have paper strips. For IFR arrivals, we're utterly stripless. The other terminal sector in the centre, at whom we can hurl insults thanks to both terminals being at one end of the ops room, uses paper strips for everything.
The BIG advantage I can see for paper strips is that, to paraphrase David Gunson, when the cleaning lady steps on the 3-pin plug you don't lose your strips. And if it CAN happen....

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

Lock 'n Load... Right first time. And don't let any comms people tell you it can't happen. I moved to a big radar unit once and we were told it was absolutely impossible for there to be a radar failure. Within days every other display went out and we rushed about looking over shoulders!!!

[Mr Chips]

Now, I don't want to sound like an old grump or anything, but asking everyone for the answers will not help you at the interview. If you learn the answers to scenarios, the interviewer WILL pick it up. I know that you are just looking for help on here, and I applaud that, but the purpose of a recruitemnt interview is to look for potential, not for someone who knows all the answers... Although I have not conducted ATCO boards, i have interviewed literally hundreds of candidates for NATS.

As to your visits, ask anything YOU don't understand, ask what the particular "challenges" of THAT airfield are...

Hope this helps!!!

[smellysnelly2004]

A quick question,

In general do you think it is better to keep answers short and succinct and allow the interviewer to ask as many questions as possible or to try and talk at length about the things you are confident on?

Any thoughts?

Cheers:ok:

[eyeinthesky]

"In general do you think it is better to keep answers short and succinct and allow the interviewer to ask as many questions as possible or to try and talk at length about the things you are confident on?"

Most interviewers will have the skills to drive the interview for you, so you needn't worry too much about it. However:

One-word answers are not a good way of communicating, and will force the interviewer to ask more questions to test understanding. It will also annoy them if they think you are not making the effort to communicate.

An full sentence answer to the question is usually good, with an example if possible.

Don't launch into a 3-minute exposition on everything you know about a subject and stop the interviewer getting a word in. Then it's not an interview, it's a lecture!

Don't throw in other 'facts' to show you know things unless you are prepared to be asked about them. To mention SES or the NOTA or whatever may well seem like a good idea, but if all you know is the headlines then that will very soon be apparent. Interviewers are interested in the limits of your knowledge and understanding, and if you start digging a hole they may well just keep handing you spades with ever longer handles!

Couldn't agree more with the statements above about learning the answers to scenarios. You may get some way on that, but one day you will have to think for yourself. If you don't understand WHY something is done a particular way, then one day you will come unstuck!

By the way... it's GRAMMAR!!

[Lock n' Load]

Spelling and grammar are not the same thing.... Luckily, one seldom has to spell on the r/t! :p