Honest Opinion Sort

[utterly bored]

Hello Folks,

First off, apologies for marauding all over an aircrew board with what is essentially a ground crew question but I'm having difficulties getting any clear "insider" information.

I've always been interested in being a Fighter Controller in the RAF, but since childhood I have suffered from Asthma. I was without symptoms from about 17 so thought I could get away with the four year rule and a commission in a ground branch. However in early 2002 the asthma made another one off appearance which has made its way onto my medical records. Since then all symptoms have dissappeared again and I have remained off the meds normally used to treat similar problems.

I'm now 23 and will be four years free again in late 2006, can anyone comment on my chances of getting through the OASC medical for ground branches given my colourful medical history?

Thanks

UB

[Maple 01]

Before all the usual banter starts you might want to talk to a pair of chaps by the name of SirTopphamHat or SpotterFC by PM - I believe they have had some dealings with the FC world.

[utterly bored]

Will do,

Many thanks.

[VigilantPilot]

I am confused by the title, should it read "Honest Opinion Sought"?

[Twonston Pickle]

UB,

The Med Board will undoubtedly be more complicated than any answer we can give you on here. However, the first step is through the AFCO and answering a few basic Qs, including asthma history. If you have been clear of symptoms and treatment/medication for 4 years, you will have passed that initial hurdle. You should then concentrate on getting to OASC and not worry about the Med Board; there is nothing you can do about your history!

[Judge Rembrandt]

VP
Yes it ort!!
JR :O

[Wyler]

Utterly Bored.

It will depend on the severity as I have a mate who was a sufferer and an FC. He was limited on where he could go i.e needed to be where there were suitable Hospital facilities. That effectively meant he was limited to the UK,Europe and North America. In these days of expeditionary warfare thanks to Bush & Bliar plc, it could be more of a showstopper. This is one for the Docs mate. Good luck.

[Pontius Navigator]

FC is not necessarily a ground branch. A considerable number are employed on flying duties.

What is your main reason for wanting FC? Is it to be operational and associated with aircrew? If so, and you do not get a flying slot, you may well find yourself limited to telecom association.

Have you thought about becoming an ATCO? The jobs are not a hundred miles apart. You will probably have a bigger chance of expeditionary deployment.

Both jobs require aptitudes very similar to aircrew. Essentially if you were to fail pilot your chances on the others would not be high. FC is possibly the most demanding non-aircrew job with an historically high failure rate. What is your fall back position?

[buoy15]

Try not to hyperventilate before the interview - might work!

Love many, Trust a few, Always paddle your own canoe

Best of luck

[Harry P]

Just don't tell them, let them find out for themselves. Based on my experience of recent Medicals, I think you could get lucky.

[Wyler]

Pontius Navigator

Sorry, but you are WAY behind the times.

The FC Branch has changed beyond recogntion since the days of chasing Bears around the North Cape. The E3 force mission crews are manned extensively by FCs, No1ACC is deployed regularly, we have FCs on 16 Air Assault Brigade, an FC at the Artillery School, FCs on Aircraft Carriers, acting as BALOs in various parts...the list goes on. There is very little commonality between ATCO and FC, as has at last been recognised in the final demise of amalgamation issues (I was in Canada last Jan looking at this very issue).
The Canadians have done it and it is a disaster. To quote the OC of their combined Air Control School
'If you want to be involved in Air Battle Management and War Fighting, be an FC. If you want a posting close to Mom and Dad, be an ATCO'.
Regarding pass rates, the pass rates for Controller are low, agreed, but the overall pass rate is in excess of 80% because control is only one, small, element of what we do. In fact, it is not even a Primary OR secondary task. It gets all the attention because it has the highest profile and it is all the average FJ crew or ATCO see, so thats what they think we do and what they judge us on. I will be the first to admit, controlling aircraft in busy airspace under the differing services is not our strongest point. However, constructing an air/surface/ground picture using ground/air/static/mobile sensors and flashing it around the bazaars whilst and providing early warning and Battle Management Functions is!
I dare say you will attack this, along with others, but we shall see what the future holds. The FC Branch is not the one trying to carve out a future in uniform.

AMEN!:*

[Pontius Navigator]

Wyler, thank you and I am sure others will find it useful too.

[Widger]

Utterly bored.. not wanting to sound like Mystic Meg or anything by picking people up for their spelling and maths and not contributing anything to informed debate, please, please edit your original post because "sort" is really starting to wind me up!

Good luck in whatever you choose by the way.

[vincehomer]

Wyler,

I dispute your assertation that FC and ATC cannot mix.

I know of many who have done both. Some have gone ATC to FC some the other way.

In my own case:

over 2000 intercepts
Saw service in Bosnia Crisis and Gulf War 1.
ATC terminal and Area qualified

Different skills? Yes, but not mutually exclusive and I know many who could do both and some who could not. But then those who could not were/are not the best FCs/ATCOs anyway!

[mystic_meg]

not contributing anything to informed debate
Well, please allow me to reflect in thy radiated glory, oh wise one..:yuk:
"by all means have an opinion, but don't be opinionated" (anon)

You'll have to try a lot harder than a few cheapshots, Todger :}

[Widger]

Mystic,

Morning nice to hear from you. I don't think it a cheap shot at all. A quick search of all your posts is quite revealing.

Picking other posters up for their spelling.
Picking other posters up for their addition.
Posting homophobic comments whenever there is a thread regarding the RN (thought I seen the last of that at school)
Overuse of the :mad: smiley
Overuse of the :yuk: smiley
Very little informed debate or discussion that contributes to any thread.

I realise that this post is in danger of falling into the trap of attacking the poster rather than the argument but, I am afraid your record speaks for itself.

I post all this of course, in good humour and in the hope that we can be enlightened in future, by your wit and professional knowledge!

Have a good Friday, Weekend and enjoy the extra hour in bed on Sunday.

Judicious use of:ok: :ok: :ok: ;) ;) ;) :p :D :O

[mystic_meg]

Why, thank you for the lesson Headmaster (thought I'd seen the last of him at school too)
Perhaps you ought to consider a new title - how about 'hubcap,' as you seem to think that everything should revolve around you? Obviously the finer points of inter-service rivalry - aka banter - are lost on you?
Homophobic? No, just bantering about the dark blue - you know: Rum, bum and baccy for the RN; Truckie fleet staying in 5* hotels; Kipper fleet having too many rations; Army, well, being army really - that sort of thing.
A quick search of your posts could be quite revealing too, but I can't be bothered, quite frankly.

Chill out over the weekend please!

[Wyler]

VINCEHOMMER

Point taken. I know of quite a few who have crossed over. My point is that others, when talking about the FC Branch, always focus on the Control side and see us as the poor relation of the ATC world. I hope I have put it in perspective.

[Matoman]

Wyler,

Glad you enjoyed the joint visit to Canada - so did I!!!!!

I trust that in your initial reply you do not wish to give the impression that the statement "If you want a posting close to Mum and Dad - be an ATCO" applies to the all the ATCOs in the RAF, as the personnel that currently support operations in the Falkland Islands, Basrah, Balad, Al Udeid, Seeb, Muharrah, Kabul, Sarajevo and Banja Luka may beg to differ. A controller has also been deployed to Kandahar in support of the Harrier Detachment and further overseas delpoyments are already being planned to that region. In addition, an Area Radar team, working as an embedded element of 1 Air Control Centre, is also under development.

The ATC branch certainly offers a wider choice of postings and a better option for eventual civilian employment, but these days we also deploy a bit as well!!

Matoman

[Widger]

MATOMAN

Good morning!


The ATC branch certainly offers a wider choice of postings and a better option for eventual civilian employment,


Don't dangle that carrot in front of them...manpower shortages and all that!

[vincehomer]

My point is that others, when talking about the FC Branch, always focus on the Control side and see us as the poor relation of the ATC world

Wyler,

Not at all. I think that there are issues that both sides can learn from each other. Cross-polination/fertilisation is a good idea in my mind. It raises awareness of the FC fraternity of many control issues and improves awreness of ATC personnel of the sharp end.

3Gp policy is firmly in the direction of Force Development as mentioned by MATOMAN, gone are the days of the shiny arsed ATCO sat in his Tower. I know of many who have sat somewhere hot with the body armour on!

There is always reluctance of any branch, threatened with absorption by another. (The D-school have been fighting you lot off for years!) But you do not need to totally amalgamate the two branches. Just having a dozen or so cross-dressers can do so much to raise awareness of each others problems/issues and helps to raise everyones OC.

[Wyler]

Matoman

No, that was not the impression I wanted to give. Just venting over the cockeyed view there sometimes is of what we actually do.
The quote is a good wind up though.
Have you thawed out yet?

Vincehommer

I see your point but at what stage do you cross over. The Canadians have had major problems with this. If you take an experienced Flt Lt and get him/her to cross over then there will be a significant period of retraining etc which will affect prom prospects.
I favour a common Air Control School where you can effectively stream individuals into either ATC/FC after a period of common trg/aptitude assessment (we do this at the SFC for 6 weeks). Perhaps you could swap individuals over after the first tour but, thereafter, you need to specialise, especially on our side.
Another area that I think should happen is for a common STANEVAL made up of ATC/FC. From a control point of view, I would even concede that it would be ATC led.
However, it does not change the basic fact that we actually have very few areas of commonality. As I have said on many occasions, if we had a different name instead of the misleading, old fashioned Fighter Control Branch, we would not even be having these discussions.
NO, I don\'t have another name in mind and find that particular game boring!

[rej]

I taught at the Canadian Forces School of Aerospace Control Operations for 3 years and was fortunate enough to do a short conversion course to learn basic air weapons control (FC). I am not wishing to start a p1$$ match but from what I saw the ATC students doing the conversion course to AWC were better at issuing radar vectors without the use of a range rules, range and bearing line etc. The AWC students doing the conversion course to ATC struggled with non-radar control and controlling multiple ac in a recovery pattern but were mentally agile with vectoring, and followed set procedures well. It is all a case of horses for courses.

Yes, on the whole their amalgamantion was poorly planned and not entirely successful. However, I firmly agree that we could have one school and do exactly what Wyler suggests. Just think of the gains to be made such as financial savings in being at one location, better understanding of each others tasks, the opportunity for some to do out of spec tours etc. I would have jumped at the opportunity of doing an FC tour either on my return to the UK or after the ATC spec had amortised my 3 year overseas posting. My biggest gripe was the fact that, with the exception a service paper on the pros and cons of amalgamation that I was asked to submit mid-way though my tour in the late 90s, I was offered no opportunity to give my thoughts on the process at tour-ex. One think that I do disagree with Wyler on is his comment that we have few areas of commonality. Having experienced both facets of control, I think that they are actually more similar than most would think or indeed want to think.

We let ourselves down by our inflexibility which in the end makes us a less effective and more costly force. The FCs out there are to be commended in the way they have 'sold' their occupation as an expeditionary specialization with its personnel accepting out of spec postings to build on skills; it has been very late coming on the ATC side. An amalgamation of minds and training regimes, if not as an entire occupation, would have moved the whole concept of British military airpace control forward much sooner than we have experienced.

[Matoman]

Wyler

I am always chilled out, almost too much so at work, as many of my colleagues would readily testify!! However, although I simply couldn’t let that quote go unchallenged, you will recall from our many frank and free-ranging discussions in the Sports Bar, that we all reached much the same conclusions on this topic and many others - throughout the visit it was a pleasure to be in your company, at least from what I can remember!!

Whilst not really wishing to re-open the same old debate yet again, I would take issue with rej or ‘FLUFFY’ as I suspect he is better known to his colleagues. The whole amalgamation issue has been done to death over the years, more times than I can even remember and I was involved on the periphery of one of the more recent reports. Despite all the man hours (or should I say person hours in the PC world in which we now live) expended on this topic, other than the opportunity for ‘cross-postings’ and greater inter-branch awareness, no one has ever been able to come up with a really compelling argument to support the amalgamation of ATC & FC. If amalgamating the specialisations would have saved money, the ‘bean-counters’ would have insisted that it happen years ago!

Whilst we can all appreciate the benefits of cross-postings, they simply cannot be quantified in monetary terms. In effect cross-postings are desirable, but not essential, (a bit like exchange tours at NavCanada!) and all our years as separate specialisations tend to prove this rather clearly. The ‘bean- counters’ have always argued that the obvious costs of additional training easily outweigh the advantages of cross-postings, which anyway cannot be really quantified in monetary terms. In addition, if an individual flitted between Terminal ATC, Area Radar and FC, you would tend to end up with a ‘jack-of-all-trades’ and master of none. In ATC we all know about skill fade as you age and how, after a while, people tend to find their ‘comfort zone’ and then become reluctant to move back from Area to Terminal or vice versa. I would argue that adding FC into the mix would only increase this problem, and would probably lead to just a few ‘cross-overs’ early in a career and then little else thereafter, with few obvious advantages to either specialisation.

Although the idea of an amalgamated ATC & FC school does seem appealing on the surface, as many comprehensive studies into joint training have discovered, although there are some initial areas of similarity, there are almost none thereafter. Anyone who believes that moving CATCS could be achieved at ‘no-cost’ is simply dreaming. So how can you justify the expense involved in moving CATCS across to wherever the new School Of Fighter Control will eventually be situated? Although some individuals might consider it desirable, I contend that they would be hard pressed to argue that it is really essential. Consequently, I invite FLUFFY, or anyone else who has an opinion on this topic for that matter, to clearly explain exactly what would be the financial savings in amalgamating the ATC & FC specialisations or collocating the training at one location. I think the actual savings would be rather small and would be far outweighed by the additional costs, but I stand ready to be proved wrong.

In my opinion the ATC specialisation does appear to have been hopeless slow in getting more actively involved alongside our FC colleagues in ‘battlespace management’, within which ATC should always have a considerable input. The Area team that will be embedded in 1ACC is a solid step in the right direction, but we cannot escape the fact that our main manpower focus in the future will always be deployed ops, our MOBs and to a lesser extent, the two area radar units. Of course, we will always need to work closely with our FC colleagues and understand each others tasks and equipment limitations, but I believe that can be achieved without amalgamating either the training or the specialisations and I suspect that the ‘bean-counters’ are on my side!

Matoman

[Wyler]

Very well put. On another tack, the post 9/11 era has led to a fundemental change in the way we 'police' UK airspace. One of the aspects to change considerably is the way in which we (FC) work with ATC. I have never known such a high and intense level of interaction and co-operation on an almost daily basis. I, for one, am very impressed with the way it is going and there is definitely need for both sets of skills when you turn airspace into Battlespace.