2010: Air controllers imported

[Voel]

Cape Town - Fifty air traffic controllers are currently being trained and an additional 16 international air traffic controllers are being recruited, in order to cope with the expected flood of aircraft movements during next year's soccer World Cup.

According to a written reply to a parliamentary question given by Transport Minister Sbu Ndebele to Greg Krumbock of the Democratic Alliance on Tuesday, the international controllers will only be appointed on a fixed term employment of six months.

Fin24.com>>Economy>>2010: Air controllers imported (http://www.fin24.com/articles/default/display_article.aspx?ArticleId=1518-25_2565290)

[Radar Pete]

Yep, and it will take 8 years to get those 50 ATCs fully trained, assuming they all make the grade? Current stats indicate that only 10% will make it...so that makes 5 ATCs in 8 years.

16 international ATCs will only land on our friendly shores in about 2 months (assuming all goes smoothly). Allowing for at least 3 months famil and training that leaves June and July for actually working live traffic solo. Once again, that is assuming local instructors will actually train them, and assuming they meet the standard, and assuming??????

Once again, ATNS drops the ball...is anyone other than the shop floor ATCs concerned about this?

[ab33t]

This is a serious state of affairs , I returned to SA last year after being away for awhile and was doing a flight from Wonderboom to Pielansberg it was early morning and very hazy , I asked the ATC to switch the lights on so that it would make it easier for me to pick up the airport and the response, this is verbatim

“Ish what for “ .
If this is the state of ATC be afraid be very afraid

[Goldfish Jack]

Wonder who has priority?
The contract workers or the aspiring full time ATCs and there is a backlog of training for these full time people at most ATSUs?

Lets see what the excel spreadsheet experts decide about this one!

[121,9_za]

What fun awaits :) Stand by to be amazed......

[Beechdrivr]

Well, i had a taste of the fun to come just the other day arriving into JHB with one of the foreign controllers.

We were on the arrival, with a C208 approx 20nm miles ahead of us. We started to slow down cos we could see that what the controller was going to try and attempt was never gonna work in a million years! Eventually with us fully configured and not able to go any slower (the van had been asked to fly his best speed!) and us catching him very quickly, i thought perhaps the ATC instructor would sort out the mess that had been created by this very competant chap but alas ..... i suppose he wanted to see how this would play out:confused:

Well with us on a 5 mile final we were asked to turn right 90 degrees off the ILS and then try and reintercept again btw in full IMC :} this beggars belief! anyways we decided then that perhaps this wasn't a very good idea and took matters into our own hands! At this point all the instructor could say to us was sorry... lucky for him the capt. was in a good mood.

But if this the quality we are dealing with here, we really do have serious problems awaiting us :eek:

Anyways i do know that the guys are faced with serious challenges and that most of the times they do a fantastic job under serious presure :D

Well merry christmas and have a festive season everyone.

Safe flying :ok:
BD

[skyloone]

Just where do these 'International' controllers hail from...? Is this supposed to make them good. I can think of a few places where I'd rather have not had a controller.

[RadarMaggot]

Beechdrivr said:
Well, i had a taste of the fun to come just the other day arriving into JHB with one of the foreign controllers.

There are no foreign controllers (as advertised to help with SWC 2010) at FAJS, yet... :uhoh:

i thought perhaps the ATC instructor would sort out the mess that had been created by this very competant chap but alas ..... i suppose he wanted to see how this would play out

Not to be nasty, but did you actually put an acft into a spin when you did your PPL or did your instructor recover the acft before it got to that point? Or did you never practice a donkey failure after departure - your split decision of where you should land the acft may be wrong the first time perhaps? :suspect:

Maybe the way the "problem got fixed" was not correct, but the instructors will not interrupt each and every time the situation goes pear-shaped while a student is under training. How else are they supposed to learn to fix problems/situations caused by themselves, pilots, Wx or anything else?

Merry Christmas!

[Voel]

How else are they supposed to learn to fix problems/situations caused by themselves, pilots, Wx or anything else?


You should do that in the simulator. :ok: Flying for 14 hours just to be told on final approach to do go-around because the instructor did not intervene :ugh:. Where is the airmanship :=

[126,7]

Agree with Voël. Send the student back to the Sim to go and practise a little.

Now to the question of the foreign atcos: Where will they be coming from? 16 foreigners and 50 locals. Thats a lota actos, all standing in line with headset in hand hoping for a hot seat somewhere.....

[makeapullup]

Sim needs staff, back to square one!!!

Reminds me of an old computor program I "mastered"

10 Print "hello"
20 Goto 10
Run

[Bloodhound]

:=:=No practicing or honing of ATC skills at major airports please.

[RadarMaggot]

:=:=No practicing or honing of ATC skills at major airports please.


Where else would they get the high capacity instruction - or are they supposed to walk in at FAJS and be up to standard immediately? :confused:
I suppose a pilot does ALL his training in a simulator and just walks into the airlines' aircraft and go...?

If that is the case: :=:=No practicing or honing of PILOT skills at major airports please. :ugh:

Agree with Voël. Send the student back to the Sim to go and practise a little.
I hope you're not referring to the SSS. This "simulator" does not work correctly to "simulate" the Approach environment!! :ouch:

We are getting off topic here as well - "2010: Air controllers imported", instead it is becoming an ATC bashing because 1 pilot wrote about a judgement call by a student. Yes, your captain did take "control" of the situation as he is ultimately responsible for the safety of the aircraft and the pax!! Will a captain immediately take back control if an aircraft encounters windshear close to the ground on a training flight? :hmm: Or any flight for that matter because he has more experience...?

[126,7]

Maggot

You mention that we're getting off track, yet you keeping tracking in the wrong direction. It is by no means an ATC bashing situation.....yet. A pilot commented on the bad, potentially dangerous situation within close proximity of the airport. No bashing.
What happened to safe, expeditious and orderly flow of traffic? Even if the simulator is crap, its the instructor's job to ensure that the ATCO credo is upheld isn't it? There can be no such thing as "let the student learn from his mistakes". At the cost of what?

And nobody ever said that the students should be perfect atcos as soon as they walk out of the college. They should learn at the position yes, and its the instructor's job to ensure that it is done safely, orderly and expeditiously. Is it not?

If that is the case: No practicing or honing of PILOT skills at major airports please.

Ahhh, are we 5 years old?

[RadarMaggot]

126,7

Ahhh, are we 5 years old?
Why start to make it personal? Let me put it in a simple language so you can understand my comment: 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 00100000 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 - now do you get the sarcasm? :ok:

We are only human, so deal with it...

[Beechdrivr]

Hi there guys

Compliments of ther season to all of you.

Like i said before, ATC do a really fantastic job especially going into JNB AT peak times, and i do appreciate the difficulties faced by you guys.

RadarM, the problem with letting a scenario play out is that it can become dangerous and timeous intervention is a better option!... imagine an instructor sitting in an aircraft during a spin and thinking, well, let's see how he's gonna fix the problem and the ground is rushing towards them... i don't think so.

My big gripe was that a 737 and a 208 just needed to be positioned better and that the situational awareness wasn't great from the controller and the instructor should have helped out earlier. I understand we are all human and make mistakes sometimes, but what also concerns me that if this is the quality that you guys are stuck with, we do need to be very concerned! And yes, a mate of mine has told me that ATNS are slowly starting to wake up and smell the coffee but it's not fast enough :eek:

I'm pretty sure most of the foreign accents i've heard on air in the last few months are here to stay, so surely they'll be controlling during the world cup period as well.

And i'll end off by reiterating the fact again, ATC do a great job :D

Safe flying
BD:ok: