Air Traffic Controllers - a loss of skills?
 

Listening once again to the sound file PH-UKU posted, it got me thinking about training of Air Traffic Controllers today. Do experienced controllers out there involved in training think there has been a loss or omission in the teaching of some essential skills for Mr or Ms Ab-initio off the street with no flying/aviation background.

I believe NATS have well and truly started their "speciality specific" streaming into either Airports/Approach or Area. Here in Canada, IFR training is now being conducted at the regional Centres, and I haven't seen the curriculum, but wonder will there be components of the training that were taught not that long ago that are now being removed from programmes to get the trainees through faster.

Just a couple of examples I could think of include the flying training NATS provided (I don't know if it is still being done). Other things like navigation (some guy in his /S Cherokee who's a little geographically misplaced), weather (the effects of icing on aircraft performance etc), familiarisation flights getting controllers on the flight decks to see things like workloads, the involvement of pilots/airlines in emergency training of controllers.......are these things still being included in cirriculums, or falling by the wayside in the shadow of the almighty dollar/pound/euro/shekle?

Personally I think that there has been a general de-skilling evident in some of the trainees that i saw at West Drayton. i could never put my finger on it, but there was a lack of depth of knowledge, maybe even depth of interest in the job and the environment - but i saw that among the ATSA grade as well. Many of the students coming through, didn't know the basics - aircraft types etc (even down to numbers of engines) and worse, they didn't seem to care either...

The cutbacks in college training can only make the situation worse, but i think that the problems start all the way back at recruitment, with too many people applying for the salary, arther than the job. i'm not advocating taking on plane spotters and ATC junkies, but I have sat next to people before interview who were doing the usual rounds, with NATS one day and a merchant bank the next. ATC isn't that sort of job...

Just my opinion of course...

Got to agree here. I have only been in Nats for 7 years but there has been a decline in the "knowledge" of aviation in more recent time. Some the fault of the ab-initios and some the fault of the teaching.

Shame but I doubt there is much we can really do because for a lot of them if "it" aint there it never will be....

Interesting you mention "that fault of the ab-initios" GT. A lack of interest in their part? A lack of passion for the job?

A bit of both mate. Some are very clued up others just don't care it would seem. They can get by with a minimum level ok knowledge in some walks of life and think the same will apply in ATC.

At Heathrow, I have noticed that there is a growing tendency amongst some of the more junior ATCOs (with exceptions, Fly Bhoy! :ok: ) that once valid, that's it. Yes, of course, every one of them will gain in Heathrow experience, but some seem less inclined to expand on their ATC and aviation knowledge outside of their immediate concern.

A loss of skills is perhaps not the correct term, but loss of knowledge; perhaps.

Interesting subject. :E

It does really matter where you are, as an atco, if you don't keep up to speed with developments within atc and aviation in general, one day the system will bite you back.

I know that there are a small number of atc staff whose only interest is the pay packet and leave roster, but thankfully, for the most part, they're the ones who don't remain within industry for long.

The recording posted by PH-UKU was certainly interesting although I would say the controller’s main contribution was to remain calm and offer small pieces of advice in a way that made the pilot feel that that he was being helped and that disaster was not certain. And I have been in a light aircraft, left hand seat, in IMC, in icing conditions and in a spin. Something my instructor called recovery from unusual attitudes. We didn’t die.

All industries go through cycles where skills are first developed and then eclipsed as new technologies are brought into play. Most pilots are considerably less experienced than were their predecessors who flew in the 1950s and 1960s. This is called progress and the economics of market forces dictate where we go. However useful Flight Engineers might be in some special circumstances they have now disappeared. The overall accident statistics improve steadily but the types of incidents we have change over time. Crews now have problems because they don’t understand the automation but the airframes, avionics and engines are all now tremendously reliable.

I’ve just come back from the Air Traffic Control Association Conference in the USA. They accepted a paper I submitted on Automation in ATC which I’ve brought to your attention in a separate thread. With the problems of capacity and costs as large as they are nobody was talking about training the controllers in traditional skills.

So, the skills that are seen as traditional will slowly disappear and newer skills in operating automated systems will take their place. Today there is absolutely no need to recruit a person who could work a sector from the 1960s. Complete familiarity with Information Technology is what is required and when universal Mode S arrives that may even apply to the person in the VCR because capacity is needed even when the visibility is 50 meters. And in that case is it a VCR?

I still believe the proposals on my website (polemic said one of you) will be the future.

Thanks for the input so far guys, and I hope to get more.

I guess another reason I started thinking about this was the implication of something that I overheard a newly checked out controller say recently. We had fairly bad weather about, and some of the drivers were reporting moderate icing. I overheard someone take an icing report from a turbo-prop........and then ask the very same aircraft to expedite a climb. Had me scratching my head a bit.

I'll throw this out to some of the drivers out there as well. Has there been a reduction/culling of getting into the centres/towers to see what goes on there as well?

I believe there was an airprox a number of years ago where the selection of airframe and/or engine antice reduced the rate of decent without the controller noticing. One of the observations made in the report was the "lack of understanding" by ATC staff of aeroplane type issues and a recommendation of more famil flights for ATC staff. NATS response was to shut down the fam flight office at Bournemouth to save money.

It is the 80% of 80% rule. I took in 80% of what I was taught, got rated and got some extra experience but could only teach 80% of all of that to my first trainee, he in turn got rated, got some experience, had a trainee and so on. Kind of like World's best practice really.

A fairly high percentage of our abinitios have no, or very little background aviation knowledge. I find that odd, but then again I'm of an ancient and endangered generation! :D

(When I started in ATC most of the ATCOs at my unit were ex RAF pilots or had some form of aviation background).

I understand what's been said regarding automation and moving on etc and I accept the fact we will lose some bare skills...But, the bottom line is that unfortunately, we are getting people in the seats whose main motivation for becoming an ATC'r was the salary. Not even a thread of interest in the job at hand. I can give many examples of the lack of knowledge demonstrated recently.... particularly types of a/c etc... very sad, but ok.... not much we can do at this end heh? :{ I wonder if pilots can detect this all on the freq??

I'm glad you bring up the automation issue NewModel, as that is one of the very areas that de-skilling will one day prove fatal..........what happens if the automated system is taken away?

I remember the analogy of future cockpits having a pilot and a dog in there. The dog to bite the pilot if he touches anything and the pilot there to feed the dog.

One of the major times when all the experience and knowledge a controller may need to draw on is when you hear those very words "Mayday, Mayday". You can automate everything up the yin-yang, yet every problem is unique.......and probably wouldn't help our friend in N9815L.

I always ask the same questions of pre Interview visit people.
I always ask them if they were in the Air Training Corp, most reply with a shrug of their shoulders and say what's that ?
I ask them what their interest in aviation is, again I often get a shrug of the shoulders from them.

We are still getting quality students through the system, they of course are the ones who go on to validate, they are keen and eager to learn. I feel so sorry for them coming out to units now with the knowledge of a 6 weeker and be expected to to be part of the full team. It is a much harder slog for them.

Knowledge is power, as TRM seems to be saying to us, so why put into units students who are not getting the same time to learn in the initial phases. It is unfair on them and unfair on the units.

DC10RealMan,

Your example is actually a good argument for automation. Either the aircraft would inform the ground system (by Mode S or whatever) of its performance characteristics or the ground system would observe the actual performance and react accordingly. Even in the latter case the surveillance system would always get to see more data than the controller and could intervene immediately. Even with the most experienced controller his/her attention may be elsewhere as the situation develops.

Jerricho,

It is interesting to ask about what happens when the automated system goes away. The Airbus fly-by-wire system finally falls back to differential throttle for yaw and horizontal stabiliser trim for pitch. An aircraft has been landed in the simulator using only these controls. I have explored in some detail how the same fail-soft philosophy could be applied to ATC.

Some people think that separation could be delegated wholly to the aircraft by combining ACAS and Free Flight. I don’t think it could be, but if ACAS is being considered for separation it could certainly be used in a fall-back situation.

The reason I have joined your thread is because I believe automation will come to ATC sooner than many people think and that there is an important choice to be made between a ground-based system with controllers and an air-based system operated by the aircrew. I would like to see current controllers participating much more in the discussion and not just keeping their heads down.

The most animated session at the ATCA conference was the one on the US FAA Trust Fund. There just isn’t the money for SESAME or NGATS because even if it works in Europe and the USA who is going to pay for the infrastructure in Russia, Africa, China or South America? We need to focus on identifying a workable Concept of Operations and not just on making a shopping list of technologies.

Whether you call it de-skilling, loss of knowledge or dumbing-down it’s a real phenomenon in every business. You guys (and gals) have an enormous history to be proud of. As an engineer I’d just like to help you prevent the politicians and managers from making a complete bedtime drink out of it all.

And that is my very concern, and I find it interesting you use the word business. Unfortunately that is a word I hate to see applied ot what we do.

IMHO there is knowledge and skill that is vital to ATC that, for what ever reason be it budgeting, change of curriculum, a decrease in the passion for the job..........all have the potential to degrade the service we provide, especially in unusual circumstances. And once again, it is the uniqueness of these events that a controller becomes very reliant on both experience AND training.

I think there are two separate threads going on here.

There is an argument on automation and the resultant loss of ATCO skills (eg. the introduction, or not, of Final Approach Spacing Tool at TC), and there is the fact that more and more ATC entrants are not 'aviation aware'. The impact of that loss of knowledge of even the most insignificant fact regarding the operation of aircraft and interfacing with ATC has yet to be seen.

Or has it? For ten points can anyone tell me the reason why ECT was introduced for UK ATCOs?

I have just watched the Level Bust DVD that came with CHIRP. I noted with interest that ATCOs are not expected to crosscheck the cleared level with the MCP selected level. Why not?

Hey Gonze, what you reckon the chances are of me getting a copy of that DVD please :ok:

As to the two "topics" being discussed, I did intend for a discussion regarding the second of the points Gonzo has so eloquently raised. NewModel, the pros and cons of automation have been discussed on another thread. The points I have been trying to get input go far beyond automation and the systems ATC use.

Jer, let me have your snail mail, and I'll get it to you.