How did the first week go?
Or does everyone get warned off Pprune?

Moving advice
 

Hey all. If all goes well, I am scheduled to start the tower class in Melbourne in March 31, 2014. I have been assigned to Sydney tower (for those who do not know me yet -- as I have 10 years experience here in the USA). I am starting to look at how I am going to do the relocation. I doubt I will have a car (that worries me) and I am still trying to figure out how to do Sydney apartment hunting while in Melbourne, etc. etc. etc. Some people have responded and the amount of generosity has been great and I hope it stays that way. My opinion of Aussies is off to a good start :)

If anyone is slotted to go at the same time, or has advice, I am all ears. I am really excited and hope this all goes well. Feel free to hit me up anytime.

Brisbane assessment day 11th November 2013.
 

Hi All.

I was wondering if anyone is headed to Brisbane for the assessment day on the 11th Nov. I am flying down from Florida, USA via Cairns. (40 hours of economy class should should be fun :ugh: ). Also if some can recommend a hotel I would be grateful.

Thank you,

------------

Watermelon.. How was the Brisbane ATC Tower. I am going to one tomorrow in the US. Super excited.

Hi All,

Has anyone here heard anything from the assessment centres held in Melbourne from the 14th to the 16th of this month?

If you would prefer PM that's also fine.

Clear2Land78 - Check your PMs.......

Hi

I am wondering If anyone went thru the interview process of technical trainee with airservices australia

hi is it air traffic controller or technical trainee

Hi all,

Anyone with a spare room or looking to set up a place in Melbourne around end of January/early February please PM me :)

Visiting Sydney next week
 

Hey all. I am still going through the visa process and medical. I am hoping I can get through a hurdle and all will be well. Trying to get some info from CASA but that is like searching a haystack for a needle.

Anyways, I am flying to Sydney for vacation. I arrive Nov 6 in the morning and staying for a week. I will be visiting the tower/TCU on Friday. I will be exploring the city with my friend. If anyone is in the city and open to meeting for a drink just to chat and allow me to pick your brain, hit me up!

Hope to be down there in a few months. Best of luck to all!

Anyone have any comments of what it is like at these locations: Tamworth, Mackay, Alice Springs, Rockhampton, Karratha and Port Hedland? traffic levels, local area etc

Comments from people who have or are actually working there rather than hearsay & rumor!!

Going to apply for the current advertised International controller posts here but would be nice to get some info before making a start

Airservices Australia Psychometric Testing
 

Allegory, check your PMs...

Hi All,
I've been looking around and only just found this forum.
I have got into the assesment center in Melbourne on the 26th November, is anyone else in on the same day?
Can anybody tell me how long, if you get accepted, before you can start the training? And do you need the Class 3 Medical prior to starting training?

Thanks

I just wandered in here as well, off Whirlpool.

Sounds like I'm behind you. I only just got the request for online assessment last week.

Finished it over the weekend. Now its hurry up and wait.

Thanks everyone past and present for all the info. I'm wading through the posts now.

Well I've just read through 136 pages of this fourm...
Not only am I now exhausted, I am well informed, and now have answers to my previous questions and alot of others that I hadn't thought of yet.

My advise to anyone applying for ATC to do the same and read thruogh all the posts to get a good idea of everything.

My Journey so far:

Application Sent 23 Aug
Application Successful 26 Sep
Online Test Complete 04 Oct
Online test Successful 11 Oct
Phone Interview 15 Oct
Phone Interview Successful 31 Oct
Assesment Centre 26 Nov
Assesment Centre Succesful TBA

I have also applied for my ARN through CASA, in the hope that I will pass the Assesment Centre, to hopefully speed up the medical certificate process.

Thanks to everyone who has posted on here, and PM'd me, there is alot of invaluble information on here :ok:

Good luck with the Assessment centre cnracing.

I'm now waiting on results of the online assessment.

The only pointer I could make from the online portion was don't go into it with the attitude that you are trying for 100%. In a lot of ways it seemed more about working out where your breaking point was.

Particularly the pattern matching exercise.

What sort of things did you come up against in the phone interview? Or was it more of a getting to know you?

I know some others talked about a behavioural interview as a face-to-face thing, I assume that the phone interview wasn't that.

Barnacle_Bill,

You're spot on there, the way the online test is designed, it would be extremly hard to score 100%.

Without going into specifics, as it is frowned apon, the phone interview is quite basic, not to much to worry about.
From my experiance, it is basicly to confirm you are a real person, and know what you are applying for, plus some situational questions.

No real way to prepare except to read over their (the ASA) website, and be confident while speaking.

Good luck

Thanks cn.

I definitely don't want anyone getting into trouble.

EDIT:
Well it looks like I'm stuck in my crappy job. I thought I'd done better in the online assessment than I obviously did.

They say to apply again in 12 months, but without any feedback I don't know whether I just missed, or missed by a mile.

Jan Conversion Course
 

Hi,

Are there any persons here that are scheduled for the January conversion course in Melbourne?

Cheers,

N2n. :)

Which course, TWR, TMA, Enroute?

TMA.... Do they run concurrently?

Cheers,

N2n

Clear2Land, please check your PM.
I might start at the same time...
Cheers, Mate

Hi Folks,
If anyone is loking for a room to rent during their training send me a message.
I have a furnished room available in Westmeadows, about 15 minutes from work. The suburb isn't too bad, there's a pub just down the road with decent $13 pub meals and a shopping mall about 5 minutes drive away.
I'm a rated ATC, completed all my ratings about a year and a half ago so I can help with the study (of which there is lots to do...).
The rent is $125 per week which includes fast cable internet, other bills split evenly as they come in. PM me and I'll be able to send some photos and references (also rated ATCs/trainees).

Cheers
Kieran

Has anyone who completed the Assessment centre in Brisbane mid November heard back yet?

Edit: Got the bad news email today. :( Feedback to be given next week.

Good luck
 

Good luck to all of you guys that made it through the test,unfortunately they decline my application:ugh:. Hopefully next time i will join you guys.

Cheers

Mackay/Hamilton Island/Tamworth
 

Hi, I'm an ATCO in the UK and I've been asked if I would consider working at either Mackay (then a move to Hamilton Island) or Tamworth. I just wanted to get some information about the work/lifestyle in these places.

I was told by ASA HR that a lot of the controllers working in Hamilton Island commute from Mackay but it looks like about 3-4 hrs each way including the ferry.

I would be grateful for any info.

Cheers OA32

http://resources3.news.com.au/images...1-infinity.jpg

OR

http://cdn.eventfinder.com.au/upload...6165-7.jpg?v=2

Got some feedback today. Passed everything except the sim. A score of at least 3/5 is required in 5 different areas for both the tower and en route exercises. I got a 2/5 in one area for each.

I was encouraged to reapply seeing it was close but there have to wait 12 months!

Re: Hamilton Island and Mackay
 

Hi OA32,

Hamilton Island controllers commute daily from Airlie Beach, the ferry takes about 50 minutes. So, they live in the Airlie Beach / Proserpine area and drive to the wharf each morning to catch the ferry. Leave relief and checks are done by controllers from Mackay.

Mackay and Tamworth are great towers with great ATC staff, though very different in regards to traffic, demographics,weather etc. Hamilton Island is very quiet and remote, with the commuting impost.

All the best

Knackers,

Thanks for the somewhat brief, yet well summed up reply.

Totalunit,

Thanks, I thought a commute from Mackay would be a bit too much, Tamworth certainly seems better for house prices though, even if the weather isn't as nice. Certainly seems like I would prefer Tamworth purely for the traffic levels although I hadn't realised though that the regional towers are procedural approach which I'm guessing is down to terrain/infrastructure costs.

OA32

OA32,

The weather in Tamworth is fantastic, the Australian Defence force chose to have their basic flying training school here partly because of the reliable weather.

The only problem is there's no beach to go and enjoy it at!

I tried to send you a PM the other day but for some reason it didn't go. I'll tryu again later.

Gday all,

I was wondering if any forum readers know if there will be Brisbane en route courses next year? From what I have gleaned from these pages there are currently two courses running.
Cheers

Coolmgool, there is currently courses 82 & 88 in Brisbane, not definite about next year but would be surprised if there wasn't one mid year sometime

hi all,

Newbie here, skimmed through this incredibly helpful forum as Ive recently applied for ATC training 2013/14. Completed online testing 2-3 weeks ago and carried out phone interview today.... Minor hiccup in that the time I was sent was for 3:00am as opposed to 3:00pm... Didnt question it as I thought 24/7 availability was the nature of the job... so I waited:ugh: Now just waiting to hear back on the results of the interview :) From what I gather the Bris course has already kicked off so will the upcoming course (say Jan-Feb) be held in Mel? Good luck to all those who have also recently applied and waiting to hear back :)

ASA classify their towers as Radar towers, Regional towers and Metro Class D towers.

Radar towers (SY ML BN EN CG PH CS AD CB) are Aerodrome control only and are fitted with Eurocat Barco screens. ADCs can separate aircraft using 3nm radar standards.

Regional towers, regardless of radar coverage, are class D Aerodrome and Procedural Approach towers with a tower situational awareness display

Metro D towers are Class D aerodrome control only towers at the GA fields with high intensity parallel runway circuit operations.

In my opinion, based on the current award, regional towers have the best work life balance. They don't do dogos, their rosters often rotate better, and they get paid the exact same money as everyone else working their ass off in the big smoke.

Broome and Rockhampton (regional), Adelaide and Melbourne (capital cities) have now transitioned to INTAS (Integrated Tower Automation Suite). Perth and Coolangatta next year.

Have been reading over this thread a bit since I applied for ATC trainee position in late October. So far the process has been quite a lot faster than I expected and I have just booked for my telephone interview next Monday - after assuming after the online test (and the hefty glass of wine that followed it) that I was probably not going any further!

I did have a question - maybe someone has an answer for?

I applied for Brisbane enroute as I have kids and it would mean just a single move, rather than a move to Melb for a year and then a move to, well, anywhere. However, I have noticed that Perth seems to come up as a location that is hard to staff. If I knew I could request Perth, I would have applied for tower as we are pretty happy living here. Is it worth broaching that in the interview, or do I just keep my mouth shut and stick with en route?

Does anyone know if the 12 month waiting period to reapply following an unsuccessful attempt is a hard and fast rule?

I was very close and was wondering if there is any chance of an exemption or reduction.

Alnina,

If you get an offer for enroute, you'll be told where the training is and where your final posting will be. If you get a Brisbane course, you'll most likely be posted to Brisbane. If you get a Melbourne course you could go to either, but you may have a choice. That said, it was two years ago since I went through the selection process, it may have changed.

I initially applied for enroute, but when I was offered a place I requested tower and ended up on a tower course. At the time, we were asked our preferences, but the chances of going where we wanted were pretty small. Had I made it through the academy, I would have most likely ended up in Sydney, or Bankstown, but one of the guys on my course did end up in Perth.

Hello guys
 

First time writing here. Thanks so much everybody for the awesome amount of information that can be found here... I have also applied for the experience ATCOs, Regional Towers, still no feedback from ASA. Does anybody know if apart from the towers they'll be looking for other roles to fill in? Thanks!

Airservices Australia Psychometric Testing
 

I think if you have not heard back it might not be the best news because the deadline for online testing is Sunday the 11th... But who knows??? Anything is possible...