My "Parlez vous en Anglais?" was intended to take the piss out of my own poor technical knowledge. You'll see that I did go away and find out what a Nacelle was. Perhaps my awful sense of humour doesn't go down well in text, my apologies.

I now see the irony in me using French to ask a question, when the word confusing me was a French word:ouch:

Your help is greatly appreciated with or without the annotations-for-dummies. If you spoon feed me, that's great. If you provide minimal info, I'll hunt for the rest.

At my selection tests (sometime in 2001 I think) I got shown some pictures of aircraft, something like a Cherokee, an Embraer 145, an A320 and a B747, and asked which I'd most like to cross the Atlantic in, and why! So it's not just the actual recognition that counts, it's the understanding of the market for each aircraft and it's capabilities in regard of range, fuel, number of passengers etc (not exact of course, just an appreciation). Also I doubt you'd fail for not being able to name the series if your other answers were good enough. I even thought the Embraer was a CRJ (not dissimilar though!) and still passed :ok:

way to go roundthebend...

you got some great help there...

off with you and let us know how you get on...

good luck...:ok:

roundthebend

The best way to tell the a319/20/21 apart is look at the overwing exits.

a319 - 1 overwing exit
a320 - 2 overwing exits right next to each other
a321 - 2 overwing exits but 1 at leading edge and 1 behind the wing.

Hope that helps.

FB:ok:

roundthebend,

As stated above, you've had some great advice (wish I'd found the Eurocontrol elearning during my selection!).

One thing I will add is that the level of technical detail in this thread wasn't needed in the intial selection. Obviously it's advantageous to know more than is needed, but don't get too caught up on one thing. Saying that, I've been told by a couple of people that learning the stats well, (as i did) will only help you during your interview as obvious depth of knowledge shows motivation etc. Also been told that it is very useful at the college to know A/C performance, range etc.

Good luck and feel free to PM me if you have any specific questions about the selection process :ok: :ok:

Just to be picky :p Easyjet have two overwing exits on their A319s due to the number of seats. 321s have 4 full size doors rather than the smaller overwing exits on the 19 & 20. :8

Unless it's an EasyJet example and then, it too, has 2 overwing exits - for regulatory reasons as they carry > 150 passengers.

Please tell me I'm posting this in the spotter's forum... :}

m.

You learn something new everyday!!;) :D

Never picked you for a spotter though GT3!!!:} I thought that was P7's job!!!:) :O

Well I did start this in the Spotters' forum, but someone sneakily moved it here. I deliberately didn't put it here because of recent complaints about NATS trainee ATCO applicants asking questions that didn't concern those already on the radar.

That said, I'm overwhelmed with the advice from all corners.

On a more general level of discussion. Are there many ATCO applicants who are actually NOT enthusiasts to some degree, when they apply for the job ? I get the feeling many are.

Nothing wrong with that, it's a good way to get into a key national industry. Compared to say going into manufacturing a generation ago, aviation just grows and grows.

Certainly are, had one come right overhead me in Central London last Sunday, Biman inbound to Heathrow from Dhaka.

I can only speak from a personal perspective. I wouldn't say I was an enthusiast, because that implies that I have for some time been reading magazines regularly, or going spotting, or actively getting involved in aviation somehow.

However, I'm not a complete novice because as far back as 13 years I was interested in being a pilot. My family are surprised how much trivia I know about a/c, but that's because Joe Public's knowledge seems to stretch as far as "that's a plane. that's a helicopter."

I'm already able to spot the more obvious types (B744, A380, BAe146) and my kids are getting quite into it too. They always ask me questions so if I don't know the answer, I tend to look it up on !!!!!!!!!!!!!! and then get engrossed in various other types.

But the 747-400F freighter is short upper deck, isn't it?

Sure there are still DC-10's flying around. They are freighters now. FEDEX has a bunch of them. Some have been updated with MD11 type cockpits and are called MD-10s, with only 2 crew. The only way to tell is on the nose they have written MD-10.
Wally

DC10/MD11 - are there any DC10's still flying? MD11's have winglets.

my advice - print off some from www.!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and study them.

cheerrs[/quote]

Whats changed?

Get yourself a gig as ATC at Oshkosh. ID consists of "Yellow biplane start base leg now. Red low-wing can you pick it up a bit? White high-wing land long please."

yeah but has no windows.

we don't see a lot of fedex freighters down this way :)

Bloody hell, it's ATCO selection, not a spotter's course! :ugh:
They don't want to know if you can name the manufacturer of the catering trolley on a 747-400. They want to know that you recognise it is a 747, how far it goes [inter-continental would probably suffice], how many poor wee buggers are expected to fit into it [roughly], who operates it [not all of 'em], where it could be expected to be seen in UK [I would venture that Inverness doesn't see too many] etc etc.
ATC is a holistic thing. If you just learn the numbers, you ain't actually learning. You need to read between the lines so that you understand:cool:

DWB - thanks for the reminder......it's just that NATS have sent a very specific list of a/c and I wanted to go a little further than knowing the data.

Does strike me that there is a lot of recognition needed along the way, on both sides of the mike. "Park next to the Maule" is a bit of an embarrassment if you have to reply "what's a Maule ?" (and before you ask, yes .........:confused: ).

Am always struck by some ATC who, for example, differentiate between a 146 and an Avro, or between "follow the Air France 146" and "follow the Air France LIVERY 146".

Taking this a bit further then......I appreciate the comments made by DanceswithBoffins that an ATCO needs to "understand" various things about the a/c.

So, why is it useful to know how many seats an a/c generally has, or it's speed, cruising alt, typical routes and operating airlines?

I can see why these things are useful, but I can't really get why they are vital or important.

Unless, of course, this stage of selection is just to see how well we can study and memorise data.