Toomek

M3 southbound is fine, the traffic is all going the other way. The M27 Eastbound up until 07:30 is usually no problem. It starts to build from then and some mornings can be stop start from Junction 5 to Junction 9 by 08:00. Low sun in the Spring slows it down.

Eagle112

It depends when you are travelling and where you are staying. There is a direct National Express coach from Heathrow to Fareham and door to door that is the quickest and cheapest. Unfortunately the departures are infrequent so you may have to wait and at peak times they can be badly affected by traffic.

The problem with the train is that Heathrow has no direct rail connection to the trains to the South. Off peak the Rail Air coach to Woking then train works well but the coach goes on the M25 so can get held up.

@eglnyt - thanks for the information :)

will try to get there early anyway, rather wait for a while and grab some nice breakfast than to be late :ok:

south M25 appalling ! M3 and M27 on the other hand no issues, just got to Whiteley so still got over an hour to spare :) M27 westbound though, my god, what a queue !

###########

just got back, passed FEAST alright but DART was a different story. It was ok and quite fun up to the fifth exercise where the amount of traffic was overwhelming :eek: had no collisions though I did have three conflicts where I didn't notice the traffic coming up but reacted quick enough. let's hope for the best :)

Stage 1
 

Is fareham the only place I can do my stage 1? It really is very far from where I am.

at the moment unfortunately it is as they ment to be freezing the applications any time soon and they don't travel round the country anymore

anyway, just got me email I'm through to the stage three! has anyone got any advise as how to arrange a visit to one of the establishment ? I live in Essex - any numbers to near by towers would be highly appreciated :ok:

Sat stage 2 yesterday, was fun but difficult! Was so sure that was me done but received the email today inviting me to stage 3!

Good luck to those still waiting!

toomek - look up the aerodrome index in the AIP to find phone numbers for...you guessed it....aerodromes!!

NATS | AIS - Home


for Swanwick visits try [email protected] or [email protected]. He can take a while to respond, give him time, he's a busy man!

ATC stage 1
 

Hi there just got an e-mail in the morning that my stage 1 assessment due on the 11th of April has been moved to online and so no need for me to travel all the way to CTC.Just wanna know if there are other people that got assessment on that date and if they did receive same e-mail.thanks guys and wish to hear from anyone who's got an idea of what am talking about.

Hi guys just got an e-mail from the HR in the morning which says my assessment for my stage 1 on the 11th of April will now be online based and no need for me to travel all the way to the CTC. Please I wanna know if there are other applicants booked for that same day who received same e-mail as me that stage 1 assessment will now be online based from the 1st of April. Replies from those who got an idea of what I am talking about will be highly appreciated.

I'm a bit concerned about the whole visitation to ATC centres prior to stage 3. I passed stage 2 on Wed and thought i'd have some time till stage 3 to organise this but it popped up in the email today that the next stage 3 is available next friday. Seems like a bit of a rush and i'm not sure i will be able to organise anything. I've emailed Swanwick and spoken to Bristol ATC but they say i have to send an email to the manager who won't see it till Monday so i'm not optimistic.

Would it be a good idea to maybe not go to this stage 3 to make sure i get it sorted? It's hard to gauge how important it is, seems everyone says u really should do it but i also feeling delaying the process is not a good idea either.

I'd start getting everything in motion to try and arrange a visit to a unit, and then contact HR to find out if/when the next Stage 3's are after this one. I went to my Stage 3 having not managed a visit to Swanwick; I explained the efforts I'd made, and the short time frame between Stage 2/3. I think NATS understand how compressed the time scale is at the time for applications.

I've sent out a few emails now so maybe i'll get lucky with a visit before next Friday otherwise i'll follow your advice and get in contact with HR.

Did you succeed in spite of not having the visit?

I've been at the college now since December :ok:

Through to Stage 3
 

Did my Stage 2 FEAST and DART Friday and have just been invited to Stage 3 this morning. 30 people at the start of the day, 20 left before the DART. Really felt I had failed the DART, but maybe I was being too hard on myself. I had 2 conflicts, 2 warnings and a couple radial errors. The warnings I corrected, one conflict I corrected the other kind of threw me. Considering you should go in with no preparation, a couple mistakes in 2 hours is not all bad.

I made no preparations for FEAST and DART, as recommended by others, as I wanted to make sure I was a natural fit rather than wasting my own time as well as NATS if I made it through and didn't get along with the training.

I went in to the NATS application with the "I'm either good enough or not, it doesn't matter how it goes" mindset, now it's becoming harder to keep that mindset.

Also, my email states "The day's programme will consist of an interview, and scenario based questions." Is there no group assessment? As the times provided state 8:15 until 3:30 that would be one epic interview without one. Stage 3 is this Friday, I don't think I can get a visit to an aerodrome in before then.

hi everyone i had my stage 1 selection last wednesday down in southampton, was just wondering if anyone else was there and if so have they heard back at all? i know they said allow 14 days however i know someone who has already been told and i am yet to hear either way...roughly how long did people wait? was it the full 2 weeks or are they quite good at getting back to everyone in a reasonable time? also how long do you have to prepare for stage 2 as im worried if i get to stage 2 it may come around quite suddenly from what i have been reading?. any tips and advice anyone has is welcome and good luck to all those to take selection tests or like myself awaiting results :) xxx

As far as nothing had changed they are interviewing couple of people at the time therefore there's quite a bit of waiting involved as there's normally about 6 people all together doing Stage 3.

Charley, it's 15 working days, so that's 3 weeks, not 2.

Hi Charley,

I was also in Southampton last Wednesday and haven't heard anything as yet despite frantic checking of my email inbox ! Apparently constant checking doesn't make it appear quicker !

Do you know of many other who have already heard ?

Here's hoping and good luck to anyone else on the journey

Well, I just decided to apply.
I hope they like what I wrote. Anyone other older types here? I'm 26. This is exciting.

that's odd, as your profile says you're 28. Which, incidentally, so am I.

Please anyone one booked for stage 1 on the 11th of April? Cheers.

Anyone who did the 1st stage on 19th March knows anything yet?
 

Hi guys,

I am here to catch up with anyone who was at Swanwick on 19th March, 13.30 group. Any of you got any news?

so then, all change....

I wonder what the new recruitment process will be like?

Can't help but wonder whether cheating will be rife with Stage 1 tests being online. My ATC test took me 6 minutes out of the 18 so if I'd had to cross check every answer with the info booklet, there still would have been plenty of time left.

Still - can't really cheat on the cubes and diagramming, and to be honest, anyone with half a brain can pass the ATC test anyway

lol tell me about it im checking literally every hour and yes i know its 15 days but that is only one more day than 2 weeks and its within 15 working days 3 weeks would be 21 working days there for if you wish to be that pedantic its still realistically closer to 2 weeks ;)....
so markybates what time were you there on the wednesday you may have been in my sitting, and i only know one person as I say that was in an earlier group but still on the same day so who knows ill just keep doing my hourly check lol and let me know when you find out good luck to you and anyone else awaiting results/taking tests xx

I'm finding it hard to make sense of your post... Are you saying 3 weeks is 21 working days???

@charleymchaella

one week has 5 working day in (Monday - Friday) - therefore 15 working days will be three weeks, not two plus one day. two weeks it's 10 working days.

give them time as there's nothing else you can do now apart from waiting, the results will come, sooner, or later...

he obviously meant: 15 working days is 3 weeks.

it's quite clear that's not what she meant....


Best of luck to all of you with the application process...

the reason i said it was in my email it says you will be told in 15 days its only since going on here and NATs webste to double check that i have since seen its 15 working days therefore were both right we were just thinking and meaning it in different terms :) x

Hi,
I've got a question I couldn't find answered in the FAQ section on NATS. Do they pay your travel costs or are there any other things like costs for the selection tests you have to pay?

Hi all

Has anyone who did Stage 2 last week (18th - 21st March) got the good news that they passed yet?

ps. This thread has proved extremely useful during the application process. A big thank you to everyone for being so helpful and if anyone is thinking of applying, make sure you read the last 30-50 pages of this thread.

You have to pay for your travel expenses for the first part of the selection process.

They used to cover costs over £100 (i.e you pay the first £100) for Stage 3 interviews but I dont know if this is still the case

Throughout the whole process, the only thing NATS pay for is the basic medical. All travel costs, and any additional medical tests, are paid for by the applicant.

Not quite true. They pay expenses for Stage 3 for costs over £50 :ok:

They used to. Not any more. That was true as of Dec 2012 when I was invited to stage 3

I really can't wait much longer for my stage 3 results. Myself and one other guy were the only ones to pass the interview. However, I am certain I messed up on the last scenario on the last test of the very last stage of the whole process. Not a good time to be me!

@aawallace

I passed the interview yesterday and waiting for the outcome of scenarios too!

Good luck to you both!

Got my stage 3 booked in for 10th April!

@HiddenHammer

I had my stage 2 tests on the 20th and have heard that I passed.

@Sametoyou

I have also booked in for the 10th April. Nice to see I am not the only one traveling down from Scotland. :ok:

Good luck guys

Toomek let me know when you find out and I will do the same!