Emilie,

Look at p35 for Nokio's post on Stage 2 - that should be a good start. Read through the rest of this thread too - searching for Stage 2 will help find relevant posts - I know there isn't as much on here as there is for Stage 1, but there's still helpful stuff.

I flew to Southampton for my Stage 2 (driving was just too far) and stayed in the Fareham Premier Inn (this is where HR recommends). There was a discussion about getting to the CTC on here a little while back - have a look at my previous posts on the Premier Inn and you should find what other people wrote.

Hope this helps, and good luck :)

Work exp
 

Hey guys
I have my work experince monday 6th april at belfast INT Airport. they only gave me a day with them because they say its mainly observation and theres not much i can do there. However i got 2 days in airport managment which should be interesting.

Any questions anyone wants answering by an ATCO i could ask her and post it on this!!!!!

Anyways cant wait lol very excited:):)

manchester am stage1
 

Don't know what the problem was with the manchester pm stage 1 on monday. The people doing the tests on the AM session were very good, in particular Jeff who was very helpful and friendly.

The tests were not too bad, the motivation paper was not too bad as i had looked thoughoughly through the booklet that we were provided with before the test. The data checking was also fairly easy and straight foreward. Although the ones that i found a bit harder were the command paper was bit harder, this is also much the case for cubes paper.

The ATCO who was planned to come did not turn up after due to work commitments, although luckily one of the candidates doing the tests whose dad had dropped him off was willing to do the ATCO presentation, he was a NATS watch manager at Cardiff and was really pleased to answer any questions and was very funny and informative and we all asked him lots of questions and he was happy to answer.

Thanks very much for the advice paperclip810, ive just booked into the premier inn and i think im going to take my car down, a nice 4 and a half hour trip for me!
I've had a look at the pages u recommended and they were really useful so thankyou! Just want to make sure im as prepared as possible :)

I've just registered to say "Thanks" to everyone on here who has unwittingly helped me through the application process. I received a call yesterday to say that I'd passed my Stage 3, so to say I'm over the moon is a massive understatement.

I was at Manchester for my Stage 3 on 25th, so if anyone else from our little group of 6 was there as well then I hope you get the same good news that I have and I might see you in the college at Bournemouth.

So thanks everyone, it's been a long, hard (But enjoyable!) slog. Just one more trip needed to have the medical, and then I'm ready to go!

Well done chris r!
I would be over the moon if i was you!
x

" if i were you" should i say, that was awful use of english!

Well done Chris R!

Pugwash (Jim) - Just to make you feel a little better, I'm mid 30s and have been running my own business for the last 7 years! I passed my Stage 1 sat on 13th March and am now waiting for a Stage 2 date.

I visited NATS (Swanwick) this morning and sat in on someone's Area shift. I also got an introduction to London Terminal. Both were incredibly interesting and have certainly galvanised my interest in the role.

You got your stage 1 results quickly if you did the tests on 13th March!!

Came through on Friday as they did for quite a few others.

Hey Tobiwan, thanks for reply and reassurance, it does make me feel a bit better knowing that i'm not totally crazy!

Just got back from Stage 1- as has been mentioned thought that a large % of the applicants were totally unfriendly/excessively nervous/ there to pass the time.

However i did meet Kt from on here (hi Kt hope you got home ok- sorry you didn't have time for a bite to eat! hope you didn't think i was getting rid of you!) and a couple of other people that we had a good natter to and a bit of a laugh!

Day was.....interesting.

Initial session was Q&A with a non-validated ATCO- which i thought was a bit of a shame- would have been nice to have someone with some experience! Found myself asking a LOT of questions because no one else seemed interested. Honestly guys when you go for your stage 1 cut the guy some slack and have the balls to stand up and ask some questions.

Then came the multiple guess motivation paper.

if you have learnt the info they send you then you will pass. A knowledge of general aviation will help with a couple of questions, but only 2 i think. Practice SDT equations as a few of those came up- also spend sme timefinding out the distances between cities (not necessarily around the world- UK and Europe would be a good start), its a pity i know how far away syndey is (10,554 miles), but don't actually know how far away cities in Scotland are :(

Anyway then onto the tests themselves- one tip here, i would have been much much happier to do the tests first- they are far harder than the motivational paper (which isn't hard- as long as you know your stuff!) and the Q&A- in that case when they do the initial welcome, make sure that you get into the room early and sat down as they seem to leave those people sitting to start the tests.

As for the tests themselves- found the checking tests silly easy, with enough time on both the numbers and letters to check all the way through at least once.

At this point i was brimming with overconfidence and sheer arrogance

the next 2 tests soon sort me out.

Spatial awareness- as has been said these are the cubes- you have to do 40 different choices in 20 minutes- with 3 different cubes. If you don't know what i'm talking about then you defintely need to practice. I don't consider myself stupid by any means and i was very upset not to finish these- doing just 34 out of 40 :( - these are hard, and like all the test get harder as you go along! the last ones are really very very difficult- i strongly suggest you start to practice early.

The diagramming isn't impossible, but it is slow and helps if you are on the ball (i'd have been much quick if i could have remembered what all the symbols meant!)

Out of these i finished just 43 out of 50 (again you haev 20 minutes)

i have no idea what the pass mark is, and i "might" just scrape it (fingers crossed) but it is by no means easy.

Stage 1 today
 

Hiya,

Jim,
Yes most of them were quite unsociable, but we had a laugh!!!

I got home fine, fell aslepp on the train, so it was a good job i didnt drive up!!! :)
I didnt think you were trying to get rid of me, i was hungry when I got home tho!!

I only just got on the train, and finding a seat, well three coaches later, I finally found one!!

I don't think I did as well as Jim, but the aptitude tests were good, although I didnt finish them! I think I got to about 35/40 on those three, but the motivation test didnt go too well, so I will be surprised if I pass to Stage two but we will have to wait and see!!! fingers crossed eh!?

Nice to meet you today Jim, thanks for the company back to Waterloo and showing me an easier way back! :) very grateful!

Now the waiting game, whoop fun!!
Ktxx

Well pugwash if you dont think you got through then i doubt i had! like i mentioned earlier in the thread i only managed to complete about 26/40 for cubes and about 32/50 for diagramming and i thought i was doing pretty good. How have other people done on the tests in the past if they cal still recall ow many the managed to complete?

I am prepared for the worst now :(

but good luck to all other candidates :)

Pugwash:

By the sounds of things and from my memory of it you completed about the same percentage of the Stage 1 papers as I did and I got through fine, so don't worry overly. I don't think they expect you to answer all the questions, and if you got everything right that you answered then you should be OK.

Jim - Sounds like you did very well to me. I had a similar situation in the Q&A - I asked 5/6 questions and one other person asked one!

As for the tests - I got nowhere near as far through the cubes. I had been warned by an ATCO beforehand that I wouldn't complete it. He told me just to make sure I got the answers right as they can work on speed but not so much on ability.

Now for the wait...

I really don't think i did well on these tests, but i REALLY want to progress to stage 2, so i guess i have a couple of weeks of nervousness waiting for the results!

anyone know what the pass mark is?

From what I've read in this thread (And during the course of all the stages of my interviews I've read all 143 pages of it!), nobody knows the pass mark.

Or at the very least, nobody's telling what it is.

Well, that's stage 3 over for me...

The wait begins again, but I think I already know the answer...

CJayne - Why so negative? (I'm assuming you're thinking negative, you might be massively confident!)

I came out of Stage 3 with some serious reservations about how well I'd done. Whilst I knew I'd done a lot well and felt the group excercise went well for me, I know got a fair bit wrong on the technical side of the interview. Some of it I corrected myself about at the time in the interview and some of it I didn't realise until I was halfway back up the motorway like when I realised I'd misidentified a plane. One question they asked me I couldn't answer at all, and just had to admit as much.

I also thought that some of the examples I used in the HR part of the interview could have been a lot stronger or showed me in a negative light. But I still got the call to say I'm through, so don't despair just yet.

I think after events like this we're our own harshest critics. Probably harsher than the people who are actually marking us!

CJayne,

It sounds odd and I can't explain it, but it seems those who come out of Stage 3 very confident don't get through, and it's those who walk out feeling worse than they went in that do seem to pass. Fingers crossed - hopefully you should know soon...

Stage 3
 

Had my stage 3 on Monday. I felt it went not too bad but I honestly don't know if they saw what they were looking for. I keep going over things in my head like the technical questions. I messed one or two of them up and had to be helped with it by the ATCO. It's annoying because I knew what I was doing but my mind just went blank a couple of times. It's a relief to have it done now and I know there is no more I can do. Just the waiting now. I have no idea how long it will be.

Gordon

by the sounds of it pugwash, you did ok and will get through but, i think maybe for the interviews... being cocky doesnt help. And you just seem to come off that way...I may be wrong....

Interviews are all about cockiness, inpsiring confidence in the interviewer with the faith you have in yourself. There is of course a fine balance between confident and being an arrogant ****, however I don't think he fell into this category.

Well, it's a waiting game now isn't it! I felt that some of the things I did went so well, but combined with the other stuff it was pretty terrible! Only time will tell...

Thanks for your messages of support though!

Tomorrow should be interesting, managed to get myself a visit to the tower at kemble airfield and may be able to get a visit for brize norton although I'm not too sure on that one.

Either way I'm excited!

mtanz
Having a first post asking who he should "look down upon" based on what position he gets is arrogant... but ok

please read my first post again on that thread- that wasn't close to what i was asking!

In some areas of life i am a very confident- Being an ATCO isn't one of them! You can't be cocky about something you know NOTHING about.

Gogz87- did they say how long it would be until they told you of your success?

Stage 3 results
 

You normally find out the results of Stage 3 within a week. I had mine on a Monday in Manchester, someone took the paperwork down to HR at CTC on Tuesday morning and got a phonecall on Wednesday afternoon to be told I'd been successful.

Not everyone has heard so quickly, but they do seem to try and let people know asap.

Results
 

They didn't mention how long it would be; just said they would try to be as quick as possible. Longest I've heard of people waiting is a week. I'm frantically checking my emails every hour or so at the moment. Preparing myself for the rejection email. I take it if they are phoning or emailing you the results it will be during office hours (9-5)?

Gordon

Gogz87,

Yes, e-mails and phone calls seem to be during office hours. I got an e-mail and a phone call within 10 minutes of each other the day after my stage 3 (and just after 5pm for more details).

But, as paperclip said, the waiting time varies quite a bit. In our case, there was no particular reason for our short waiting time, we were just lucky to find out the day after (4 out of 5 successful).

Good luck! :ok:

S1
 

I took my S1 in London last Monday 30th, the AM slot. Went pretty well, but then again said the same thing this time last year!... We had AJ7 as the ATC giving the talk and motivation speech (as I call it) giving us a hint of what its like to become a future TATC which definitely worked well! Amazingly questions were asked!

Good luck to any of you who also took the S1 recently

Had my S1 on friday AM at Glasgow. There was no motivation speech or questions, they seemed like they could not be bothered. Anyone else experienced this? I would like to be able to of asked just a few questions, but no opportunity atall seems a little lame on NATS's part, due to being told I would get the chance.

Delvey,

I was at Glasgow for my Stage 1 in October/November - we did have someone good speak to us but I know it's not the case for everyone. If you've got questions to ask, why not ask them here? There's quite a few ATCOs and current trainees who read this thread and they usually seem more than happy to help!

In my group, following the tests, the recruitment lady apologised for the ATCO's absence - due to staff shortages apparently. She then offered to answer any questions we had, to which quite a few candidates took the opportunity to do so.

Maybe you should have actually been proactive and asked the recruitment personnel in your group if you could ask a few questions if you were really that disappointed!

Glasgow Friday
 

Hiya yooz

I was at Glesgae on Friday PM and I approached the guy hosting the tests.

He didn't seem interested......... just said he wasn't involved with ATC and that was it.

When I enquired if the sessions ran every day that week all I got was "it ran for two days" then he tootled off.

Can't wait to meet a proper controller.:ok:

The guy running the tests at my stage 1 said he was a psychologist, presumably employed by SHL, so the guy at yours probably wouldn't have known the answer to your question anyway. I think that's why they get the ATCO to come in to talk to everyone.

The lady running the tests at my stage 1 last week was wearing a NATS lanyard, and also did a Q&A session with my group due to the ATCOs absence so I assume she must have been from HR.

T250

Wouldn't assume on the basis of a NATS lanyard... I know the lady who was from Capita on Monday at Tower Bridge had a NATS lanyard, not sure where she obtained it from though...

Anyway, it is unfortunate that some candidates go to Stage 1 days and there isnt an ATCO present, if you have been to one and not the chance to ask some questions, i'll happily attempt to answer them for you. If you have yet to go to a Stage 1, take the opportunity to ask questions. Its a lot easier for us to answer the questions posed rather than ramble on for ages and possibly go off topic... which I know I did a few times on Monday

Good luck guys and girls

Adrian

p.s. thanks nick for that, try my best :ok:

Question For AJ7 or any other ATCO
 

I was wanting to ask...

I'm trying to understand the role of an ATCO more.
When you are vectoring aircraft to say a VOR or a NDB, do you factor in the wind speed/direction to follow a 'course' or is the pilot responsible for that?

Cheers Steamy(b)

Steamyb

As an aerodrome controller I do little or no vectoring; so therefore my answer may be slightly flawed - one of my esteemed area/approach colleagues may have a better answer

However, as I understand it, if an a/c is routeing for an NDB/VOR the a/c will compute the wind and adjust for it to route towards said beacon. If the controller is using headings instead, either to position for approach, or for separation purposes, then the wind of the day will need to be factored in by the controller

e.g.

controller is looking for a westerly heading, with a strong northerly wind... they will likely go for 285/290 degrees to turn into the wind slightly, thus leaving a generally westerly route in the end.

More difficult than ''taxi alpha, hold LOKKI'' anyway.

Adrian