Controllers aeronautical knowledge.
 

Hi all,
I've been involved in training ATC's for the ICAO standard English Proficiency Testing in an Asian country.

Their standard phraseology is excellent therefore I have been focusing on the use of Simple Plain English in non standard situations such as emergencies.

Much to my amazement my students basic aeronautical knowledge is very poor. As an example, I have been analysing actual emergencies and in doing so have found they had no idea about hot brakes with an engine out landing. (Thomson bird strike). Also they did not know what thrust was. (Hudson, lost thrust both engines.

Also one aerodrome controller told me she had an aircraft go around due to unstable approach. She asked me what unstable approach meant ?

My question is, during training do ATC's in your country do a basic aeronautical knowledge course.

Cheers

Way back when Pontius was a pilot, some sort of aeronautical background/ interest was almost a pre-requisite, e.g. member of a cadet force, maybe a PPL, etc. Sadly, now, it seems to play no part in controller recruitment. But people are now going to say I'm a silly old fuddy-duddy and it doesn't really matter..

HD

you are a silly old fuddy duddy - but it does matter. Unfortunately because NATS have cut the college course to the bear minimum, the level of knowledge of people hitting live training is not as high as it used to be - and some would say it is not as high as it needs to be.

You now end up having to teach trainees things on live radar/tower that they should have been told about in basic training.

I'm a not-so-old fuddy duddy

Yo! Fuddy duddies. I too got a little weary at times imparting basic aviation knowledge when what I really wanted to do was make an ATC related point.

Ozthai,

As an Australian male (Personal Profile) you could well come in for flack from PPRuNers when you say you are teaching standard English. :E

Seriously though, it is not clear at what stage in their ATC training you are trying to introduce emergency phraseology. If this comes before proper ATC lessons start, then it is understandable if the students have only basic knowledge. However, if your lessons come at a more advanced stage of the course I would have thought training in emergencies would have already covered alot of the phrases you refer to. Does your training set-up include something like our mandatory TRUCE (Training in unusual circumstances and emergencies)?

I did a large number of the Language tests in South Africa specifically for the ATCs here and was supprised to find out a very similar situation with our ATSA and Cadet scheme students.

I even came across a number of candidates who were terrified of flying (yet chose to take a job in aviation.) The one test had to be aborted due to the candidate still being in a state of shock after being flown from her unit to the testing station for th test. The flight was a normal flight yet sh was errified of flying that she could not test afterwards.

The fun part was picking out the mispronounciations especially on Fuel and we got many different variations of the word.

The controllers were generally up to date on the knowledge requirement and this was clearly adressed in the OJTI at stations however overall basic knowledge was definitly lacking from ab initio students and young ATSAs and I felt that this was not sufficiently dealt with at the training acadamy stage. Most students were also too afraid to ask what certain terms meant and would rather try make a guess than find out.

Interesting I found that even with some controllers the term Wake Vortex was not always understood but Wake Turbulence was.

In most cases we would try educate a bit after the test however not posible if a lot of general knowledge was lacking.

In Australia Basic aeronautical knowledge including basic aerodynamics is a very early part of the training for ATCO's

While previous knowledge is preferred it is not assumed so all students unless they have passes in exams for similar subjects must sit a number of basic knowledge subjects.

In the uk 25 years ago, it used to be that as part of the atco training, each cadet that wished to could get a PPL. The thinking being that a controller that also flies has more knowledge and understanding of a pilots workload in different phases of flight and of the various pitfalls of defying gravity. over the years though this was at first reduced to 15 hours of flight so that one could get a glimpse of the same environment. also , BA did a great course where you got to see a large glimpse of their operations, all the way from the frontline check in staff , through a quick glimpse of the cabin crew training, including the smoke room, and on to the cockpit and even getting some time in on of their fantastic simulators. which i appreciated greatly. Now, in the big world of big business, it has been decided that this was an irrelevent expense that can no longer be justified. whether this has had a negative effect on the service provided?, only the customers could say, and they dont seem to have been complaining.Another thing that has changed is the training of atco's themselves. Back in the day a controller was trained and validated EACH discipline in their career. starting in the tower, then moving to approach , then finally to area. When i joined this had been streamlined a little, so that i did a tower course and got 6 weeks of live on the job training before the decision was made as to which discipline suited the company at the time... errr i mean which discpline i preferred :E
today the streamline process has been increased so that they decide which discipline a course is going to be right from the beginning. If that happens to be an area course , then the students there will do a foundation course, which amongst its many modules includes basic aerodynamics , nav, law , met etc., followed straight by an area course and will not even do a tower course.The aim seeming to be, to push as many suitable people through the college in the shortest amount of time. The point i am rambling to make is that the level of experience a trainee has at the end of the course is far less than it was 25 years ago, and from my experience, even basic things , such as aircraft recognition and performance are dependent on the trainees level of interest in aviation. I am not saying that you have to be the worlds biggest spotter to do this job, but a modicum of interest would at least help, and that the end product from the college takes longer to validate partly because of it. Now i know that this is a broad sweeping generalisation, and will be quite happy to be criticised if figures prove me wrong, but that is just my experience since the course has changed.
Another thing that changed was cockpit access. Again, in the past the idea was that a controller on his days off, or if he was flying away somewhere could have a quiet word with the cabin crew to see if the captain would accept a controller in the jumpseat. Once in the cockpit they could chat and discuss questions that each had, and suggest solutions to particular problems each had, but all on an unofficial level. Now , due to 9/11,security has rightly been tightened. fam flights are still available but to arrange them requires security checks and takes longer which has removed the ad hoc chance of a jumpseat chat.also , again big business has questioned the financial necessity of the scheme, and what financial benefits are gained by it.

The atco in the uk has changed, they have been specialised for their particular discipline from an early stage. WHen i validated i knew some things , but i had the vast experience of the older controllers who had done these various disciplines, to tap into if i came across something i didnt know, or hadnt seen before. today the number of those people is dwindling as they come up for retirement a resource that will be sadly lost.
come back hd nearly all is forgiven! :}
well my psychiatric nurse has arrived to take me back to the padded cell. hope this helps some :ok:

Must be getting on 20 years ago... I was the Air controller at Heathrow one evening when the boss brought up a charming young lady for a look around.... asked if she could listen in with me, etc. She asked me things like: "How you you know which plane you are talking to", "How can you tell the difference between the planes", etc, etc. I tried to give her basic answers which I hoped she might understand. Boss came across and whispered in my ear: "She's just finished at the College and starts in Glasgow Tower in a few days". O....M...G!

HD... Don't suppose you remember her name do you?
PM me if you do...:ok:

[QUOTE][
Must be getting on 20 years ago... I was the Air controller at Heathrow one evening when the boss brought up a charming young lady for a look around.... asked if she could listen in with me, etc. She asked me things like: "How you you know which plane you are talking to", "How can you tell the difference between the planes", etc, etc. I tried to give her basic answers which I hoped she might understand. Boss came across and whispered in my ear: "She's just finished at the College and starts in Glasgow Tower in a few days". O....M...G!
QUOTE]

HD, I think trainees get a hard enough time as it is. Oldies like you and I , have forgotton all of the stress associated with being a trainee. The difference between college and a unit is immense. Perhaps the lady in question was nervous and just trying to fill akward gaps. Or she had never seen the equipment or method of your controlling. You cannot knock someone on one hand for not knowing, and on the other hand moan if they ask. I always believed in no such thing as a silly question.
In terms of aeronautical knowledge, I have come across so many know alls, who probably wanted to be a pilot but didn't for what ever reason. They are quite high and mighty and are aghast if a trainee out of college doesn't know some aeronautical information. I say let the pilot fly the plane as he/she is trained, and I will accomadate what he wants, as I am trained. Having to much knowledge about technical issues towards flying can be a bad thing too, as you could bombard the pilot with your knowledge about his own plane, not knowing his SOP.

All people who berate trainees should dust of there own daily training reports, and have a read through them, and then you will realise that you too were wet behind the ears and were not instantly perfect controllers from day one.

manny fred

Given your age and you location, you must have noticed the degradation.

I'm not talking merely about people knowing all the ins and outs of avionics and aerodynamics etc. I'm talking complete basics such as an appreciation of what other controllers workng for the same company do.

Example. Last year during particularly bad weather we (TC) stopped quite a few SIDS from departng altogether and put a very restrictive MDI on others (this was after numerous aircraft refused to fly the SID - to the point of one EGLL DVR departure flying a southwesterly heading from departure and refusing to turn left until 10 miles from SAM).

The weather was moving through but we and AC were still having major problems. Despite this one tower in particular (a major one) kept phoning and asking for a lifting of the restrictions.

The final straw was when one of the ATCOs at the tower stated "The airfield doesn't have any weather over it anymore - we can see out the windows you can't. Why can't you let aircraft go?".

It is this complete lack of appreciation of the tasks and problems of other controllers that is the worst thing.

What you need to realise is that people are berating the system that has led to a reduction in experience, not the trainees that have suffered because of it. However, just because the system is at fault, it does not mean that OJTIs should be happy with the result - we should not have to teach basics to trainees who have no knowledge because of the actions of penny pinching management.

People tend to forget that in ATC, good training is one of the very most important things... probably second only to safety - but of course that's a service providers thoughts, not a businessmans.

Might be nice if the dinosaur that is the Division of Safety, saw the lack of aviation background knowledge as a safety issue and gave us a basic package that we could work into the operational training of new ATCOs. Not ideal, but better than nothing.

Mind you I'm still clueless, I look out of the window every day and wonder how in the hell they big shiny things get off that tarmac roady thing!:}

I certainly was NOT having a go at trainees and, yes, all was not sweetness and light for me whilst I was training.. but my aeronautical knowledge, gleaned from donkeys years of spotting, etc., helped me very considerably. It did concern me that the young lady had, apparently, passed everything at the college but was sadly lacking aeronautical knowledge, through no fault of her own. I happen to think that was unfortunate but I readily accept that other people may not agree. Be a sad old world if we all felt the same!

Anotherthing.

In all honesty I have not noticed the difference. Yes I sometimes think."they should know that", but I also know that when I was going through training the "older" ones used to say that about us. When I was training the "older" ones would say how much better they were, when I had been valid a few years, we would say of the new breed that they were not of the standard that we were. Guys I have trained have now been valid a few years and they are saying exactly the same. The guy at the tower having no appreciation was he a recent valid guy, or dont you know?
We get some shocking presentation from TC which indicates lack of appreciation, and likewise we do the same but it is not always the younger inexperianced guys.
I have done truce when some self professed atc experts have laboured some emergencies so much, showing all their expertise and appreciation for what the A/c can do. All he proceded to do was interupt the pilots thought process, what he should have done was leave the pilot to it, and waited. It is what the pilot himself discussed in the debrief.

I had duffers on my course, indeed some might say I was one of the duffers who end up validating. We are providing no better service than the new guys. All we are better at is experiance, which cannot be taught.

Manny fred

I don't know how long the guy at the tower was valid - either way to think tha because the weather has cleared you airfield means that departures must be good to go is poor appreciation of the wider task.

Either a fairly newly valid controller who had not had the benefit of a protracted visit to an area unit, or a more experienced controller who should know better.

Either way, not acceptable - just the same as many other things are not acceptable (for example TC presentation to AC - if it is a recurring problem, not talking about one-offs that have maybe got a reason behind them or just a cock up).

The FACT is that people coming from the college are not being given the same amount of exposure to different aspects of ATC that they were being given even 4 or 5 years ago.

There is a new college manager down there, been there for a while now but despite all the fancy talk and Germanic buzzwords, the system has not changed for the better.

That is unfair on the college instructors, the OJTIs, and more importnantly, the students!!!

another thing

I agree entirely with that post. I always feel there is a "we were better than you when we were trainees" attitude, but I think that is human nature. They keep on saying school exams are getting easier etc etc. Maybe they are or maybe we just forget. BUT as you say and HD also refers, none of this is the fault of the student.

My dear friends, there is one point i want to make absolutely clear: It is NOT a problem of the trainees, but one of ourselves. I have many colleagues between 40 and 55 years old, who have a very poor knowledge of aviation. I asked several of them about the reason, and a very common answer is: "I am just not interested. I did not need to know about these things for the last twenty years, so what do you want?"

As long as our trainees have such perfect "idols" there is no reason for us to wonder why they don't know enough. Let us be better controllers with more knowledge, then we might be able to pass more of it to the next generation. I am aware that maybe the readers in that forum are not the right ones to be addressed.

Nice one, Standard Noise. I thought that I was the one one with such a jaundiced view of such departments...

...not to mention HF, HR, management mutter mutter

A more important problem is the decline in interest in science and the lowering of standards in GCSE Physics. Have a laugh at this
http://store.aqa.org.uk/qual/gcse/qp...W-QP-MAR08.PDF

That's unbelievable - a complete joke! I dropped O-Level Physics because I was Arts-orientated 40-odd years ago and found it a little difficult. My suspicions about current exam standards are confirmed ...

I wanna tell you a story.
Way back when I first started on real radar, Honey Monster was talking to a Cessna 150 student solo one day; student called and said he had a rough running engine and was unable to maintain height, so he would have to land in a field. Honey Monster asked him if he'd tried carb heat - he hadn't so he tried it and surprise surprise, then engine started to regain power!
Now Honey M like me and many others had a PPL thus he knew all about carb heat; how many controllers have come throught the system now who don't know what it does; it certainly made a difference between a possibly bent C!50 and the aircraft landing safely.

Am I right in thinking there used to be some flight time in the ATCO training??
I am starting soon and believe me I would LOVE to have a PPL, I do think some flight time to understand "the other side" of the radio is important.

<<Am I right in thinking there used to be some flight time in the ATCO training??>>

Just a bit!! Up to PPL standard in the good old days..

GCSE Physics
 

There are a couple of questions to which I would have answered 'None of the above'!

ahhh all the typical "things are getting easier" and "wasn't like it used to be"
History is harder.... more to learn :} I'll get my coat.

Even some teachers are concerned about the demise of science.
Wellington Grey -- Articles -- A physics teacher begs for his subject back: An open letter to the AQA board and the UK Department for Education

True, up to a point. It's still applicable under NATS training, but not with the "private" colleges (ASTAC and BAE) in the UK.

I trained at a "private" college (now defunct), but I made it a point for me to talk to pilots of all sorts of ilk about their opinions and their experiences. But then again, I chose this job because I like aircraft but don't really want to fly them. :}

Much has changed in the 8 years since I got my own Yellow Peril in my stickies, but what is so important is to never stop learning. It's one of the most dynamic occupations out there, and for me, the most exciting and challenging one possible.

:ok:

Keep ahead of the ACFT
 

Thanks to all for the interest and excellent replies.

Having read your opinions I am convinced that for the sake of flight safety it would usefull for controllers AND EMERGENCY SERVICES to have some basic aeronautical knowledge.

This would be mainly for emergency situations and would enable all concerned on the ground to keep ahead of the aircraft.
Pilots have a saying, don't fly where your brain is already at.

An example of where I'm coming from was an incident at Manchester where a Thomson aircraft had a bird strike on take off and lost an engine.
During this incident the controller and emergency services where ahead of the aircraft and knew what to expect. Therefore the pilots did not need to explain that they could not use reverse thrust and with a heavy landind could have very hot brakes and possible gear fire.
The controller and emergency services were aware of this and were ready to inspect the main gear as soon as the aircraft stopped.

Further, the controller knew the crew would have difficulty taxying on one engine and provided a non stop taxi clearence including crossing an active back to the gate.

The controller in this situation did an excellent job and was thinking ahead of the situation.

I think the CRM loop should include pilots and controllers.

By the way, the trainees I mentioned at the start were all active and experienced. Some with over ten years.

Also was surprised that here controllers are posted in one job and there they stay. I would have thought they would work their way up starting at tower then approach then area, but no, where they start is where they stay.

Cheers and thanks.

Correction
 

Just read my reply.

Should be "Pilots have a saying, don't fly where your brain ISN'T already at".

In other words, stay ahead of the aircraft.

Yes and no. Speaking for myself only (non-NATS ATCO) here, I have worked at an A/G airfield, an AFISO airfield and 4 full ATC airfields (including one military), all in uncontrolled airspace in the UK. In the future, I hope to gain a radar rating to add to tower and procedural.

I've worked at procedural approach towers (app/aerodrome), international aerodrome control towers, area procedural and radar. Currently at a somewhat busy-ish international tower. I'm maybe a little over halfway through my career. (Depends on continuing to pass the medical.)

When I trained, the course was three years. A lot of "knowledge" was assimilated over that time, rather than the pressure cooker technique applied today. Part of the training was 60hrs flight training, with the PPL issue a requirement. I did another 500~ hours since then, for fun, on various (light) types, and learned a lot; had a lot of fun, and a few frights.
The lack of aviation training in ATC today is lamentable. I think it makes for a controller who is more likely to be confident in a wider range of situations.

I have no issue with todays trainees. Most of them are a hell of a lot sharper and smarter than I was (and am) and if I was ~20 again and applying, I doubt I'd get much past the second hurdle or thereabouts. They also have to work a lot harder to try and learn stuff in 6 months instead of three years, and that as much seems to stick as it does (in most cases) is, I feel, more a credit to the trainee than to the system that is producing them. I think that system owes them a much better quality of training than is often provided, from the selection process right on through, and including at least some flying training.

In addition to what HD said in post 27:
At the beginning of the NATS ATCO Cadet course you got a full PPL course. After this annually for 3 years you got 5 hours refresher flying at an allocated flying school. At the end of the cadet course ie after the third year, we got route flying in a twin of some sort (usually Apache/Aztec/ Seneca) where we just did radio navigation and RTF calls, the instructor doing the flying under our 'guidance'. This was followed by the 2 week course at BA where we flew basic sims (system trainers?) and learnt how the autopilot systems operated (pre FMS). My course was on the BEA Trident sims at Viking House, Southall.

..and hope they would elect to go to Liverpool ;)

My science teacher Failed GCSE Biology... thought you guys would like that.

general aviation knowlegde
 

Gentlemen,ladies....

I didn't fully scan all the previous comments on this subject, but it struck me that a kind of "spook" is going thru ATC training, in that a general knowledge of aviation and/or aviation oriented subjects is being hollowed out thoughout training.
Mostly it has its origin in finance.......there is not enough time (=money) in educating trainees, and on top of that i think in general young people are being introduced into "the real" world by using modular, strictly bordered pieces of training, to be able to know quickly and "efficiently" how to deal with a certain problem and/or situation, but the whole perspective is somewhere lost in a void......
The same applies for atc training as far as i am concerned, at least this feeling is getting stronger and stronger with myself.
Ofcourse you may conclude that i myself am indeed one of the `old farts` and indeed each generation has its merits or so, but a noticeable difference has already been created.Same goes for the LPE issue, and not only for `non western` originating candidates.
It is sometimes staggering to learn that a lot of young trainees are hardly able to express themselves in plain english, though they had `sufficient´ training at high school level.....but ofcourse that is not the issue, the issue at hand is a very, very basic aviation knowledge applied to ATC training by some providers ( i won´t mention which, or which country.....) and this will eventually have its backfiring effect.....

Just my two ATC~pennies....