Honest Opinion Sort
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My point is that others, when talking about the FC Branch, always focus on the Control side and see us as the poor relation of the ATC world
Not at all. I think that there are issues that both sides can learn from each other. Cross-polination/fertilisation is a good idea in my mind. It raises awareness of the FC fraternity of many control issues and improves awreness of ATC personnel of the sharp end.
3Gp policy is firmly in the direction of Force Development as mentioned by MATOMAN, gone are the days of the shiny arsed ATCO sat in his Tower. I know of many who have sat somewhere hot with the body armour on!
There is always reluctance of any branch, threatened with absorption by another. (The D-school have been fighting you lot off for years!) But you do not need to totally amalgamate the two branches. Just having a dozen or so cross-dressers can do so much to raise awareness of each others problems/issues and helps to raise everyones OC.
Matoman
No, that was not the impression I wanted to give. Just venting over the cockeyed view there sometimes is of what we actually do.
The quote is a good wind up though.
Have you thawed out yet?
Vincehommer
I see your point but at what stage do you cross over. The Canadians have had major problems with this. If you take an experienced Flt Lt and get him/her to cross over then there will be a significant period of retraining etc which will affect prom prospects.
I favour a common Air Control School where you can effectively stream individuals into either ATC/FC after a period of common trg/aptitude assessment (we do this at the SFC for 6 weeks). Perhaps you could swap individuals over after the first tour but, thereafter, you need to specialise, especially on our side.
Another area that I think should happen is for a common STANEVAL made up of ATC/FC. From a control point of view, I would even concede that it would be ATC led.
However, it does not change the basic fact that we actually have very few areas of commonality. As I have said on many occasions, if we had a different name instead of the misleading, old fashioned Fighter Control Branch, we would not even be having these discussions.
NO, I don\'t have another name in mind and find that particular game boring!
No, that was not the impression I wanted to give. Just venting over the cockeyed view there sometimes is of what we actually do.
The quote is a good wind up though.
Have you thawed out yet?
Vincehommer
I see your point but at what stage do you cross over. The Canadians have had major problems with this. If you take an experienced Flt Lt and get him/her to cross over then there will be a significant period of retraining etc which will affect prom prospects.
I favour a common Air Control School where you can effectively stream individuals into either ATC/FC after a period of common trg/aptitude assessment (we do this at the SFC for 6 weeks). Perhaps you could swap individuals over after the first tour but, thereafter, you need to specialise, especially on our side.
Another area that I think should happen is for a common STANEVAL made up of ATC/FC. From a control point of view, I would even concede that it would be ATC led.
However, it does not change the basic fact that we actually have very few areas of commonality. As I have said on many occasions, if we had a different name instead of the misleading, old fashioned Fighter Control Branch, we would not even be having these discussions.
NO, I don\'t have another name in mind and find that particular game boring!
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I taught at the Canadian Forces School of Aerospace Control Operations for 3 years and was fortunate enough to do a short conversion course to learn basic air weapons control (FC). I am not wishing to start a p1$$ match but from what I saw the ATC students doing the conversion course to AWC were better at issuing radar vectors without the use of a range rules, range and bearing line etc. The AWC students doing the conversion course to ATC struggled with non-radar control and controlling multiple ac in a recovery pattern but were mentally agile with vectoring, and followed set procedures well. It is all a case of horses for courses.
Yes, on the whole their amalgamantion was poorly planned and not entirely successful. However, I firmly agree that we could have one school and do exactly what Wyler suggests. Just think of the gains to be made such as financial savings in being at one location, better understanding of each others tasks, the opportunity for some to do out of spec tours etc. I would have jumped at the opportunity of doing an FC tour either on my return to the UK or after the ATC spec had amortised my 3 year overseas posting. My biggest gripe was the fact that, with the exception a service paper on the pros and cons of amalgamation that I was asked to submit mid-way though my tour in the late 90s, I was offered no opportunity to give my thoughts on the process at tour-ex. One think that I do disagree with Wyler on is his comment that we have few areas of commonality. Having experienced both facets of control, I think that they are actually more similar than most would think or indeed want to think.
We let ourselves down by our inflexibility which in the end makes us a less effective and more costly force. The FCs out there are to be commended in the way they have 'sold' their occupation as an expeditionary specialization with its personnel accepting out of spec postings to build on skills; it has been very late coming on the ATC side. An amalgamation of minds and training regimes, if not as an entire occupation, would have moved the whole concept of British military airpace control forward much sooner than we have experienced.
Yes, on the whole their amalgamantion was poorly planned and not entirely successful. However, I firmly agree that we could have one school and do exactly what Wyler suggests. Just think of the gains to be made such as financial savings in being at one location, better understanding of each others tasks, the opportunity for some to do out of spec tours etc. I would have jumped at the opportunity of doing an FC tour either on my return to the UK or after the ATC spec had amortised my 3 year overseas posting. My biggest gripe was the fact that, with the exception a service paper on the pros and cons of amalgamation that I was asked to submit mid-way though my tour in the late 90s, I was offered no opportunity to give my thoughts on the process at tour-ex. One think that I do disagree with Wyler on is his comment that we have few areas of commonality. Having experienced both facets of control, I think that they are actually more similar than most would think or indeed want to think.
We let ourselves down by our inflexibility which in the end makes us a less effective and more costly force. The FCs out there are to be commended in the way they have 'sold' their occupation as an expeditionary specialization with its personnel accepting out of spec postings to build on skills; it has been very late coming on the ATC side. An amalgamation of minds and training regimes, if not as an entire occupation, would have moved the whole concept of British military airpace control forward much sooner than we have experienced.
Last edited by rej; 28th Oct 2005 at 15:17.
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Wyler
I am always chilled out, almost too much so at work, as many of my colleagues would readily testify!! However, although I simply couldn’t let that quote go unchallenged, you will recall from our many frank and free-ranging discussions in the Sports Bar, that we all reached much the same conclusions on this topic and many others - throughout the visit it was a pleasure to be in your company, at least from what I can remember!!
Whilst not really wishing to re-open the same old debate yet again, I would take issue with rej or ‘FLUFFY’ as I suspect he is better known to his colleagues. The whole amalgamation issue has been done to death over the years, more times than I can even remember and I was involved on the periphery of one of the more recent reports. Despite all the man hours (or should I say person hours in the PC world in which we now live) expended on this topic, other than the opportunity for ‘cross-postings’ and greater inter-branch awareness, no one has ever been able to come up with a really compelling argument to support the amalgamation of ATC & FC. If amalgamating the specialisations would have saved money, the ‘bean-counters’ would have insisted that it happen years ago!
Whilst we can all appreciate the benefits of cross-postings, they simply cannot be quantified in monetary terms. In effect cross-postings are desirable, but not essential, (a bit like exchange tours at NavCanada!) and all our years as separate specialisations tend to prove this rather clearly. The ‘bean- counters’ have always argued that the obvious costs of additional training easily outweigh the advantages of cross-postings, which anyway cannot be really quantified in monetary terms. In addition, if an individual flitted between Terminal ATC, Area Radar and FC, you would tend to end up with a ‘jack-of-all-trades’ and master of none. In ATC we all know about skill fade as you age and how, after a while, people tend to find their ‘comfort zone’ and then become reluctant to move back from Area to Terminal or vice versa. I would argue that adding FC into the mix would only increase this problem, and would probably lead to just a few ‘cross-overs’ early in a career and then little else thereafter, with few obvious advantages to either specialisation.
Although the idea of an amalgamated ATC & FC school does seem appealing on the surface, as many comprehensive studies into joint training have discovered, although there are some initial areas of similarity, there are almost none thereafter. Anyone who believes that moving CATCS could be achieved at ‘no-cost’ is simply dreaming. So how can you justify the expense involved in moving CATCS across to wherever the new School Of Fighter Control will eventually be situated? Although some individuals might consider it desirable, I contend that they would be hard pressed to argue that it is really essential. Consequently, I invite FLUFFY, or anyone else who has an opinion on this topic for that matter, to clearly explain exactly what would be the financial savings in amalgamating the ATC & FC specialisations or collocating the training at one location. I think the actual savings would be rather small and would be far outweighed by the additional costs, but I stand ready to be proved wrong.
In my opinion the ATC specialisation does appear to have been hopeless slow in getting more actively involved alongside our FC colleagues in ‘battlespace management’, within which ATC should always have a considerable input. The Area team that will be embedded in 1ACC is a solid step in the right direction, but we cannot escape the fact that our main manpower focus in the future will always be deployed ops, our MOBs and to a lesser extent, the two area radar units. Of course, we will always need to work closely with our FC colleagues and understand each others tasks and equipment limitations, but I believe that can be achieved without amalgamating either the training or the specialisations and I suspect that the ‘bean-counters’ are on my side!
Matoman
I am always chilled out, almost too much so at work, as many of my colleagues would readily testify!! However, although I simply couldn’t let that quote go unchallenged, you will recall from our many frank and free-ranging discussions in the Sports Bar, that we all reached much the same conclusions on this topic and many others - throughout the visit it was a pleasure to be in your company, at least from what I can remember!!
Whilst not really wishing to re-open the same old debate yet again, I would take issue with rej or ‘FLUFFY’ as I suspect he is better known to his colleagues. The whole amalgamation issue has been done to death over the years, more times than I can even remember and I was involved on the periphery of one of the more recent reports. Despite all the man hours (or should I say person hours in the PC world in which we now live) expended on this topic, other than the opportunity for ‘cross-postings’ and greater inter-branch awareness, no one has ever been able to come up with a really compelling argument to support the amalgamation of ATC & FC. If amalgamating the specialisations would have saved money, the ‘bean-counters’ would have insisted that it happen years ago!
Whilst we can all appreciate the benefits of cross-postings, they simply cannot be quantified in monetary terms. In effect cross-postings are desirable, but not essential, (a bit like exchange tours at NavCanada!) and all our years as separate specialisations tend to prove this rather clearly. The ‘bean- counters’ have always argued that the obvious costs of additional training easily outweigh the advantages of cross-postings, which anyway cannot be really quantified in monetary terms. In addition, if an individual flitted between Terminal ATC, Area Radar and FC, you would tend to end up with a ‘jack-of-all-trades’ and master of none. In ATC we all know about skill fade as you age and how, after a while, people tend to find their ‘comfort zone’ and then become reluctant to move back from Area to Terminal or vice versa. I would argue that adding FC into the mix would only increase this problem, and would probably lead to just a few ‘cross-overs’ early in a career and then little else thereafter, with few obvious advantages to either specialisation.
Although the idea of an amalgamated ATC & FC school does seem appealing on the surface, as many comprehensive studies into joint training have discovered, although there are some initial areas of similarity, there are almost none thereafter. Anyone who believes that moving CATCS could be achieved at ‘no-cost’ is simply dreaming. So how can you justify the expense involved in moving CATCS across to wherever the new School Of Fighter Control will eventually be situated? Although some individuals might consider it desirable, I contend that they would be hard pressed to argue that it is really essential. Consequently, I invite FLUFFY, or anyone else who has an opinion on this topic for that matter, to clearly explain exactly what would be the financial savings in amalgamating the ATC & FC specialisations or collocating the training at one location. I think the actual savings would be rather small and would be far outweighed by the additional costs, but I stand ready to be proved wrong.
In my opinion the ATC specialisation does appear to have been hopeless slow in getting more actively involved alongside our FC colleagues in ‘battlespace management’, within which ATC should always have a considerable input. The Area team that will be embedded in 1ACC is a solid step in the right direction, but we cannot escape the fact that our main manpower focus in the future will always be deployed ops, our MOBs and to a lesser extent, the two area radar units. Of course, we will always need to work closely with our FC colleagues and understand each others tasks and equipment limitations, but I believe that can be achieved without amalgamating either the training or the specialisations and I suspect that the ‘bean-counters’ are on my side!
Matoman
Very well put. On another tack, the post 9/11 era has led to a fundemental change in the way we 'police' UK airspace. One of the aspects to change considerably is the way in which we (FC) work with ATC. I have never known such a high and intense level of interaction and co-operation on an almost daily basis. I, for one, am very impressed with the way it is going and there is definitely need for both sets of skills when you turn airspace into Battlespace.
