pmsumner

I've been quiet about the whole ATC subject, but as a year on my initial application last year approaches the subject has been weighing on my mind more heavily again. I've been reading PPRuNE for ages, since I talked to someone at London City tower about it, and today I found a link to this:

http://www.pmsumner.eu.org/~pmsumner/linkpics/flightassist.mp3

It's not too big at 3.2Mb, and you only truly need to hear the first 3 minutes of it. ( Spoilers? )

Anyhow, on the whole ATC thing. I'm considering reapplying but I don't know whether it's going to be worthwhile doing. If I get offered a position and then a job with a year's training in Bournemouth, then a 90% chance of a permanent position in Swanick - where's the future for Jane and I? My aims of ending up in Shropshire will come to absolutely nothing if I end up as an ATCO - where's the nearest airport to Shrewsbury? I'm guessing Birmingham.

The whole "getting the job/not getting the job" thing doesn't bother me - I'm fairly sure where I went wrong last time and all you can do is try your best.

It needs some more thought. Is it worth the time? Is it a career where I can be somewhere that I physically want to be?

... and port, and whisky.

And lo, Phil is feeling happier this morning. Not much, mnd you. I
especially don't like the section of the email that says "NATS policy is
not to give feedback". They shall be receiving a phone call from myself
on Monday to question this and try to find out what they think they're
playing at, making statements like that.

Hmm.

Got this today.

Dear Phil

TRAINEE AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL RECRUITMENT - INTERVIEW

I am sorry to tell you that you were not successful in your recent interview for the post of Trainee Air Traffic Controller.

Yep.

Nope.

No, no, no.

No state to be seen.

The past week has all been a bit of a blur really. For my own reference more than anything... my week has involved:

Sun 22nd - Travel to London
Mon 23rd - Visit City Airport ATC tower
Tue 24th - Travel back
Wed 25th - Interview in Manchester Airport Crowne Plaza
Thu 26th - Relax. Kindof. Do 3 MS jobs...
Fri 27th - Jane arrives for trip south
Sat 28th - Travel in nice quiet 1st class train to St Pancras, visit Casee and have fab time of it
Sun 29th - Visit DT in Kingston, meet Mike (Jane's friend) in Notting Hill
Mon 30th - Go to Greenwich, see Maritime Museum and Observatory
Tue 31st - Travel back

I've already written about the interview and the visit to London City airport, so the rest of the week...

We travelled to London 1st class - it was so worth it. It was only about 7 or 8 quid more than standard class and the whole thing is so much more pleasant. On the way down it was obviously "weekend first", so we didn't get the whole treatment, but on the way back we were served drinks and snacks in our seats, had china cups and everything!

The best bits are definitely the first class lounges though. Being able to sit away from the scum and have free papers and drinks :) Gotta love it.

We pretty much arrived at the parents, dumped stuff and left again. Headed straight out to Casee's. I didn't realise before we got there that she lived absolutely miles out - but who cares... it's an adventure ;) Spent the evening with her, catching up and stuff. Lovely time was had without any uncomfortable-ness which was fab as we haven't seen each other for about 3years! Bus back to Tottenham Court Road, tube home.

Sunday involved a visit from one of Jane's friends - he was nice enough :) Pint in the Elgin. Off to Waterloo to catch the train to Kingston. Decided to take the bus, which was a REALLY bad idea. Somewhere and for some reason there was a diversion in place, meaning instead of going along Bridge St to cross Westminster Bridge, we ended up going past Horseguards and along Victoria. Took us nearly an hour to get from Queensway to Waterloo. By the time we got to the station I was really fed up - but an evening filled with wine and BBQed steak cheered me up no end!!!

The way back we took it much easier, got off the train at Wimbledon and took the green line (District?) to Notting Hill Gate. Much easier :) Sleep.

Monday we slept in late, and went to be tourists. Took the DLR out to Greenwich and did touristy things. We were slightly confused by who the Maritime Museum is aiming at... seemed a little too "dull" for kids, but aiming too low for adults. Stayed for a fair while, the weather was gorgeous so walked for ages. In the evening I took Jane to Gourmet Burger Kitchen (yum) and went home. Spent the evening with the parents.

All in all, spent very little cash compared to what we could have done ;) Had a good time, nice to catch up with Casee and DT, both of whom I hadn't seen for a long long time.

Now, Jane and I are planning a trip to the north of Scotland! Discovered after looking seriously at prices, that it's actually a lot cheaper than we thought. For example, Leeds to Aberdeen for £36 return, each. Obviously booked ages in advance.

Weeks ago at work we did some training for Microsoft products. As a "reward" for this, we could choose to get some products. I chose myself an MS Bluetooth Mouse. It came today, hurrah! It's nice - but there appear to be some issues I can't work around yet. I'm sure I'll figure them out eventually but at the last attempt... if left too long with no use, the pairing between the bluetooth dongle and the mouse drops. This means that the PC still thinks it's got the mouse connected, but nothing makes the cursor move.

Hmm, just turned off power saving for that USB port... maybe that'll do it.
Anyhow. On to other things.

London City - Control Tower

I had a great time at the tower. Arrived early and was welcomed warmly, spent most of my time there talking to one guy who had only recently graduated from the college and was accrediting on the tower approach the day after I was there (hope it went well!). Learnt lots, saw lots of cool stuff and not-so-cool stuff, found out some good info for the interviews.

After the visit there, I have been in absolutely no doubt whatsoever what it is that I want to do. I _want_ this job. 'nuff said.

Spent the rest of my time in London with the parents. Went to a new Indian "Fusion" buffet on Westbourne Grove (I think) on Monday night which was lovely though very new and had a few things I would suggest to improve it, and went with mum to Gourmet Burger Kitchen (Oh... My... That's not a burger, that's a work of art... that's a skyscraper in meat and bun form) for lunch on Tuesday. I still feel full from that. Then again... mum spent on 2 burgers, 2 drinks, a salad and chips more than I would comfortably spend on 4 or 5 days worth of shopping, so it best had be damn good. And it is.

I've no idea when I last updated, so I'm going to focus on today.

Today was my interview. Eek. Decided not to panic, not bother stressing over last minute revision and so on, but to keep myself relaxed. Headed off to Manchester about 11:15, stopping for naught but petrol on the way.

The arrival was probably the most traumatic thing that happened! The problem is with airports, is that they never have signs to the individual hotels. It's all very well telling me that this road's T1, that one's T3 and so on, when I am actually trying to get to the Crowne Plaza. It took me a few panicky and silly manoeuvres on a fairly empty road to eventually drive round 3 sides of it and find the right entrance.

Waited, found 2 other youngish guys there in suits looking nervous, so talked to them, guessing they were NATS interviewees. From what they were saying, I had no doubt whatsoever that I had done more research than either of them. They had both booked their visits to the ATC units before their interview dates, and as such found that they had to book their interviews before their visits. Oops.

Anyhow. The interviews. Consists of 3 parts. In my case, part 1 was the computer tests.

The computer tests are easy. The individual components of the tests are easy, anyhow. Number 1 is simple pattern recognition, and following instructions. For example, you'd be shown a coloured shape, and have to match it with options at the bottom of the screen. Then the rules would change slightly, and you'd be told "Match all Squares as green circles" or something similar. Gets a bit trickier then... still easy but the things are coming thick and fast, with approximately 2 secs to process and respond. The same principle also applies for numbers, with odd rules like "If the sum of all digits is less than 9, match as 0".

Test 2 is looking at numbers moving across the screen, and trying to decide if these will collide. If they are going to collide, you have to make a decision on which numbers to remove from the screen, and press that key. Fairly simple. The aim obviously being to avoid collisions whilst removing as few numbers as possible.

Test 3 is the same as above, but introducing an element of multi-tasking. As you're doing the collision avoidance, you are presented with simple arithmetic puzzles at the bottom of the screen. It's up to you which you concentrate on, but I found it virtually impossible to do switch between the arithmetic and the collisions - it is a very different area of the brain I think... - so concentrated on one thing unless I had time to switch.

So, three computer tests down - next up was the HR interview. Lady talking about my job, what I do, how I do it and what I enjoy doing. Nothing difficult, normally you'd look to tailoring your answers towards the expected answers, but in this you're not given any idea of what the person is looking for. You've got little choice but to be honest really. Then 60 questions based on various things, including ones taken directly from the OPQ (Occupational Personality Questionnaire) done previously at the assessment centre. Including "Once you start a job, do you like to complete it", "Are you a perfectionist" and similar.

Thirdly comes the tech interview with the controller. Given a couple of interesting questions regarding situations, and how I would deal with them. I mis-interpreted one of his statements at the beginning of one so went the long way round in order to get to the answer, having gone through some other ideas, but obviously not what he was after.

Maths question... given planes A and B, A travelling at 180kts at FL180, B at 300 kts, FL190. A is 3nm ahead of B. How long will it be until Plane B can descend to FL180, ahead of A? (Simple... must allow 5nm separation between planes at the same level, so plane B must travel 8nm further than plane A (3 to catch up, 5 to get ahead and keep separation). Speed difference is 120kts, which is 2nm/min., plane B will take 4mins to be 5nm ahead and can then drop it's height)

How did I do? I don't know. I suspect not brilliantly. I didn't handle the pressure of the situation particularly well and at some points I suspect I came across a bit blethery. I know I answered the questions as well as I could, what else can ya do? I'll know within 2wks what the deal is. Oh, and I was told if successful, it will probably be a January start at the college, though there is a possibility of it being October.

I feel like I'm back at uni, but with the added disadvantage that my main revision time is being taken up by work. I spent the majority of the day today reading through a NATS provided document on loads of ATC related subjects, and re-writing it in my own words. A method of revision which I find to work possibly the best. I learn much more this way than I ever do just by reading or being read to.

I want to learn as much as I can, but I understand only too well that the point isn't to learn everything about being a controller - the point is to check how interested in the subject you really are, and how well you can learn the stuff provided.

Hopefully the stuff needed to learn about being an ATCO comes at the CATC (the college at Bournemouth)!

OK, I'm booked in to visit London City Airport's tower (*squee*!) on the 23rd May. Just awaiting confirmation from the parental types that I can actually stay with them before booking train tickets. eeek! It's not the interview but it's still mighty exciting.

Mainly about the assessment day on Tuesday. However I am very tired and need to sleep lots, so this may not make sense.

The short story... Monday - travelled to London in the afternoon, arrived at the parents, was fed and chatted. Bed. Slept REALLY well, surprisingly, as I don't tend to sleep well the night before these things. Up and arrived at 0930, plenty of time to sit and chat to people.

About 30 people there, the same the day before. First was the personality testing (248 questions asking you how you feel about x y and z), learning styles questionnaire, and time talking with an operational controller. Then the tough bit started...

One test based on information we were previously provided - fairly easy apart from a couple of tricky customers (which FIR borders London - Frankfurt, Copenhagen, Spain or somewhere else - I chose Frankfurt as I thought Copenhagen would border Scottish).

Then 5 tests, very quick. Two like this...
Locate the sequence on the left from the options on the right:
173732 ---- 177332 / 177233 / 173732 / 173723 (40 in 8mins)
FLEPCW ---- FLEPWC / FLEPCW / FEPLCW / FLECPW (40 in 8mins)

One mathematical:
12 + 2 = 7 ? 2
19 ? 3 = 22 - 6
33 - 3 = 10 * ? (40 in 13mins IIRC)

One program skills:
Weird flowcharty type things. Given a sequence of symbols and instructions, follow them and find the correct outcome from the options. (35 or so in 13mins I think)

One spatial reasoning (too many questions not enough time, maybe 35 and 20?):
Given a net for a cube with patterns on it, show which cube could be made from this net.

This last one is the only one I had any difficulties with - the others I either completed or very nearly completed. The cubes I couldn't do. I would spend probably a minute figuring out each one - if not longer. Ick.

Anyhow, I feel very confident about everything apart from the boxes. Should find out within 3wks what happens next!

Left to come back home straight from the hotel, exhausted before I even left. Was in desperate need of a pint and as I had 2hrs to spare, sat in the hotel bar :) mmm that was the best drink ever.