airtraffic

Author Topic: proficiency  (Read 12800 times)

Offline masterkeymaster

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proficiency
« on: February 01, 2014, 07:53:45 PM »
Pilot proficiency is a pilot who needs to do three take and three landings within 90 days, but does an air traffic controler need to meet any proficiency for their line of work?



Offline Marty Becker

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Re: proficiency
« Reply #1 on: February 01, 2014, 10:54:15 PM »
Yes, but I will let the contoller side of this forum respond.

From the pilot side, here is my experince that the controller needs proficiency.  When I was gettting my IFR rating, I would fly from the STL area to SPI to practice IFR approaches.  The SPI tracon asked if I would accept an ASR approach for controller proficiency. Of course, I accepted, both for the conntroller proficiency and for me to get familiar with that type of approach. After that experience, I would always offer that I would accept an ASR approach as one of my various approaches when I went to SPI if any controller needed proficiency training.

Offline sykocus

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Re: proficiency
« Reply #2 on: February 03, 2014, 03:01:29 AM »
Military and FAA are different. When I was in the Air Force you needed to get 1 hour in each position you're certified in each month. I honestly don't know what the FAA is. Generally only management/office staff need to worry about it. It seems to me it's something like 8 or 16 hours of position time a month (specific positions don't matter).

Offline klkm

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Re: proficiency
« Reply #3 on: February 03, 2014, 09:43:54 PM »
They just changed the currency time requirements.  It used to be 16 hours a month for controllers, and you had to touch each position you were certified on, so if you worked a minute on 5 radars and 15 hours and 55 minutes on the 6th you were current for the month.  Supervisors had to have the same but with 8 hours a month.  And training a developmental on a position counted as working that position.

Now you must get 1 hour on each position and 16 total hours.  Training on a position does not count towards your currency.  Supervisors must do the same but with 8 hours.  This takes away what most supervisors did which was give 8 skills checks a month to trainees getting all their hours without actually working traffic.  Still allows them to work early mornings or late at night with no traffic to stay current which most do.  For controllers who have multiple trainees you may have to actually not train a few days a week to stay current, which isn't a horrible thing I guess.   You do tend to lose a little bit if your sharpness if you train for weeks at a time.  It is different fixing bad moves then making moves yourself. 

Offline spades

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Re: proficiency
« Reply #4 on: February 05, 2014, 01:07:12 AM »
It's been pretty well covered but to further elaborate, you will only be concerned about currency if:

1) You're a supervisor
2) You're a trainee
3) You're a trainer
4) You took a ridiculous amount of leave during the month

If you're a regular controller, you never worry about it.

Offline OscarTango

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Re: proficiency
« Reply #5 on: March 18, 2014, 08:08:05 PM »
At Eurocontrol you need to have 45 hours in any 90 day window...on each sector that you're licensed.

I took 60 days off once, and still was current when I came back. Still I asked for two days of supervised working, just to be sure.
I don't know if there's a European rule, ICAO rule, or if ours is a 'local' rule, I think it's the latter.