Well...I just finished up ETG's on two radar positions. I was training on Departure North and Tomball. Tomball is a satellite radar position and Departure North handles all departures from all of the Houston area airports that are going north bound.

Tomball was a bit harder than North because nothing was standard. On Tomball, you have six different airports aircraft will depart from or arrive to...overflights, and lots of VFR aircraft wanting to do many different things. You have to know the types of approaches to all the airports as well as all the departure procedures for each airport so you know how to get the aircraft on its' way.

The busiest airport that Tomball sequences aircraft to is David Wayne Hooks (DWH). It is actually an FAA VFR Tower, level 7. We also have another controlled airport we sequence to, Lonestar Executive (CXO). For the busiest ETG problems you will have at least 3 aircraft inbound to DWH and about 2 or 3 aircraft inbound to CXO as well as overflights at various altitudes, arrivals into other satellite airports, and departures off of IAH, DWH, and CXO. In order to pass the ETG you cannot have any operational errors or deviations. Overall...after all the problems you run up until the graded runs by a supervisor prepare you pretty well for the graded run. I felt pretty confident going into all of them and did really well....

North Departure is a lot different than Tomball. When you work North Departure everything is so standard...until weather comes in. In the ETGs you only get to do one weather problem and believe me, it is a bear. For North, you have five points that aircraft will head to on a departure procedure depending on what their destination is. All you have to do is climb the aircraft and turn them towards that point....seems easy? Not so much...before you can climb and aircraft, you have to make sure you aren't going to hit anyone else...there are many areas that you can run over another controller's aircraft so you really have to be on your toes...especially when it starts to get busy.

There are many traps that can get you into a lot of trouble if you don't watch it. We use Pre-Arranged Coordination Procedures (P-ACP). That means we can enter another controllers airspace without pointing our aircraft out or handing them off to that controller. This can be very helpful...I90 couldn't run half the traffic it does without it; however, it makes it more difficult because you have to be really careful when using this.

Overall I did pretty good on the ETGs and passed them all. Now I will go out onto the floor and start working live traffic with a couple trainers that get assigned to me. Hopefully the ETGs have prepared me well enough for this!

Well, this week, more of the same stuff...lots of ETGs, at least 3 per day. It has been pretty fun, but I'm beating myself up a little because I keep messing up stupid things that I should be getting at this point. Overall, I think I am doing fairly well. Just need to keep working on my phraseology and learn my airspace a little bit better.

We just started running our scenarios. They rank the scenarios in difficultly by percentage points. We ran the slowest problem which was a 50%. At first it didn't seem that slow, but it is just to help us get the basics of vectoring, phraseology, and airpspace down. Once we get this down, we will bump it up to a higher percentage.

In order to get out on the "floor" (radar room) we must pass three graded problems. A 50%, 60%, and 70%. In order to pass these problems you must have no deviations or operational errors. If you have one, you fail and have to conduct remedial training. Hopefully it won't come to that.

Towards the end of the week we got to run a 75% practice problem and it was quite a bit busier than I had anticipated. Just a few extra aircraft make a big difference in the complexity.

Me and a few others are back in the trailers for more classroom training. We are learning two radar positions. It is a lot of self-study...we get a powerpoint presentation here and there and that's about it. A few days into the week, we have a few tests to take about the material we learned and then we get to start doing ETGs (Radar Simulations) on the positions we just took the class on.

That's about all we did this week....we did have a chance to get back in the ETGs and run a problem just for fun. That was cool, but a little overwhelming at first. It is a lot different learning something and then trying to put it to use.

Well, I got checked out on clearance delivery this week...it was pretty exciting. I was a little nervous at first when I got recommended, but my trainer said I knew all I needed to know to get certified.

I wasn't busy at all during my check ride for certification so the supervisor made me read a whole bunch of clearances and he asked me a whole bunch of questions about the position and a lot of "what if" scenarios. Overall I did fairly well and about an hour later I was rated. Now I only have about 15 more positions to go to become fully rated..

Looks like I will be sitting around getting "seasoned" on clearance delivery while I wait on a class date to open up for me. I heard I will probably have to wait for a month or longer before my next class and until then I will just be working clearance delivery.

Well...more training on clearance delivery. I got a skill check earlier this week...a training supervisor sat down with me on position and listened to me for an hour and quizzed me on a few things to make sure I was progressing well with the position. He said I was doing alright, a couple things I need to work on and I still need to study a few things that I had no idea I needed to know...but oh well...I'm glad I know the info now!

Well...I got a lot of training on clearance. Both of my trainers are really cool and very helpful. I think they enjoy the break of not having to work on position for 2 hours at a time and instead sitting back on clearance delivery and doing nothing but watching me.

It is pretty cool...a lot of the times you are just sitting around doing nothing, but there have been a few times it has been a little busy. I found out today that I will be training on the A-side...which means the north and west sectors of the TRACON. When I get some downtime, I listen to the frequencies of those sectors and try to grasp as much information as possible about what they are doing...even though I have no clue what half of them are talking about.

I pretty much spent this entire week waiting around to get a clearance delivery class. There are about 30 people in various levels of the training program and not enough people to get them through the program so it is a lot of hurry up and wait. I finally got the clearance delivery class by the end of the week and there is quite a bit of information involved. A lot of Letter of Agreements (LOAs) and other things that you need to retain to apply on the position.

After my clearance class I was assigned a training supervisor and new days off so I can be lined up with my trainer. I had to take an initial quiz from one of the supervisors to make sure I knew the knowledge to start training on clearance. I passed the initial quiz and I will start training next week.

It's been a while since I have blogged....I finished up all the tests in two weeks. A couple more tests were added...airport identifiers and air carrier/air taxi identifiers....

The entire initial process and intial tests are all self study...you really have no one to guide you on what you need to learn, but it's alright, just go to work everyday, tuck yourself in a corner and study till you get it right...it's not hard stuff to remember, just a lot.

Well, it's pretty much all self-study at this point. If you have a question, ask....there are a lot of very helpful people around. Splitting time between studying, CBI's, and hanging out in the ETG lab where they run mock scenarios....that's about it.

Day Two

Pretty much self study all day...walked over to the CBI lab and did a couple of those...kind of interesting things that you can learn from those. They are interactive and you have to answer questions and do scenarios about the information you have learned.

Talked to the Union Rep about NATCA (the air traffic controller's union). He seems real cool, I joined NATCA and got a NATCA lanyard to wear around.

The main training guy came in and showed us a few things, but so far, just some self study on upcoming tests. I should be taking my first three tests at the end of the 2nd week according to the curriculum. I need to know the Victor routes, Jet routes, and something else that I can't think of at the moment. It seems a lot to learn, but so far doing okay I guess trying to memorize it.

Had a bit of coffee throughout the day...got a little tired after lunch...had a few guys poke their head in and introduce them self...told about a dozen more people where I came from and my background.

All in all it was a good day. I think I will like it here. There is a lot of construction going on at the airport and apparently it will be that way for at least another year....kind of slows things down on the way to work, but not much.

You can go outside for small little breaks and the main two departure runways are right by the TRACON. I will go out there and watch planes take off for a while when I'm bored. It's neat.

Ok...been on this site for a while. I started I90 a while back and took notes on the whole process...I will start posting a blog to include my I90 and time at RTF. I'm an OTS guy, no prior experience...wish me luck!

Day One

Your day is from 7:00am to 3:30pm with a 30 minute lunch which you can leave the facility since you are on "administrative" hours. (8.5 hour day).

Pull up to the security gate...guard meets you at your car, asks you who you are and who you are going to visit. Let him know you are a new hire and here to see whoever was on your point of contact. They will issue you a temporary pass and tell you where to go.

Meet a whole bunch of people the first day...too many to name. A couple Ops managers, supervisors, controllers, ATM, secretaries (about five of them), and everyone in the training department.

The training department is located in trailers outside of the actual TRACON. A lot of the workers there are contracted by Raytheon. There are probably an equal number that are FAA as well. You get issued a checklist of things you need to do in order to finish your check-in process and you get the training curriculum. They tell us on average it is around 6 weeks to finish the 9 tests that you are required to do prior to starting clearance delivery. These tests are basic tests such as airspace, altitudes, frequencies, facility layout, departure gates/symbols, radar video map...things like that. I believe by the end of week 2 you will be taking three of those tests.

You get the basic indoc stuff....give your SSN, phone number, and address, out about 3 or 4 times...tell everyone what your background is about a dozen times or more. You also get to pick your two initials that will be assigned to you throughout your length of training. They have a list of all the other controllers that have taken the other initials and you get to pick what was left....there was a bunch left and it was fun trying to pick something out.

You meet some secretaries...get an official FAA parking pass for the TRACON, get your picture taken, get logged into Computer Based Instruction (CBI)...that is where you do a lot of training on specific subjects.

You get a tour of the TRACON (totally awesome!) It was huge...they also had a smaller area that they just train in and run SIMS...pretty neat.

Go have lunch....come back...if you are still thirsty of coffee...pay .25 per cup.

You meet with one FAA guy for about five minutes and he does some type of Bio on you....gets a little bit of your background info and hobbies...makes a few wise cracks at you (everything is not shown unless you approve it) and then he prints that out and puts it in the TRACON for the guys that already work there to get introduced to the new hires...I thought that was cool, but I was careful not to divulge anything that could be used against me once I get to the "floor" (floor meaning actually out their talking to real planes).

Toward the end of the day you start looking at some bookwork type stuff. It seems a bit overwhelming at first, specially from not knowing anything at all about ATC...

The whole first day was excellent, everyone was awesome there....it will be very hard work...a lot of studying and hopefully I have the knack for the job....According to the training department, I90 is the 7th busiest facility in the U.S. and runs around One Million operations a year. Should be fun....I'll let you in on more later. Gotta Study!