Year Round Training at Seasonal Facilities

[srfMDI418]

I would like to hear from anyone who works at a lower level seasonal facility that allows training year round. Meaning busy summers and slow winters. Just have some questions about how it seems to work out. Pm me please!

 

[StuSEL]

I'm not a controller but am familiar with training practices at a few facilities like this. In the cases I am aware of, the trainees are still allowed to train on position. Training normally consists of a lot of "what if" scenarios. In the radar facilities, they can still plug you in to a simulator to train on flows, complex scenarios, etc. that you don't get on the position in the slow season.

 

[password]

We train year round but it is a whole different place in the winter. If we get a busy session once or twice a week we are lucky. Now try and time that with having someone on... You can see the challenge. But once we get through the winter traffic is much easier to train on.

 

[The Fold]

In the south, we're the opposite. Training in the winter is 8,000 ops a day... training in summer is 5,000 - but you run into severe weather.

I know people in smaller facilities that train in towers / approach controls. They wouldn't check the CPC-IT until they hit a busy winter day. Then they suspended training until winter, so that they could see "Busy" for the radar positions. But, then again, pay wasn't an issue.

 

[Imapilot]

it sucks at seasonal facilities. You need to somehow keep your proficiency up, I recently washed out of my facility, but coming into December I was getting all great training reports, got my second recommendation, three skill checks with moderate traffic that all went well. Then the winter hit and I got an hour extension to get back into the busy spring traffic. In addition I got assigned a new training team because the schedule lines changed and i didn't line up with my trainers anymore. Needless to say, It didn't work out with the new team when spring came.

It can be a timing game sometimes.

It can definitely be harder to reach proficient level when you are only training one hour a week.