The Second Day (7)

The second day we went to CAMI Civil Aeronautic Medical Institute to see a presentation on what they do and take a test.


The CAMI is the FAA's medical research division that well, does research.  They also have a clinic for employees so that when you get the OK Crud, you can show up there with da sniffles and they give you FREE DRUGS!! HOORAY!  Well, OTC drugs but free medical visits none-the-less. 


Here you will take parts of the AT-SAT again, the scenario and personal questions.  Do your best, however its not graded and the results are used for research etc.  After this, you go back to your class and go through the general this is whats going to happen schpeel.  






For the most part, the instructors I have met are Raytheon and are pretty cool and down to Earth.  The FAA instructors, from what I have heard are by the book and uptight but rightly so as they are FAA.  Today they will hand you your binder full of lesson plans, handouts, and tests.  The lessons they teach are verbatim out of your lesson plan and they go page by page.  If you are worried about what to study, heed my words,  DONT BE.  They spoon feed the information to you so that any/everyone can understand.  Don't fret about knowing anything when you get here, they will teach you the FAA way.


The Non-Radar map.
Your first task here will be to memorize the map.  the blank map they give you for the test, has the icons for vor's and borders and thats it.  You provide all the text.  I found the easiest way to study and memorize the map was to take a blank one, bring it to office depot or another store and have them laminate it.  Find some wet erase markers so that you can draw the map over and over and just wash off the map.  Saves paper and reduces waste.  Everyday, I would draw the map at least 3 times.  If I messed up I would stop, erase it all and start over.  Thats how I learn/memorize.  You are probably different.


The following days you will be in academic mode going through 30 some lessons before you really start to work on problems.  To save my sanity and your time, I am not going to go through everyday at the academy.  The previous sentence sums up 3 weeks.  


Block test.
This test is a practice test of sorts to let you know where you stand in regards to knowledge of the academics.  It is not graded, but don't suck on it.  


CKT (Controller Knowledge Test)
You will have two of these, one for non-radar, one for radar.  These are cumulative and they do count.  They are 4% of your grade.  They should be easy points.


Grades
Just like college, the en-route school is graded on a cumulative grade composed of evals and tests.  Get a 70% or higher average, congrats you passed.  Get a 69.9999% congrats, McDonalds is hiring.


Non-Radar
There are 27 problems in non radar and you run 3 a day normally, and you run them twice, once as a pilot and once as controller.  Each day you work with a new person and new instructor.  The problems start off easy and require little thought.  There are problems that introduce new situations that seem to kick everyone's butt.  I think it is 11, 18, and 24.  I think.  I know 11 kicked all our butts.  You had to ask a pilot for altitude leaving so that a GWO departure could go over JAN climbing.  If you didn't get the altitude, you somehow busted like 4 people.  Non-Radar is crazy like that.  On my final evals I had 97, 99 UNTIL i didn't do one thing and that one thing dropped me to 79, 69.  Yeah, it hurt.  If you want my advice...GET CONTROL for anyone on v278 going to GWO and landing 11 minutes at least before they are estimating SQS.
*If you have no idea what I'm talking about, no worries mate, you will.  Spoon Fed, remember that*


After your Non-Radar evals, you go immediately into being shamed on by your instructor for doing poorly, if you did poorly.  They do it jokingly/seriously.  It was definitely a wakeup call to us all that we need to get our heads in the game.  Our instructor motivates us by saying, "Don't Suck".  We all laugh at it.


After the shaming, you dive head first into an empty pool/ radar.  For my UND blokes, it is NOTHING like 465.  NOTHING.
For my non-UND blokes, the way the Academy teaches Radar is, you are the radar assistant.  They do not teach you how to be a radar controller as it will be several years before you ever sit in front of a scope.  They feel they would be more productive to teach us how to be effective assistants seeing as how we will be D-Sides for the majority of our training.  The most difficult task I foresee is the computer input shortcuts and data entry.  ERAM is what the academy uses, yet very few facilities use ERAM.  Most en-route use URETS which is a precursor to ERAM.  Same basic idea, just more advanced.  I'll spare you the details as you will find out about it once you get here.


This brings us up the present.


Aircraft Characteristics Test.
This test is about plane performance numbers.  What goes faster, C172 or a C130?  What climbs faster BE40 or B738? Those type of questions.  En-route couldn't care less what they look like.  They are all green blips.


Next Time on The Story:  I have no idea.  Ill come up with a title later.
BTW thanks for reading!