Tracon PV Question

[utamav]

Hey guys,

I looked all over the forum for this....even in the 'tracon selected folks' forum, but could not find the answer. So here goes.....

I have been reading a few blogs online about people at the academy, and I have been inferring that the PV for TRACON is pass/pass. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, but if this is true, why? I start in November, so my curiosity is kicking in.

UTAMAV

[SoonerATC]

Originally Posted by utamav

Hey guys,

I looked all over the forum for this....even in the 'tracon selected folks' forum, but could not find the answer. So here goes.....

I have been reading a few blogs online about people at the academy, and I have been inferring that the PV for TRACON is pass/pass. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, but if this is true, why? I start in November, so my curiosity is kicking in.

UTAMAV

Because if they went pass/fail, they wouldn't be able to fill the vacancies in the field.

[utamav]

Then why are EnRoute and Tower PV's pass/fail?

[jcpilot]

Originally Posted by utamav

Hey guys,

I looked all over the forum for this....even in the 'tracon selected folks' forum, but could not find the answer. So here goes.....

I have been reading a few blogs online about people at the academy, and I have been inferring that the PV for TRACON is pass/pass. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, but if this is true, why? I start in November, so my curiosity is kicking in.

UTAMAV

From my understanding, it's because the course is designed more for people coming back from up/down facilities. These people have already passed a 'job jeopardy' PV at the academy when they did tower cab, and you can only have one such PV in your career. At least, at the Academy you can only have one.

So those of us going to dedicated tracons are more or less riding on the coattails of those people. Since it's possible to have a class combining new hire tracon people with people from the field, it's pass/pass for all.

Rumor has it that the RTF (Tracon) PV will go pass/fail at some point for new hires. But that rumor has been around for a long time. Some of the instructors are thinking that it'll happen within the next few months, but there's nothing to really substantiate that.

[hudson26]

Originally Posted by utamav

Then why are EnRoute and Tower PV's pass/fail?

Because it doesn't make sense to have ALL of them pass/fail... so they pick one group to be pass/pass. What would the government be without a little disparate treatment?

Really, how hard would it be to say "Ok, if you are a new hire it's pass/fail... deal with it"

[tk727]

If you are a new hire & go to RTF you have 9 days to learn the job. The RTF class is longer than that, due to the amount of time you sit in the classroom & hear the same things you heard in basics & ITR. In the end though, you actually spend 9 days in the lab. Of those 9 days, you spend substantially less time actually doing the problems. You are normally in groups of three. So, you are constantly rotating in & out with your partners. At best you get to work three problems (2hrs 15min) a day.

There are many instructors who would like to see it go to pass/fail. However, each one of them says they will terminate their contract w/ Raytheon if it goes to pass/fail without changing the amount of lab time each student gets. Until the TRACON only folks get the same amount of time in the labs as the tower/enroute guys get it won't change.

[jcpilot]

Originally Posted by tk727

If you are a new hire & go to RTF you have 9 days to learn the job. The RTF class is longer than that, due to the amount of time you sit in the classroom & hear the same things you heard in basics & ITR. In the end though, you actually spend 9 days in the lab. Of those 9 days, you spend substantially less time actually doing the problems. You are normally in groups of three. So, you are constantly rotating in & out with your partners. At best you get to work three problems (2hrs 15min) a day.

There are many instructors who would like to see it go to pass/fail. However, each one of them says they will terminate their contract w/ Raytheon if it goes to pass/fail without changing the amount of lab time each student gets. Until the TRACON only folks get the same amount of time in the labs as the tower/enroute guys get it won't change.

Good insight. Some good stuff in there.

They've actually mixed up the schedule a bit now. My RTF class is the first one to go through the new schedule. We do 6 runs a day, with each run being 55 minutes long. So you end up getting 4 actual problems on position. That ended up giving us 13 lab days, not counting the PV day. Of course, that also extended our class by a few days. We found out about this when we got into ITR after basics.

We're not complaining too much, since we're getting facility pay now, but I'm getting kinda tired of Oklahoma. I don't know how the enroute people do it......

[hudson26]

En route does 36 problems prior to PV... how many does TRACON do (total problems?)

[jcpilot]

Originally Posted by hudson26

En route does 36 problems prior to PV... how many does TRACON do (total problems?)

22, not counting skill checks and pre-test/post-test. But we each run the problem as North controller and again as South controller, so we get 44 runs.

[kaudbron]

is the Tower portion PV of a TRACON destined student pass/pass?

[jcpilot]

Originally Posted by kaudbron

is the Tower portion PV of a TRACON destined student pass/pass?

If you're going to a stand alone Tracon, there is no tower portion. If you're going to an up/down, then the tower PV is pass/fail.

[FutureATCer]

A remote pilot told me today that the TRACON PV went pass/fail this past Friday. I guess they would know because they run it. Being told that spiked my curiosity because I had read this post before I heard that.

[utamav]

Originally Posted by FutureATCer

A remote pilot told me today that the TRACON PV went pass/fail this past Friday. I guess they would know because they run it. Being told that spiked my curiosity because I had read this post before I heard that.

As much as I don't want to believe you, at least your post is accurate. (i.e. the last RTF class ended on 10/15 on a Thursday and would have PV'd on Friday the 16.) So far your claim has some beef to it......JCPilot, do you care to chime in here. Otherwise, this bloke has just ballsed up my day, Bollocks!

UTAMAV

[jcpilot]

Originally Posted by utamav

As much as I don't want to believe you, at least your post is accurate. (i.e. the last RTF class ended on 10/15 on a Thursday and would have PV'd on Friday the 16.) So far your claim has some beef to it......JCPilot, do you care to chime in here. Otherwise, this bloke has just ballsed up my day, Bollocks!

UTAMAV

I haven't heard anything about this. I'll ask on Monday, but I highly doubt this is true. I talked to a few people after their PV last Friday and no one said anything about it being pass/fail. My guess is that this ghost pilot is messing with someone's head, or they misheard something from someone.

There IS some talk that the new training curriculum is in preparation for RTF to go pass/fail, but seeing as how my class is the first one to run the new problems, I imagine it will take a while before they get to that point.

[FutureATCer]

I don't like to post he said, she said stuff on here. I'm curious to hear what jcpilot has to say about it, because I thought I was hearing it from a credible source.

[aj213]

I am in a tracon class right now and dont graduate until dec and its still pass/pass our teacher told us that it will probably never be pass fail.

[jcpilot]

Originally Posted by aj213

I am in a tracon class right now and dont graduate until dec and its still pass/pass our teacher told us that it will probably never be pass fail.

Did you guys just start ITR? Have fun in there.

[aj213]

My class is all CTI and VRA so we didnt do Basics and will be done with ITR on wed.

[jcpilot]

Ok, I asked my instructor today about this. The Tracon PV is still pass/pass. The new curriculum is designed for when the PV does go pass/fail, but there is still no firm timeline when it will do so. He thought the earliest it could happen would be for classes near the beginning of December.

Remember, they've been saying the Tracon PV could go pass/fail soon for years, now. One controller I've talked to at my facility was saying that the same thing was floating around when he was at the Academy, and that was 5 years ago. So take that for what it's worth.

[utamav]

either way, i guess we should be PV'ing like it is pass/fail, so it is really pointless to worry about it.

UTAMAV

[gimpfest]

Originally Posted by jcpilot

Ok, I asked my instructor today about this. The Tracon PV is still pass/pass. The new curriculum is designed for when the PV does go pass/fail, but there is still no firm timeline when it will do so. He thought the earliest it could happen would be for classes near the beginning of December.

How did the curriculum change? What would they do to make it more "pass/fail" friendly?

[jcpilot]

Originally Posted by gimpfest

How did the curriculum change? What would they do to make it more "pass/fail" friendly?

We now do 6 runs a day that each run 55 minutes each. I guess the old plan was 8 35 minute runs or something. We are also organized in 3-man training groups. With 2 radar positions per group, this means that you will actually only make 4 runs a day, and monitor for the other 2. This is supposed to increase the amount of time we get on the scopes.

They have also removed the flexibility for instructors to customize the training program for their individual students. In theory, every group is supposed to be running the same problem at the same time. This standardization is thought to be in preparation for the PV to go pass/fail because it it supposed to ensure that every student receives the same training throughout the course.

My RTF class is the first one to run this new curriculum, so there are understandably some bumps as the instructors adapt.

This is all based on conjecture on the part of the Raytheon instructors. I haven't heard anything from the FAA as far as this goes. So take it for what it's worth........

[gimpfest]

Anyone down there hear any more updates on this?