Bye Bye TMA

Yes it's the last day of the TMA... booo and so on to the actual assessed bit. I was just getting into it really. It turns out my original thoughts were not quite correct. Initially I thought it was unstructured but it actually isn't really. There are conditions applied to almost everything. I nearly got to grips with them all but it's over.
Don't have much else to report today was learning about releases to Approach Control this evening, went quite well.
Playing squash again today although the local gym has annoyed us with saying that we need a "membership number" which we blatantly don't and we also have to pay for parking as well as the courts so we're going elsewhere. I've left it to Simon W-M to sort out as I don't feel like arranging anything or taking responsibility.
Probably should go to bed; I've got lectures tomorrow about split sector operation.
Nothing else interesting although was chatting with Jonath about Instant Messaging and when I looked into it turns out cerulean are bringing out Trillian 4... can't wait!

Squash, and Simulator pictures.

Didn't have much to blog yesterday. Played squash at the gym with a few guys from work: Matt, Simon and Gareth. I was pretty tired after that and was finding it pretty difficult to concentrate on my work because I was falling asleep. Mind you it can get quite boring.

So today more Simulators, in fact it's been simulators all week pretty much, except for Tuesday which was course induction. I have finally remembered to take some photos of the sim room, so here they are:

Looking down the bank from the feed end. The mascot sits above surveying the consoles and generally watching the trainees.	The bank is arranged into pairs of consoles, and a feed position of which only one is just visible at the left of the picture. The 3 positions constitute one simulator normally manned by 6 trainees, 3 input staff and 2 instructors.
Preparing to start a run. In this phase of training only one of the two consoles and the feed position is manned. At the far end of the shot is Mark, an instructor, who is sat with Rob. In front of Rob is John, for whom I was feeding just minutes after the picture was taken.	The run has now started. Gareth is controlling on "Sim 1" nearest to the camera. The hand and the strips in the immediate foreground are Matt's who is feeding for "Sim 3" at the very far end of the bank. You can clearly see his ADIS screen in the top left hand corner of the picture. Below that the glowing green panel are the phone lines and the black panel beyond that slighty is the ADIS control pad.
Working hard on the feed is Rich in the foreground and Simon W to his right. Donna is sat leisurely behind them both. One can see Rich and Simon's FPS (flight progress strips) in front of them both. When working feed each strip will represent an aircraft but normally one aircraft will be represented by a strip at each of the conflict points in the sector through which the aircraft passes. This means there may be up to 3 strips for just one aircraft. The strips are kept for 30 days operationally (not in the college:- at a unit) and are legally binding documents.	This run is in full swing, everyone working together and most of all having fun!

Shots taken with my mobile phone

The TMA Phase

So on our simulator we have a fictional piece of airspace, the Tyne sector, at a fictional Area Control Centre, the Medway ACC. It hasn't changed much since foundation. There are sectors all around and to the East of the sector is called the Medway TMA. A TMA is a large area of controlled airspace below which there are major airports. It is there to protect manoeuvring aircraft to sequence them before passing them to approach who line them up neatly on the runway. Hence TMA stands for Terminal (as in airports) Manoeuvring Area.
On this new course, us, that is the trainees, will have to work in the TMA sector as well as the Tyne sector (not all of it just one or the other) at the same time. This means that while training is underway for two people working in the Tyne sector, the TMA will be manned so that the aircraft leaving to go to the TMA will realistically respond, whereas before when it wasn't manned they just stay in level flight and dissapear off the screen, which isn't really realistic because they want to land.
Why am I telling you this, well because today we were being trained on the TMA. Now the Tyne sector is a whole load of airways (5 to be precise) and to operate in airways requires a different technique, you're always planning 10 to 20 minutes ahead and the aim is to sort out the problems early. The TMA is much more ducking and diving, weaving and waiting, it's a dynamic almost reactive controlling mainly based on the radar.
So that's what we were doing today and for the rest of the week; training on the TMA. It was great fun. Someone was doing the approach control at the same time. The consoles being in the same room meant there was shouting across like "Answer your phone you idiot" or "The Speedbirds coming straight in for runway 05 at 4000 feet" to which a thumbs up or a "got it" would usually come back.
The advanced sim room is much cosier, all the consoles being squashed in together. And it's quite dark as well so there's a different atmosphere. I'll get a picture tomorrow on my phone. But it means that everybody is working together as a team, it's brilliant! I had such good fun today. This job is brill sometimes but alas I have to get on and do my work tonight, that's the bad bit...

Well it's been a bit of a boring post today and I've honestly tried to find something interesting to put here but alas I have nothing. Sorry. Instead I leave you with this, it has no relevance to anything but it's nice to look at:

Released by Tristan Nitot under GFDL

The Advanced Course Begins

And so... day one. It begins. The end of the first slog to the base camp is in sight. Three more months of long days and frazzling simulator runs and I'll be there. Ready to climb for 2 years to the summit where I will finally be valid and I'll have a job, yey!
But reading this you may think that it's all bad. It isn't at all. Apart from talking about planes all day (which may not appeal to all) it's a big challenge, intellectually. Not difficult to understand, but you have to imagine air traffic control like a big sudoku. You know how to solve it, it is an easy notion, but you have to put all the parts in the right place to solve the whole thing, and that's kind of it really.
What's different in the advanced course? I hear you ask. Well firstly there are more aircraft to deal with and also two trainee controllers work in the same piece of air space. So it gets much more fun, working together as a team, which will be brilliant because the team is very close nit. That's one of the best things about the job!
Well I have lots more written assessments to get through so if the blog goes a bit quiet then it's because I'll be busy working. In the meantime, here's a link to a funky game!

Chamonix

Back from hols now, well we got back yesterday. The snow is definately looking thin on the ground, but we had a great time. Stayed in La Chalet Ginabelle, in Chamonix. It was comfortable, spacious enough and had a lovely spa, which was free! We had a balcony which had a view of the Aguille du Midi (which is in the 1000 places to see before you die). We did try to go up the Aguille but when we couldn't ski it was too windy or something. I think that's the excuse that the French use when they can't be bothered to open the lift up. So, as I might already have let on, we couldn't ski on Thursday and Friday. It was largely cloudy and raining. Booo. We made the most of things though. On Thursday we went to Montenvers on the little train from the village. Montenvers is a little place to visit near the bottom of the Vallee Blanche, the end of a large glacier. We couldn't go and visit the glacier because the cable car was closed due to wind... But we did go in the very old fashioned hotel which was a little bit peculiar. In fact the whole place was a but weird and I commented that the French don't really do that sort of heritage like we do. They have no quarms about sticking imposing plastic signs everywhere. I think we are guilty of it sometimes but generally we preserve our heritage, I get the feeling we're much more in tune to it than at least the French are, perhaps it's the same on the continent. Take Rome, it's crumbling down, but it should be preserved properly. I don't suppose it's concious, but perhaps it's just that to them it isn't special. Well you're probably bored of this rant so I'll leave you with some piccies:

Chamonix	The A Team	Mid morning coffee
On The Lifts	Again	Cheese!
Visit To Megeve	Rainbow Skis!	Train to Montenvers
Beccy on Train	Dad on Train	Mer De Glace
Mer De Glace	A Brisk Wind	View to Martigny

Results Day for Foundation

Well you'll be glad to hear that I passed the Foundation Course. It wasn't a pass with flying colours, but I made the grade. I was a little bit frustrated with my performance as I let a few things happen, silly mistakes that I've made before. I should have got them pinned down. Still I'm off to the Advanced course and I'm looking forward, that's afer my hols!!!

The Eve Of Results

So... I get the results of the 2nd course at the college today, namely "Foundation Area Control Service" but we just call it "Foundation". I say today but between me and them there's some sleep to be had, it's a bit late in the evening. I can happily say that I've done well. I may or may not have explained the marking system before but I passed all 5 sections in all 6 exams so that should mean a guaranteed Satisfactory as the instructors say... Meanwhile I have a problem about which I have been pondering. I remember hearing the problem first posed to me back by a Maths teacher when I was only eleven and it goes like this:

In a conventional set of weighing scales in which one adds a sum of weights to one side and food to another to balance the scales one requires 9 weights to accurately weigh up to 350g in 1 gram increments, namely 1g, 2g, 4g, 8g, 16g, 32g, 64g, 128g and 256g. So to weigh 30g one balances the combination of weights of the 16g + 8g + 4g + 2g = 30g, or for 101g one adds the combination of the 64g + 32g + 4g + 1g = 101g.

However what if you could add weights to both sides not just one as normal? For example to weigh 10g of salt:- on the side with the salt one could have a 70g weight a 50g weight; adding a 130g weight to the other side would balance the scales ie, 10g of salt + 70g + 50g balances 130g. Using this system would one need fewer weights to weigh up to 350g? How many would one need? and what size would they be (clue not necessarily 70, 50 and 130)?

As I'm on holiday this week in the Alps please submit your answers in the comments section of this post and I shall post the answer when I get home.

Happy New Year

Well, my sincerest apologies for not keeping up with the blog. It's really because deep down I'm a little bit lazy. I'd love to say I've been busy, but you probably already know that. I can't say I have much to say, although I have got a new pair of jeans (finally) for chrimbo, and I'm off skiing in a week or so. As for the job; it's still as taxing as possible. I've got some more practical assessments coming up so fingers crossed. I don't think I'll fail but you can never tell...