Terminal Training at Facility

blakehanson

New Member
I was a little curious about what training is like in terminal. Either Tower or Tracon.

Ive heard plenty about what goes down when you get to a center for training. What im wondering is after the academy, what do you learn at a tower. Do you have a couple weeks studying... like center guys do...?

What happens when you first get there till your certified. Summarized, please. Or not.

Thanks for info guys!!
 
LOL... they are to busy studying, sleeping, and working to check the forums. And not nessacarily in that order or divided evenly.
 
At SAT a level 10 up/down facility you do a clearance class delivery class which takes around 3 weeks. In this class we had to learn like 250 airport id's and their direction from SAT (n,ne,e etc) had to learn all the departure procedures, all the jet airways and victor airways off the local navaids, local prefered departure routes, all the LOA's all frequencies and airpspace layouts for all radar sectors and tower positions. I completed the class in 3 weeks, I was already very familiar with the area due to flying in the area previously. Now Im training on clearance. Afterwards the process repeats, a class for ground, then ground training, a local class then local training and so on. SAT currently takes about 4 years to check out to CPC due to complexity of the tracon.
 
hey satflyer, thanks for the info!

So, do they just give you a map and say "here ya go!" and then it is up to you, or did they help you along?

Do you think your training experience would be about the same if you were just at a tower and not an up/down? I am headed to a lvl 8 vfr tower and just trying to get an idea of what to expect, and how difficult the training will be.

I also have the benefit of doing a bunch of flying out of the airfield I am headed to, how much would you say that has helped you?

Thanks!!
 
I'm at ATL tower, and the way they are doing for all new people, both CTI and OTS is this. You do like a 3 week clearance class, go up to the tower and get done with FD/CD, and work it for a few weeks alone. Come back down for both ground and local class for 3-4 weeks and repeat for all the GCs and all the LCs. Takes around 14-18 months I guess on avg, could be a little faster but they are letting all of us new people "season" for a couple months until the summer is done then we'll finish up this fall and winter.
 
Wow! A year and a half training time for ATL Tower? Thats not too bad! You guys have got to be a crazy busy tower. I would have thought it would take longer.
 
hey satflyer, thanks for the info!

So, do they just give you a map and say "here ya go!" and then it is up to you, or did they help you along?

Do you think your training experience would be about the same if you were just at a tower and not an up/down? I am headed to a lvl 8 vfr tower and just trying to get an idea of what to expect, and how difficult the training will be.

I also have the benefit of doing a bunch of flying out of the airfield I am headed to, how much would you say that has helped you?

Thanks!!


I saw your tag says you are in Denver. Are you headed to APA tower??
 
Wow! A year and a half training time for ATL Tower? Thats not too bad! You guys have got to be a crazy busy tower. I would have thought it would take longer.

Yea around 12-18 months for the new people, but remember it's a tower only. No radar here since it's split off with A80. Some of the experienced controllers are flown through the training and they will finish in like 4-6 months( but they do minimum hours and are certified and get to learn the rest on their own).

And it's ridiculously busy here, like 2800 ops per day, and probably 2500 or 2600 are between 7am and 1030pm.
 
Yea around 12-18 months for the new people, but remember it's a tower only. No radar here since it's split off with A80. Some of the experienced controllers are flown through the training and they will finish in like 4-6 months( but they do minimum hours and are certified and get to learn the rest on their own).

And it's ridiculously busy here, like 2800 ops per day, and probably 2500 or 2600 are between 7am and 1030pm.


Wow! Yea, I had thought it was a busy one! And I trust you guys! Ill be flying in there on July 15th!


Some day, after I work though a couple lower level towers Id like to get some where like ATL.

How much time, on average, does learning Tracon add on time to the whole up/down process?
 
hey satflyer, thanks for the info!

So, do they just give you a map and say "here ya go!" and then it is up to you, or did they help you along?

Do you think your training experience would be about the same if you were just at a tower and not an up/down? I am headed to a lvl 8 vfr tower and just trying to get an idea of what to expect, and how difficult the training will be.

I also have the benefit of doing a bunch of flying out of the airfield I am headed to, how much would you say that has helped you?

Thanks!!

It varies greatly from facility to facility. Some facilities have a very structured classroom like setting, some your pretty much on your own. Just depends. At SAT it was more of a one on one hangout with an instructor for hours of discussion and hypothetical thinking.

Im surprised to hear it only takes 14 months or so to certify at atlanta tower. Its around 6-10 months at SAT. For the radar training, a super controller with no waiting at SAT can certify in around a year, average, I think a year and a half. Problem is now training just takes forever because a backup and hard to come by training time.
 
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