Day 10 of RTF (first day of labs!)

On Friday we moved into our new classroom so that the new RTF class that was starting could take over our old one. We'll be in the ACD labs full time now. We skipped over lab orientation since we already knew how to set up the scopes and everything and at 0730 we moved right into the pre-test. It was pretty simple and nothing to worry about. Each person was watched by one instructor each and the instructor marked points off for each mistake you made. However, your name doesn't go on the evaluation sheet. This same scenario is given as a post-test at the end of RTF and it's just used as a tool to see how the instructors do to improve the students' skills.

Oh, and we are the most totally awesome class ever by the way. Supposedly we were the first class ever to not have anyone at all vector the overflight. About halfway through the problem comes this aircraft going to OKC, and there's usually at least one person who sends them to Academy and clears them to land there only to issue the approach clearance and get the response, "Uh, we didn't request a landing at Academy..." The other RTF class who parallels ours had a few people who did it, but ours did not. We thought that Dave (our instructor from ITR) was going to follow through on the bet he made with us, but apparently he chickened out. Supposedly he makes the same bet with every RTF class he has: if no one vectors the overflight then he'll shave his head. However, he pulled some B.S. that the bet included all 24 RTF students who ran the problem that morning (our class and the other parallel class), even though he never said that as part of the bet to begin with. Oh well. Points still to all of us. :)

We ran three different scenarios after the pre-test. Each scenario lasts about 40 minutes and then we get about a 15 minute break in between each one. We're paired up in twos, and one person works the south sector and one works the north sector. They typically try to pair up each group by skill level. Each person also has one instructor who constantly watches over your scenarios. You'll get to work with two instructors total, because for your pair you'll have one instructor to watch over the north sector and one to watch over the south sector. After one run on each scenario, you swap with your partner to get a chance to run the opposite sector.

We ran one scenario that was just arrivals, one that was just departures, and one that was both arrivals and departures. All in all it wasn't very difficult. They keep the traffic count low to start you off so that you can get the hang of things. The only thing that took a little getting used to was the sequencing on final into Academy. The north controller has control of all sequencing, so as a south controller you have to wait until you are given a slot, or you have to request one if they don't call you up in time. You often have to re-sequence things, because you may not always get the slot you were expecting.