This section covered handoffs and point outs. Surprisingly for me, some of the stuff in this section seemed new to me (either that, or I just wasn't paying attention in class on whatever day we covered it at Riddle). After we reviewed we ran a scenario with half the class as controllers and half as pilots. At first we were all a little confused on some of the things to do in the scenario, but we picked it up pretty quick again. The pilots just got prompts to act as Aero Center and call up with (for example) a request for a point out on a particular aircraft. Then the controllers had to either approve or deny it based on other traffic in the area. Controllers also had to figure out when to request position verification on an aircraft, or when to tell them radar contact, etc. We ran this scenario a total of four times (two times each as a controller), because the class requested a second try at it just to make sure we understood everything.
The last topic we covered today was separation procedures and safety alerts. Bob taught us this section, and I still can't say I'm a fan of his teaching style. He feels the need to explain each thing in three different ways, so it takes forever and he also ends up confusing people (so as a result we ask more questions and he has to explain even more). Anyway, the first half of this section covered radar separation between targets, wake turbulence separation, divergence, and separation from formation flights, obstructions, adjacent airspace, and special use airspace. I had forgotten about the divergence rules, so I found those interesting to freshen up on. Basically divergence is that all other approved separation may be discontinued when the following conditions are met:
- Aircraft are on opposite courses (136 degrees to 180 degrees difference in flight paths) and you have observed that they've passed each other,
- Or aircraft are on the same (less than 45 degrees between flight paths) or crossing (45 degrees to 135 degrees) courses and one aircraft has crossed the projected flight path of the other and the angular difference between their courses is at least 15 degrees, and,
- The tracks are monitored to ensure that the primary targets, or beacon control slashes, etc. will not touch.
Today I also filed my first per diem and travel voucher. I tried to file it on Monday (which was 15 days out from my first day of class), but they wanted me to change my lease to read from the day before class instead of the first day of class (so that I could get paid for that day too). They approved my full per diem amount from the day before class started through today, and also calculate my travel costs. Originally they messed up and calculated my travel from Denver to Oklahoma and back, but it should have been Daytona to Oklahoma to Denver. I also thought that they were supposed to give you travel from your home to OKC and back to home (and then you had to just travel to your duty station on your own), but apparently they ask you if you're headed home or to your duty station right after OKC and then they calculate that for your return costs. Anyway, they compare the flight costs to the mileage costs and then give you the lower of the two, no matter which method of transportation you used. I was surprised that I got the mileage, but I think it was because DAB is a smaller airport so airfare to OKC came to around $1400. I'm definitely not complaining. I got way more on the mileage than I expected.
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