On Thursday we had our 40% skill check. In the morning we ran four different scenarios to give us some more practice before the evaluation. I forgot to mention that everyone in the class (in pairs anyway) is able to work at their own pace, and the individual instructors decide which scenario you'll run at each point in the day. The skill check went pretty well. We were evaluated only on the north sector, so we had to take turns running the scenario on north. The instructors from the two separate lab rooms swapped rooms for evaluations. The traffic level during the skill check was about average, and while you're on south waiting for your partner to get through with north you'll probably get kind of bored. On the north side you have to make sure to make the right calls at the right times or it's very easy to get backed up and lose control of the entire picture. At the end of the scenario the instructors went over things we did wrong (as well as things we were good at), and filled out notes on our evaluation forms (which will be sent to our individual facilities). Since RTF is not pass/fail at this point it doesn't matter if you completely bomb the skill checks, but of course it's still better to do your best. After the skill check was over we just ran a specialized scenario to finish up the day. I think most of us ran a single sector scenario that covered the entire airspace, and it was nice not to have to coordinate anything.
On Friday we ran specialized scenarios all morning, and these were all pretty similar to the others we've been running, if not slightly busier. Then after lunch we ran what they call an OJF problem. This scenario was exactly the same as the single sector scenario we ran on Thursday (where you have control of the entire airspace). The instructors left the room and we ran the problem on our own with everything being recorded. After we finished and took a short break they had us plug in again and then they replayed what we had just run and we listened to ourselves for the entire scenario. It's kind of funny to hear yourself controlling traffic, and you pick up on things you wouldn't have noticed before. You'll say to yourself things like, "Why didn't I turn that guy now?" and "Ooooh, I didn't have wake turbulence separation there..." You'll also realize the voice inflections that you have during transmissions and may want to make changes to certain ways you say things in the future.
Only 3 days left of RTF! I'm looking forward to finishing up. On Monday we have our 70% skill check and then on Wednesday we have our PV.
By the way, I heard that they slightly changed all the RTF classes just after ours. If any of you are headed to RTF training anytime soon, get ready to play some PacMan! There is this program called Natpro Suite on the computers and they're using PacMan as a tool to improve your scanning and anticipation abilities. You'll play your typical PacMan game and they also have different speed settings like "insane" which is nearly impossible. Supposedly during the classroom days of RTF they'll have students play PacMan for 45 minutes to an hour or so and then during the lab days of RTF they'll replace one of the seven scenario time slots with a time slot of PacMan playing. Sounds like a waste of time to me. Personally, I hate that game and I don't see how playing it will improve anything above what running a scenario in that time slot would do for you instead.
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