VATUSA Forums
General => Simple Insanity => Topic started by: Don Desfosse on April 01, 2013, 01:17:56 AM
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Responding to an urgent FAA need, I'm pleased to announce that VATUSA has entered into a new partnership with the FAA, MITRE, and Raytheon Technical Training Services Company to provide top-down ATC training to selected FAA controllers at the TRACON and Center level, effective immediately.
In the press release released last night from the FAA announcing the partnership, we received high praise for our ability to adapt to imperfect staffing levels, and that's precisely what the FAA is facing with the sequestration tower cuts. "We are thrilled to begin this partnership with VATUSA" said Len Romke, from the FAA Office Of Public Safety. "VATUSA, and VATSIM, are much more proficient at terminating services than the FAA controllers providing terminal radar control services who, although certified to do so, rarely had the need, and rarely got the practice. More importantly, and key to the success of this initiative," said Romke, "VATUSA controllers are well versed in the art of providing top-down service. In spite of the unfortunate circumstances we're being faced with, this is a great opportunity for these controllers to learn how to operate top-down so we can provide ATC down to the ground for the pilots who have been accustomed to such service in the past. Who knows? If this works, we may be able to start opening up other airspace that is currently not controlled and provide Tower and below service to dozens, hundreds, more fields. We've been looking for an opportunity to take over these fields for a long time."
Coding is being finalized as we speak, but ATMs can expect direct-entry roster additions for these real world controllers, who will be arriving with the new ATC rating of S4 to set them apart from everyone else and provide the needed flag that these guys are the real deal. The expectation, in order for VATUSA to meet its contract requirements, is for these controllers to be provided at least 5 hours of instruction and/or monitoring by VATUSA Instructors and/or Mentors, focused solely on providing top-down service at the affected airfields. That's it! Teach the controllers how to use an ATC client and teach Approach and Center controllers how to issue Local control instructions for five hours. What could be easier?
MITRE and Raytheon Technical Training Services personnel will monitor these controllers online for Quality Control purposes. When online, they will use the callsigns MIT_OBS and RAY_OBS, respectively.
This is truly a win-win for VATUSA and for the FAA; the FAA will learn new, important skills that are suddenly required by recent real-world events, and VATUSA will pick up upwards of 200 new controllers that, the hope is, will like controlling here enough they stay on with VATUSA for the long term. These experienced FAA controllers will be able to help us up our game and allow us to provide a more valuable service to the pilots we serve as well.
I'll publish more info in this thread as more information becomes available, and as questions come up that could use answers that are shared amongst us all. I hope you're all as excited at this opportunity as I am. Let's do this!
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Classic!
April Fools!
Good one Don
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I can't wait! I know Mr. Romke quite well, glad he provided the statement for this press release
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But...but...I'm already an I1! If they hire me under this, I get a rating downgrade?!?
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No, not at all, Dhruv. That's honestly one of the points that I never thought of. With the speed of this deployment needed to respond to this urgent situation, honestly the FAA and VATUSA have decided to deploy the 90% solution in the need for speed, knowing and agreeing that we'd have to work out some of the finer details as we go along. Anyone accepted into this program by the FAA that already has a C1 or higher rating with VATSIM will maintain their VATSIM rating.
And, yes, I'd be remiss in not giving John credit for working behind the scenes to help make this the reality that it is today. Thank you!
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....
I'm such a sucker.... lol....
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Is that sarcasm Mark or seriousness?
Nice post thought guys! Now only if you could make the VATUSA page look like a geocities page for the day.
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Does the contract state what your BAC level must be to provide training to these FAA controllers? I mean I am totally on board with us going ahead with this but I think we need to get some of the details out there to really make this an attractive proposition.
I knew I would find a gem on here, this one is pretty good my friend!
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I hate being in a different timezone, daylight savings has me all confused, humm
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Is that sarcasm Mark or seriousness?
Nice post thought guys! Now only if you could make the VATUSA page look like a geocities page for the day.
He's being serious. Someone has to pick up the ball and run with it against the grain whenever VATUSA issues a directive such as this without the usual and customary month's worth of postings, meetings and skype calls to evaluate the pros and cons of such a potentially dangerous unilateral decision!
After all, that may be your grandmother on that plane the I am controlling!!!
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I am more surprised the FAA did not publish this in the Federal Register yet -- I am an avid reader
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Interesting proposition by the FAA. On one hand I can see the good press for the VATSIM/VATUSA community. But, like Ira, I can also see the "grandmother" scenario.
Headlines read: "Due to Sequestration FAA outsources Controller Training to Online Gamers."
The public already thinks that Air Traffic Controllers are the only reason airplanes can fly.... PFM or something... but this probably won't look the best for the FAA if/when the media gets a hold of it.
I am honestly not trying to bash our online community in this post, far from it. I just see the irony in allowing a bunch of "controllers" to teach a bunch of controllers. I mean... for goodness sake. I'm the DATM of my facility, but I've never been an ATC, never had any formal ATC training, and realize that the Online community can be drastically different from the real world. That's not to say I don't know what I'm doing, but I can guarantee there are parts of the 7110.65 that doesn't get used on VATSIM... for a darn good reason.
Like I said... interesting proposition. I'm looking forward to a challenge...
JJ
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I'm looking at the date on my calendar and it say's April 1. Hmmmmmm.........I hope there's no connection
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Well, I don't know about you guys, but I found that entertaining.
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@Jeffery:
http://i.imgur.com/YwgbT16.gif (http://i.imgur.com/YwgbT16.gif)
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Very funny
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OK, it looks like most of you got it.... But a couple of you clearly didn't, and may still be actively believing that we're getting ready for some high-falutin' collaboration with the FAA... and there may be a couple in the "undecided" camp, so I'll let you all off the hook....
[size=]Happy April Fool's Day!![/size]
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Haha. How much had you consumed prior to posting this Don? Of course I always thought I was better than most of the FAA guys I hear on LiveATC (they always mess things up!).
(Yes, I was typing this as you put your last FYI)
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All I can say is, Brilliant!
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I actually did get an email a few weeks ago from an FAA Safety Inspector who was investigating an incident on a UAL flight betwee TIST and KPHL where the pilot declared limited fuel. The pilot claimed in his irregularity report with the FAA that a controller told him his dispatch route that was filed and subsequently flown was illegal. This Safety Inspector from the Houston FSDO was on the Certificate team for UAL and he wanted to know if the filed route was indeed valid with us. After checking the guy out with an FAA domain email adr, he was indeed legit and thought he was sending an email to the r/w ZMA ATM. I did check the route for the guy and sent him an email back that it was indeed valid (at least with us) with all the requisite vZMA disclaimer info, along with the link to our website. I honestly thought that would be the last I heard from the guy after he realized his mistake. However, he then sent back a nice email thanking me for taking the time to research the matter.
Either the Safety Inspector still had no idea who he was communicating with, or else he did and quickly attempted to cover the "boo boo" with a polite reply back. In any event, nothing surprises me anymore.......
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I hope we can all enjoy a few beers while we train these real controllers.....and I wonder how those controllers feel being trained by "Controllers".
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FYI for anyone interested, Len Romke is a reference to one of VATSIM's founders Ron Lemke That was my immediate tipoff when I first read it (and hence my reply )
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Someone asked me how many "tells" there were that this was an April Fool's Day joke.
Other than the obvious two --- 1. It's crazy to think anything like this would ever happen, and 2. It was published on April Fool's Day, here are a few others (there may be more....). Some are more "believable" than others....
3. MITRE, though it's had a connection to VATSIM, doesn't have a connection (that I'm aware of) to ATC training and evaluation...
4. The FAA just plain doesn't do top-down...
5. The FAA doesn't usually do non-accident related press releases on a Sunday night, particularly Easter Sunday...
6. Len Romke. ATMs and DATMs may now look in the ATM/DATM thread on this topic for Ron's thoughts, and the twisting that was done in this press release (consider that an "Easter Egg" for ATMs and DATMs only )... No disrespect meant to Ron; the twisting was just a fun way to take his input and twist it for this ruse.
7. "We've been looking for an opportunity to take over these fields for a long time"... Holy takeover, Batman!
8. S4...
9. VATUSA signing a contract with the FAA? Not likely, at least not without the VATUSA lawyer we don't have.....
10. Loose performance requirements of the "contract"
11. As was mentioned in one of the posts, "gamers" "teaching" controllers? Yeah, that'd look great on the front page of the New York Times...
12. MIT_OBS and RAY_OBS for non-members (could happen, but not likely)
13. "...to help make this the reality that it is today." -- Lack of reality, due to the day (date, really) that is today
I got a few really concerned, upset, fuming emails, asking me if I had any idea what kind of liability I was assuming on behalf of individual members and on behalf of VATSIM. I did have to clue those folks in, early. And, I was, of course, "caught red-handed", just 15 minutes into the ruse (see above). I had to hide that post temporarily so the fun didn't die that fast.
But hopefully I didn't get anyone's blood pressure up enough to cause permanent damage, and I hope you had as much fun with this as I did. For the record, I hadn't had a drop -- I'm naturally that mischievous!! See ya next year!
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Oh, yeah! I forgot one....
14. The FAA's Office Of Public Safety (OOPS!)