VATUSA Academy Brochure Announcement

[William Fowler 917021]

I wish there had been a program like this back when I first signed up to do controlling.... I took the Observer exam and was consequently [Mod - Happy Thoughts]igned to my chosen ARTCC, and logged some OBS time to try and learn the ropes. The problem I had was that I was never able to get instructor time in my chosen ARTCC. I'm not gonna name that ARTCC, but I will say that it wasn't any fault of theirs, there were several I-1's and even an I-3 available; I have to shoulder 100% of the blame. Every time I was gonna schedule a block of instructor time, something would inevitably come up to prevent me, and I was eventually dropped from the roster for inactivity. Things slowed down, and I requested reinstatement, which I was granted, but then the same thing started happening again and I got dropped a second time. I haven't requested reinstatement again because I just know the same thing would happen again.

 

Now we have this Academy, however I'm ineligible to join it as I was signed up as a controller prior to the cutoff date, which I don't recall offhand; but I was rather disappointed to see that I was unable to join. I'm looking forward to the day when it's thrown open to anyone wanting to join it, regardless of when they took the Observer test.

 

I wonder if an exception would be made in my case.... I *would* like to move past S1.

[Jason Sutton 879715]

Now we have this Academy, however I'm ineligible to join it as I was signed up as a controller prior to the cutoff date, which I don't recall offhand; but I was rather disappointed to see that I was unable to join. I'm looking forward to the day when it's thrown open to anyone wanting to join it, regardless of when they took the Observer test.

 

I wonder if an exception would be made in my case.... I *would* like to move past S1.

 

William, VATUSA is getting very close to allowing open enrollment into the Academy for all S1 controllers (within the Division) with no or very little training. Although I cannot give you an exact date, Anthony and I are going to try and put something into play within the next 60 days. Definitely stay tuned.

[Timothy Boger 942264]

The Academy is great stuff, but I wouldn't jump on the bandwagon and become a mentor unless you can put serious time and effort into the system. I was one of those mentors that simply couldn't find time, and it hurt the students and the efficiency of the academy.