Rating questions

[Romano Lara]

SNIP::

Edited January 22, 2008 at 02:17 PM by Guest

[David Kluempers]

I don't often browse the Canada forums but today I just felt the need to check around the world to see what was going on out there.

 

I am not sure about Canada or the rest of the world, but in the US the FAA can let you search their database at:

 

http://www.faa.gov/licenses_certificates/airmen_certification/interactive_airmen_inquiry/

 

Of course the pilot will need to provide their address so that the inquiry can be completed by the staff. It does not show social security numbers which could have been a privacy issue.

 

I would imagine other Pilot Certification Agencies elsewhere might provide similar inquiries.

[Steven Black 813373]

I'm curious what reply you will get to this especially in view of the new VATSIM global ratings policy. Right now, an S3 is one who is qualified to work at APP positions. Even though one might be a pilot, they might not be expected to be familiar with local OPs as far as ATC is concerned.

Essentially my best guess is that you might get "fasttracked" but most of the training steps will still need to be taken. Real-world pilots, especially those with Instrument ratings have usually proven to be a "quick study" in my experience. Nevertheless, certification to any position is not automatic. A certain orientation to the airspace and procedures plus supervision including perhaps some "Sweatbox" time will still be required.

The kind of proof required I suppose is somewhat subjective. But many of our FIR staff are real-world ATC or Pilots and it doesn't take long to smoke out pretenders. And believe me, we see many pretenders.

[Romano Lara]

Anyway thanks for all those clarifications. Cause, I was really surprised with that SOP. Cause it could be unfair to other controllers who started from a scratch then someone would just come in as an S3??

 

Let's end this topic here, can someone lock this post?

[Alan Taylor 825557]

Actually Romano, I won't lock this thread as the original question was a good one. He asked about RW pilots license and being bumped to an S3 automatically.

 

This docomeent is slightly outdated with the recent VATSIM ratings revisions, we are no longer able to meet the "controlling in CTR" criteria as the new VATSIM Ratings require a Controller 1 rating to man a CTR position. However special consideration is given to real world pilots as we find that 90% of the time it is very obvious to the evaluating Chief Instructor that the person has a far better than average knowledge of ATC procedures.

 

My best answer to this would be that you can expect your FIR to "escalate" your progression through the training system,but it will be from your present rating and on and it is almost always done on individual consideration. This means just because you have a pilot's license, doesn't guarantee an S3 rating, your FIR Chief and/or Chief Instructor will test you in some way to see how well you actually perform ATC functions.

 

To be honest, I am newly appointed to the VATCAN1 position and am not familiar with how this actually works and do not know what kind of proof was required, but as a former FIR Chief (2 years in CZVR) I never once was asked to use this part of the training standard, I just "fast" tracked the RW pilot to a level that suited his abilities.

 

Hope this helps, if you have any more questions re: this or anything else, don't hesitate to write - if I don't know the answer, I'll certainly get an answer for you.