Training Question

[MajorBloggs]

Hi all!

I was recently greenlit in the Vancouver FIR for the IFR, VFR, and FSS streams. Unfortunately I missed out on the IFR course beginning May 1st, but I have heard that there is a VFR course slated for July - fingers crossed!

My questions are to those who have taken part in training - whether you checked out or CT'd - what is training like? As in, what does an average day in training look like? How much time did you have in other parts of your life? What was the hardest thing to grasp?

For those of you who didn't make it through, what's something you wish you knew before going in? Any and all information is most welcome!

[chobs]

I'm VFR and finished my course this past summer and have been in on the job training since fall.

There was no real typical day on course as it could vary depending on whether we were in the sim, in the class or if our schedule had to change because our course was the same time as the FSS course and we shared the sim.

However, generally we would be in school from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Some days that would be all in class learning, some days all in the sim and other days a mixture, like perhaps finishing a lesson plan until 10 a.m. or so and then doing sim runs the rest of the day.

After class ended at 3 p.m. I would typically put in another hour or two of study before going home for supper. 5 to 7 p.m. was basically my family time for supper, play with the kids and put them to bed etc. Then many nights I would put in another hour of study before bed (but not every night, depending how productive I had been at school that day). Then on weekends was when we did extra sim time (often classes will get in extra sim runs after class but as mentioned we shared the sim with FSS and typically when our day ended they were in the sim so it wasn't feasible.

So generally would spend from 3 to 8 hours (the longer amounts being before sim evals) in the simulator practing on either Saturday or Sunday. At times we would go in both days, but again that would depend how we were feeling, how we had done the day before and if sim evals were coming. Before a written test for example we would likely lean more towards book study that weekend as opposed to sim.

Overall, you will definitely have less time to yourself and for personal life, but it's not hopeless. I did for example have to quit my baseball team (first time in 22 years I hadn't played ball in the summer) because I knew my weekends would be filled with study/summing. But it also wasn't like every waking moment was spent studying or working. I still spent time with my wife, took a night or day off completely from time to time, went to the gym, etc.

Out of the 4 on our course, 2 didn't make it (failed a written test). I can't speak directly for them but I think if they had regrets it would perhaps be that they had things going on in their lives that didn't let them devote sufficient time to studying. You do definitely have to make it a top priority in your life to succeed.

I would say overall one of the biggest challenges in training and especially so once it is real life and planes during on the job, is to be able to properly take constructive criticism and maintain a good attitude and positive outlook. You will screw up, a lot. Training can be very hard and it will beat you down if you let it. But it's important to just keep improving, take critcism as a means to try to improve your craft and keep on going.

Hope that helps.

[mjr2009]

I'm VFR and finished my course this past summer and have been in on the job training since fall.

There was no real typical day on course as it could vary depending on whether we were in the sim, in the class or if our schedule had to change because our course was the same time as the FSS course and we shared the sim.

However, generally we would be in school from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Some days that would be all in class learning, some days all in the sim and other days a mixture, like perhaps finishing a lesson plan until 10 a.m. or so and then doing sim runs the rest of the day.

After class ended at 3 p.m. I would typically put in another hour or two of study before going home for supper. 5 to 7 p.m. was basically my family time for supper, play with the kids and put them to bed etc. Then many nights I would put in another hour of study before bed (but not every night, depending how productive I had been at school that day). Then on weekends was when we did extra sim time (often classes will get in extra sim runs after class but as mentioned we shared the sim with FSS and typically when our day ended they were in the sim so it wasn't feasible.

So generally would spend from 3 to 8 hours (the longer amounts being before sim evals) in the simulator practing on either Saturday or Sunday. At times we would go in both days, but again that would depend how we were feeling, how we had done the day before and if sim evals were coming. Before a written test for example we would likely lean more towards book study that weekend as opposed to sim.

Overall, you will definitely have less time to yourself and for personal life, but it's not hopeless. I did for example have to quit my baseball team (first time in 22 years I hadn't played ball in the summer) because I knew my weekends would be filled with study/summing. But it also wasn't like every waking moment was spent studying or working. I still spent time with my wife, took a night or day off completely from time to time, went to the gym, etc.

Out of the 4 on our course, 2 didn't make it (failed a written test). I can't speak directly for them but I think if they had regrets it would perhaps be that they had things going on in their lives that didn't let them devote sufficient time to studying. You do definitely have to make it a top priority in your life to succeed.

I would say overall one of the biggest challenges in training and especially so once it is real life and planes during on the job, is to be able to properly take constructive criticism and maintain a good attitude and positive outlook. You will screw up, a lot. Training can be very hard and it will beat you down if you let it. But it's important to just keep improving, take critcism as a means to try to improve your craft and keep on going.

Hope that helps.

Did the candidates who failed the written test not get a retest? Or once you fail you are done type thing??

[chobs]

Did the candidates who failed the written test not get a retest? Or once you fail you are done type thing??

Yes, you do get a retest or re-eval if you fail in the sim. Sadly though in this case they failed the retest too, which yes leads to cease training.

[Braun]

Did the candidates who failed the written test not get a retest? Or once you fail you are done type thing??

Yes, you do get a retest or re-eval if you fail in the sim. Sadly though in this case they failed the retest too, which yes leads to cease training.

It also depends by how much you fail. Usually below 65% it's an automatic cease training recommendation.

[kevenv]

Did the candidates who failed the written test not get a retest? Or once you fail you are done type thing??

Yes, you do get a retest or re-eval if you fail in the sim. Sadly though in this case they failed the retest too, which yes leads to cease training.

It also depends by how much you fail. Usually below 65% it's an automatic cease training recommendation.

To add to Braun's answer, there is also a limit to how many times you get to do a re-eval over the whole course (not sure if the same applies to re-tests)

[northernexplorer123]

Ill sum up what the others said..

You are allowed 1 written test score below the pass mark (80%), and are given 1 re-write throughout the whole course. However, if you score below 65% on any written test, that is grounds for Cease Training. You will write a total of 4 written exams (including the ITA)

As for the sim evals, the scoring is up to the examiner's discretion, and I found that more often than not, unless you had a runway incursion or a loss of separation (caused by an error you made), the eval could be ugly, but still a pass. You are allowed 1 failed eval in each of the positions (tower and ground), and will be given a re-eval for each. In total, you will complete 3 sets of evals (each set consists of a run in ground and tower for each of the two main runways) so more like 12 runs in total.

[MajorBloggs]

I'm VFR and finished my course this past summer and have been in on the job training since fall.

There was no real typical day on course as it could vary depending on whether we were in the sim, in the class or if our schedule had to change because our course was the same time as the FSS course and we shared the sim.

However, generally we would be in school from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Some days that would be all in class learning, some days all in the sim and other days a mixture, like perhaps finishing a lesson plan until 10 a.m. or so and then doing sim runs the rest of the day.

After class ended at 3 p.m. I would typically put in another hour or two of study before going home for supper. 5 to 7 p.m. was basically my family time for supper, play with the kids and put them to bed etc. Then many nights I would put in another hour of study before bed (but not every night, depending how productive I had been at school that day). Then on weekends was when we did extra sim time (often classes will get in extra sim runs after class but as mentioned we shared the sim with FSS and typically when our day ended they were in the sim so it wasn't feasible.

So generally would spend from 3 to 8 hours (the longer amounts being before sim evals) in the simulator practing on either Saturday or Sunday. At times we would go in both days, but again that would depend how we were feeling, how we had done the day before and if sim evals were coming. Before a written test for example we would likely lean more towards book study that weekend as opposed to sim.

Overall, you will definitely have less time to yourself and for personal life, but it's not hopeless. I did for example have to quit my baseball team (first time in 22 years I hadn't played ball in the summer) because I knew my weekends would be filled with study/summing. But it also wasn't like every waking moment was spent studying or working. I still spent time with my wife, took a night or day off completely from time to time, went to the gym, etc.

Out of the 4 on our course, 2 didn't make it (failed a written test). I can't speak directly for them but I think if they had regrets it would perhaps be that they had things going on in their lives that didn't let them devote sufficient time to studying. You do definitely have to make it a top priority in your life to succeed.

I would say overall one of the biggest challenges in training and especially so once it is real life and planes during on the job, is to be able to properly take constructive criticism and maintain a good attitude and positive outlook. You will screw up, a lot. Training can be very hard and it will beat you down if you let it. But it's important to just keep improving, take critcism as a means to try to improve your craft and keep on going.

Hope that helps.

This is awesome, mind if I PM you with a couple more questions? Thanks a million.

[chobs]

This is awesome, mind if I PM you with a couple more questions? Thanks a million.

No problem and yes feel free to PM me with anything.

Thanks everyone else for clarifying and adding to my comments. My advice and it is what I did - don't fixate on 'oh I can still fail this but be ok' or paying a lot of focus to the failure aspect of it. My basic thought going in was I have no intention of failing anything but if I do at that point I will worry about the leeway on rewrites or sim evals and what not.

It should also be noted that all the above posts are based on VFR course. If you end up in IFR it is longer course, there are more tests and sim evals (including specialty course after basic) and I am unsure exactly how it works regarding rewrites and re evals there, although the basic framework is the same (80 per cent is a pass, need over 65 per cent for rewrite, can't fail the same thing twice, etc)