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As Ferris Bueller said "Life goes by pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it". And that is exactly what has happened in the two months since I last posted. Life has absolutely flown by, yet so much has happened.

Where I left off in my last post, 14 Air Traffic Control course was on the last stretch of the course, with only a couple of assessed exercises left. I am happy to report that all ten of us ended up passing despite a few hiccups along the way. Nevertheless, with a couple of ‘reconsolidate' exercises and a couple of ‘re-assess' exercises, we all made the grade. The final phase of the tower module saw more people stumble than we had seen in other phases. There could have been many reasons for this, but most likely are that by this phase we had all received our postings and were all excited, looking forward to and organising our big moves. Speaking of postings, members of 14 ATCC have been posted to Darwin, Tindal (Katherine, NT), Townsville, Amberley (Brisbane), Oakey (Toowoomba), Williamtown (Newcastle), Richmond (Sydney) and Pearce (Perth).

Following a few more subjects that we had to complete, including weather observers course, the graduation ceremony for the course was held on Wednesday 24th September 2008. Despite being a lot smaller than the OTS graduation last year, the SATC ceremony was much more meaningful. Not only was the Air Traffic Course a lot harder than the Officer's training course, meaning that it felt like more of an achievement to graduate, upon graduation many of us on course received promotions. For those of us like myself, who were Officer Cadets (OFFCDT) while training, this was a big moment, as we were promoted to either Pilot Officer (PLTOFF) or, if degree qualified, Flying Officer (FLGOFF). My promotion to FLGOFF not only means that at last, I finally feel like a ‘real' RAAF officer, but it also came with a nice tidy pay rise which just about doubled my salary.

The SATC graduation was also special for me because I was awarded the Garry Haynes Trophy for dux of the course. Prior to starting the Air Traffic Course, we were all aware of the reputation that the course has for its high rate of failure. In most things that I do, I like to set challenging but achievable goals, however setting a goal that matched this criteria for the course was in itself challenging. In the first few weeks of the course, I was wondering how many more weeks I would remain on course. So was completing the course an achievable goal? At that stage I wasn't sure. So back in those early days I decided the best goal that I could set myself was to do the best I could. If doing the best I could resulted in me being suspended from course for inadequate performance, then so be it. As long as I could look back and honestly say that I gave it the best I could, I would be happy. So I spent the eight months at SATC giving it the best I could. I never dreamed that I would be dux of the course, but having the long evenings and entire weekends of study recognised and rewarded was a nice feeling.

Since graduation, life has changed in a big way. When I started the course, my wife and I agreed that if I was successful in passing, I could buy a new car as a graduation present. I am by far not a ‘car guy', so when I tell you that I bought a new Mitsubishi Lancer VR, you probably going to think ‘so what'. But coming from a 2001 model 2 door CE Lancer, the 2008 Lancer is a totally different car. Full of features and a fantastic safety rating. The plan was to drive to Darwin in the new car, but I didn't want to get stone chips on my new baby, so instead we decided to drive to Adelaide then catch The Ghan (with the car on the motor-rail) to Darwin. If anybody ever has the opportunity to do this trip, I would definitely recommend it. You see a part of the country you would never see in a relaxed, stress free environment, not having to worry about stonechips, stray cattle, Kangaroos or breaking down at Barrow Creek.

Since we have been in Darwin, we have moved into our ‘married quarter' (most married quarters these days are normal houses in normal suburbs which are simply owned by the Department of Defence). Our place is in a suburb called The Gardens, which is about a 10 minute walk to Mindil Beach (site of the famous Mindil Beach sunset markets) and about a 5 minute walk to the city. My wife is working about a 10 minute walk from home, and it takes me no more than 25 minutes to ride to work. The weather is pretty warm and sticky, especially at the moment. We are in a period known as the ‘build up', which is the transition between the dry season and the wet season. The temperature and humidity are high and it threatens to rain every day, but never does. Eventually the rain will come and cool everything down a bit.

At work, I am undergoing on the job training (OJT) to gain my endorsement as a Tower Controller. It is great fun, and every day brings something different. At the same time, it is still pretty scary because I am still not totally comfortable with what I am doing and any errors can be catastrophic. Luckily I have a training officer holding my hand. So far, I haven't had a lot of exposure to the shift work environment at Darwin Tower, being mostly on day shift. However, I have had one weekend on day shift, a couple of afternoon shifts (11am - 7pm) and a morning shift (5:45am - 2:00pm). That will change in the coming weeks, when I will go on the normal shift cycle (basically afternoon, afternoon, morning, morning, night). With any luck, I should gain my TWR rating in the middle of December. Then, possibly a bit of a break for Christmas and back in early January to begin Surface Movement Controller OJT.

Nearly four months since my last post..... where does time go??

Let's see. Where do I start?

In my last post, I mentioned that the course was just about to finish the Core module and move into the Tower module. Over the last four months, we have completed SAR (Search and Rescue) theory, IFER (In Flight Emergency Response) theory and practical exercises and most of the Tower module. The Tower module is scheduled to finish this Tuesday, with just one SMC (surface movement controller) assessed exercise and one TWR (tower controller) assessed exercise to go. Hopefully, we all pass.

Now, if you are following from my last post, you would now be thinking that I pretty much have just one module to go - Radar. Well, not quite. As some people may be aware, there is a world wide shortage of Air Traffic Controllers which is also being felt in Australia. Within the last few months, around 30 RAAF controllers have left the air force, some to pursue careers with the Australian civil air traffic control provider. This has left the RAAF in need of new controllers. This is where we come into it. Rather than complete the Radar module, our course has been shortened to a ‘basic' course, in that we are completing only the Core module and one other module (Tower in our case). We will need to come back to the school in the next couple of years to complete the Radar course, but for now we are going out to the field to be Tower controllers. So, only a couple of days of Tower to go, then a few days of some more meteorology stuff and we graduate. Graduation is Wednesday 24th September.

This of course leads to what happens to me after graduation. A couple of months ago we all received our posting orders. After I graduate, I get to go home to Melbourne to supervise my removal then my wife and I are driving to.... Darwin. A bit of a change from Melbourne, but we are both looking forward to a change of scenery and lifestyle. RAAF controllers at Darwin are responsible for the RAAF base and for Darwin International Airport, which share the same airfield. If you are ever flying into Darwin, I might just be part of the team who is managing the safety of your flight.

The RAAF ATC course is comprised of three modules - Core, which includes nine weeks of core theory and eight weeks of procedural control, Tower and Radar. Last week, the majority of us finally got to the end of the Core module, passing our IMC approach practical assessments. This brings to an end the longest and most theory intense module of the course. Unfortunately, one of the course members has so far failed to gain a 'competent' mark in the IMC assessment. He has a review exercise on Monday, so hopefully he will pass that and we can take 11 members into the next module.

As we move into the tower phase, we can expect the rate of learning to slow slightly, since Tower is considered the easiest of the three modules. However, with Radar being the last and hardest module, we will have to ensure that we do not slacken off too much during Tower and that we are ready to increase the work rate for Radar.

Not much other news from East Sale. It's generally a case of work during the day, study at night and on weekends, and repeat.... punctuated only by a few events such as Air Force Week cocktail party, Anzac Day parades and Dining-In night.

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I'm now 15 weeks into the 42 week long Air Traffic Control course. The course is conducted at RAAF East Sale. My wife is still in Melbourne while I am at Sale on course. We both decided that it would be better for her to stay in her current job and remain in Melbourne, rather than having to move to Sale and a new job for one year, then have to do it all again at the end of the year when I get posted. She comes to Sale for a weekend normally every month, and I get home when I can on weekends. A lot has to do with the study load.

I started off living on base at Sale. However, this only lasted for two weeks. One thing about living on base is that most single, young, noisy members also seem to live on base. I am none of the above, so for my own sanity and a little bit of peace and quiet, I decided to move off base. I am living in a small (actually, very small) unit in Sale itself, about five kilometers from the base. The place itself is nothing special, but it is comfortable and clean and in an excellent location - a couple of minutes walk to the lake and about the same into the town centre. And it is in probably the nicest street in Sale (something about the worst house in the best street??). Living off base also allows me to ride to work (as short a ride it is) which is helping to keep my fitness at a semi-respectable level. It's also nice to be able to segregate the place I work and study at with the place I relax at.

As for the course itself - where do I start? The first nine weeks or so was taken up with core theory, with an average of two exams per week and a required pass mark for each exam of 75% or greater. The things we were getting taught were not overly difficult to understand, but we were getting taught A LOT of stuff. That seems to be an ongoing thing with the Air Traffic Control thing. The concepts are not overly difficult, there's just a lot of them. And you need to know them verbatim. During the theory phase, classes went from 0740 until 1700, and I would generally spend until around 2100 each night studying and 7 to 8 hours each on Saturdays and Sundays studying. The hard work paid off, and for the majority of exams I received a distinction (95% or above). A couple weren't so good, and I only got credits (85% or above). We lost one course member during the theory phase due to inadequate performance. That's another thing about the course - there is not a lot of margin for error. For the theory side of things, if you fail an exam, you get to do a supplementary exam. Fail the sup, and you are off course. Pass the sup, and everything is ok, unless you later on fail another theory exam (primary, not a sup), then you are off course. It works similarly for the practical side of things, but for the purposes of practical assessment, the course is divided into modules, with each module being treated separately for performance purposes.

The last 6 weeks, and for the next 2 weeks, we have been completing the Procedural Approach control practical module. Procedural Approach it basically getting aircraft from 50 nautical miles (about 90km) away from the airfield to being in sight of the airfield, or vice versa for departing aircraft (the 'approach' in Procedural Approach) without using a radar to be able to see where the aircraft are (the 'procedural' in Procedural Approach). Procedural Approach basically relies on a set of rules and procedures and reports from aircraft to ensure that they don't hit each other. We have completed the VMC (basically, good weather) phase of Procedural Approach and over the next couple of weeks will be completing the IMC (bad weather) phase of Procedural Approach. Two course members failed their VMC assessed simulator session and their supplementary assesments, so they are now off course.

Having started with 14 people, we are now 11, and just over a third of the way through the course. This isn't too bad, since the course before us were down to about 5 people at the same time. Hopefully I will be one of the lucky ones to remain on course until the end, but that isn't going to happen while I'm wasting time updating my blog.......