ATM Seminar at Cranwell tomorrow

[orgASMic]

Is anyone interested in the ATM Seminar at Cranwell tomorrow? Apparently, the Powers That Be have decided it is about time that air traffickers got with the whole military programme and stopped trying to civilianise the specialisation without paying civilian wages. This is well overdue, IMHO. The sooner we start taking our performance on ops more seriously, rather than worrying about CAP413, the better.

The boys and girls at BSN are doing a great job but must be at the limit of their ability - where in the UK can they practice shifting that amount of metal before they do it for real in far more difficult conditions?

We don't even make the most of the success story that is BSN ATC. 1ACC came home from BSN to fanfares and parades and 'didn't we do well?' having done 3 years on ops. They weren't even all 1ACC personnel - they were front-line WCs rotated through from Bouulmer and Scampton. There has been an operational ATC presence in AFG since 2001 and we have not even got our own trumpet out of the box, let alone blown it loud and proud. Has anyone missed 1ACC? Have TICs gone unserviced because of their absence? No! Could anyone operate in Helmand without BSN ATC? Damn right, they could not!

No-one in charge has ever taken the preparation of air traffickers for deployed ops seriously. You only have to read the accident report (and know what was left out of it) from Pristina in '99 to see that. Nothing has changed in the intervening 10 and a bit years. I know there is now a course at SBY cos, according to JPA, I have done it. In practice, I got the training by practical experience and being thrown in at the deep end on UK exercises. And I am not talking about DOT. What a joke that is for ATM - go to a fully-found airbase with its own ATC and talk about the problems of controlling in an unfamiliar environment.

The new AO BM needs to get a grip of it pronto. We suffered years of neglect under the Dark Lord and it needs to change.

 

[R_Squared]

Having been briefed today about the upcoming changes all I can say is, it's probably about time.
18 months to full endorsement for first tourists, and 3 months for multi- tourists will be a challenge at first though.

I will also be interested to see how this will impact our manning.
What was emphasised to us was that this will sort the "wheat from the chaff". Failure to endorse in the given timescales will result in being kicked out.
I wonder how this will go down considering that we consistently struggle to recruit for our specialisation, and how exactly they intend to implement that.

 

[FOMz]

Did they mention the proposed merger with ABM?

A common radar foundation course after which you will be streamed into eiter ATC, ABM or IDO?????

Oh and the fact you are being taken out of TG9 (about time to) and put in a new ASC TG...

 

[R_Squared]

Not directly at our briefing, but I imagine that is the next thing on the cards.

It seems to me that whilst the decisions have been made, it is all being made up "on the hoof" so to speak.

There was talk of Endorsements being changed from their present position focus to an individual Radar, Visual and Precision Approach ticket. Once endorsed at your first tour you take these endorsements with you, and at your new unit, focus on any local procedures, before re-endorsing.
That makes a great deal of sense.

There will also be the requirement for all to have a PK every 3 years, not just LEOs and Sups. This is in recognition of the fact that experience and knowledge levels are going to drop in the future, and this is how they see us addressing that.

There are going to be problems, we have had a slew of JATCC graduates going directly from the school to Area. Whilst they should have no problems with endorsing in Approach and Zone, Director, PAR and VCR could be a great deal more challenging, especially if they have to do it in 3 months.

Another thing that was brought up, and I'm not sure if this is even the actual plan or not, is to set up ATC "OCUs". A selection of units throughout the country where all JATCC graduates go to initially. Once fully endorsed, they then get farmed out to another unit as second tourists. This made for a lively chat in the tower today as we tried to work out who the lucky units may be, and how we could man such a unit.

I think your dream of a controller-less TG9 is fast approaching Fomz, I think this is probably the first step in an amalgamation.

You better get those grip strengthening exercises on the go, you've got a big pile of chinese burns to dish out in the next year before you go. DT_Xtremez_14:

 

[Ex Tg3]

Has anyone missed 1ACC? Have TICs gone unserviced because of their absence? No!

Now open up that narrow mind of yours FFS.

I think you may find that 1ACC were replaced by someone else, therefore 'they' themselves wouldn't be missed if the replacement unit are providing the same service.

And did BSN ATC ever provide the same service as 1ACC? If not, stop comparing and find a decent argument.

 

[orgASMic]

My point was that 1ACC made such a big song and dance about what they were up to and are dazzling the top brass with their war stories, whereas ATC is seen as the poor relation with no operational function. It was a comparison of levels of levels of spin and PR, not of role. Anyone would think that they have won the war single-handedly.
My argument is that we need to shake off the shackles of the Cold War and look to our own strengths not rush to become civilianised by allowing ourselves to become irrelevant.

 

[R_Squared]

......My argument is that we need to shake off the shackles of the Cold War and look to our own strengths not rush to become civilianised by allowing ourselves to become irrelevant.

I don't think ATC will ever be irrelevant as long as there is an RAF, but we may need to change how we do things.

Its worth remembering though that 95% of what we do is still in UK airspace, so whilst we obviously need to be more operationally focused and flexible, we are still required to do our jobs full time at home.

As long as they have cheap military controllers, civilianisation is not really going to be an option.

 

[orgASMic]

Which is precisely what AOC 3 Gp said on his farewell tour as his command was being disbanded. However, the RAF is shrinking and there must be a break-even point at which the size of the RAF and the number of flying stations cannot justify having its own ATC services. SERCO and the like already provide ATC at military airfields, so it must be possible for them to do it economically. The only justification for retaining military controllers beyond that break-even point is the ability to deploy them to wherever UK military aircraft are operating, which leaves us with two options:

a. Maintain the current set-up, but accept that it will mean a total revision of training to ensure that controllers have sufficient experience to be able operate large volumes of mixed traffic in austere conditions.

or

b. Accept that we cannot afford our own any longer and contract out ATC at the small number of MOBs that remain and rely on a small military cadre along the lines of TacATC to cover deployed ops.

​

Clearly, both are expensive.

Option A gives us the flexibility that we currently enjoy, supported by relevent pre-deployment training. it also probably means that we have taken over ATC at RNASs and on the carriers in order to make it worthwhile and to safe the RN some cash. (Sustainability of RN ATC is another conversation).

Option B leaves you with a cadre of military controllers looking something like a USAF Combat Control Team (but without the requirement for all the Spec Ops training they do) running on civilian licenses (no CATCS means no Blue Book and it is what the USAF does) and with its manning augmented by those civilian controllers at military airfields who want to join in as auggies, along the lines of the Mobile Met Unit.

In the event that the status quo is maintained, either through political will or the size of the RAF continues to justify it, we need to look at how we want to sell ourselves to the recruitment pool. We need to get all our operators qualified as airspace managers, get involved with Joint Fires planning and offer our expertise to the RA. We need to have a better handle on controlling activities other than ATC ie MAOTs, UAVs and their ilk. We had our chance in the last Defence Review to take FAC and MAOT tasks under our wing, but did not want the responsibility. We preferred, instead, to laager up on our MOBs and bury our heads in procedure. Unless we start selling our wares, we will lose out on a lot of development opportunities to ABMs and the RA. They want it all and will not worry if we lose out.

 

[orgASMic]

So no-one has any interest in or opinions on the future of ATC in the RAF then.

That just about says it all!

 

[FOMz]

Too little too late I'm afraid. The ATC airships have spent so long trying to align themselves with the CAA, they've forgotton that they are in the military...

Suddenly, when the writing is on the wall for RAF ATC..... they panic and come up with that...

Civillianise I say and keep a small cadre of blue suiters for deployment. And when i say civillianise - not to the CAA, but to contract companies such as Airworks or Serco. It works at all the AAC airfields, so the RAF can make it work as well.

 

[R_Squared]

This is our forum, you can't post here. (apparently)

You're right about them leaving it too late, but I think you're dreaming if you think they'll civilianise the job and still have a large enough pool of controllers for OOA.
The AAC bases are in no way comparable to any other RAF base for the purpose of civilianisation. For example, whilst not AAC, we are having to bail out Wyton with controllers at the moment because they have singularly failed to recruit and retain the right guys. They had them, but they walked out short notice leaving us to fill the gap.

They are also in the process of greatly increasing the OOA posts. Simply put, the amount of movements every day demands a large pool of controllers. We haven't got them currently.
The realisation then dawned that out of a pool of 600ish controllers available only 120 could control OOA under the new requirements of IFR. A few are downgraded, some are instructors, or Area, but the vast majority have been because, RAF wide it is taking an age to get any meaningful endorsements. There are lots of different reasons for this, but they have decided that a big stick needs to be waved about to get things moving again.
That is why they've chucked all their teddies out of the pram and brought in the new targets.

 

[R_Squared]

So no-one has any interest in or opinions on the future of ATC in the RAF then.

That just about says it all!

There aren't too many controllers on here, unfortunately.

 

[Muttley]

Which is precisely what AOC 3 Gp said on his farewell tour as his command was being disbanded. However, the RAF is shrinking and there must be a break-even point at which the size of the RAF and the number of flying stations cannot justify having its own ATC services. SERCO and the like already provide ATC at military airfields, so it must be possible for them to do it economically. The only justification for retaining military controllers beyond that break-even point is the ability to deploy them to wherever UK military aircraft are operating, which leaves us with two options:

a. Maintain the current set-up, but accept that it will mean a total revision of training to ensure that controllers have sufficient experience to be able operate large volumes of mixed traffic in austere conditions.

or

b. Accept that we cannot afford our own any longer and contract out ATC at the small number of MOBs that remain and rely on a small military cadre along the lines of TacATC to cover deployed ops.

​

Clearly, both are expensive.

Option A gives us the flexibility that we currently enjoy, supported by relevent pre-deployment training. it also probably means that we have taken over ATC at RNASs and on the carriers in order to make it worthwhile and to safe the RN some cash. (Sustainability of RN ATC is another conversation).

Option B leaves you with a cadre of military controllers looking something like a USAF Combat Control Team (but without the requirement for all the Spec Ops training they do) running on civilian licenses (no CATCS means no Blue Book and it is what the USAF does) and with its manning augmented by those civilian controllers at military airfields who want to join in as auggies, along the lines of the Mobile Met Unit.

In the event that the status quo is maintained, either through political will or the size of the RAF continues to justify it, we need to look at how we want to sell ourselves to the recruitment pool. We need to get all our operators qualified as airspace managers, get involved with Joint Fires planning and offer our expertise to the RA. We need to have a better handle on controlling activities other than ATC ie MAOTs, UAVs and their ilk. We had our chance in the last Defence Review to take FAC and MAOT tasks under our wing, but did not want the responsibility. We preferred, instead, to laager up on our MOBs and bury our heads in procedure. Unless we start selling our wares, we will lose out on a lot of development opportunities to ABMs and the RA. They want it all and will not worry if we lose out.

Well reasoned arguments! I personally go for option B. But I would say that!!

 

[Cerberus]

The option of 'civilianisation' of the ATC specialisations has been attempted many times during my 35+ years service. It always appears attractive on the surface and seems to enable savings from the Defence Budget - yet every time it's been attempted it doesn't happen for a number of reasons:

Where would you find the necessary pool of civilan controllers? If you have a civil ATC licence at the moment you can find yourself a well paid job without too much difficulty. There is no undiscovered pool of civil ATCOs out there just waiting for the chance to apply to work as a military ATCO and I very much doubt there ever will be. Furthermore, would some of the military ATC units appeal much to a civil ATCO with the option to choose where to work? Most civil ATC units are reasonably close to civilisation, not out in the middle of nowhere and some military units are relatively undemanding - perhaps this explains the difficulty of retaining civil controllers at Wyton and Wattisham.

The only way the lack of available civil controllers could be addressed would be to have a mass conversion of military ATCOs, but GATCO and the Unions would never agree to this and the ANO would have to be amended, so that's never going to happen.

The cost of employing civil ATCOs has always been a major stumbling block to the 'civilianisation' of RAF ATC. Again I doubt this will ever change and in fact if anything the pay gap if widening.

If we civilianise RAF ATC where would this leave the Area units? NATS would have to agree to provide the service and as they cannot generate enough new civil controllers to satisfy the demands of LATCC & ScATCC, I doubt they would take on the task, even if they wanted too. If they did take on the RAF task, how long would it be before they 'adjusted' the current arrangements to suit themselves, leaving the RAF task to wither in the corner.

Given the shape and size of the future RAF, I see only two options:

1. A combined ATC/FC organisation with much closer intergration and training. This is what AOBM is attempting to introduce, but whether he really grasps the differences between ATC & FC operations is another matter - having heard him talk on the subject a number of times, I have my doubts. I suspect he favours the FC desire to have a combined ATC/FC school at Coningsby, because it happens to suit the FC organisation.

2. A purely civil ATC organisation throughout the UK and pay the going rate. All ATC controllers trained to the same common civil standard and then posted to either civil or military units. Military units would operate to civil ATC rules & regulations. TAC ATC would have to be done by FC guys trained by the US Marines.

Personally, I would prefer the second option. It works in New Zealand, so why wouldn't it work in the UK?

Cerberus

 

[R_Squared]

........not out in the middle of nowhere and some military units are relatively undemanding - perhaps this explains the difficulty of retaining civil controllers at Wyton .......

Just to clarify, the reason as I understood it, why the civilians at Wyton walked out was because;

a) The working hours comprised every weekend with days taken off in the week, and there was no flexibility with this.

b) The amount of movements is actually pretty high, lots of trainee pilots in the circuit and operating in the local area all gusting in and out as they pleased.

c) There was a disagreement about pay.

One of our FS' who went to fill the post last year said it was one of the busiest little airfields he has worked at, with a high continuous workrate required, and not much in the way of breaks.
One officer who was sent there failed to endorse in the 3 weeks we were given in order to take over.

Wattisham seems to get along fine, but that may be because it is AAC Apaches, and they come to us for any radar training they require.

I do think this has all been a bit of a knee jerk reaction though, the realisation that the FC's are presenting a really punchy "operational" case, and are pushing for things to go their way, may be the reason why some of our hierachy have got their knickers in a twist.
Personally, I don't think it matters how it goes as long as the job gets done.

 

[Double Rock Right]

Has anyone missed 1ACC? Have TICs gone unserviced because of their absence? No! Could anyone operate in Helmand without BSN ATC? Damn right, they could not!

The new AO BM needs to get a grip of it pronto. We suffered years of neglect under the Dark Lord and it needs to change.

In answer to the first paragraph, yes. The service in theatre at the moment in very much inferior to that 1ACC & ASACS ERS provided. I have not worked with the USMC unit now in theatre but, the GR4 aircrew in theatre are less than impressed having Crowbar as a comparison.

1ACC made such a big issue about the success of the unit in theatre due to the incoming cuts. They had the common sense to sing from the top of hills about how good they were and it has almost certainly saved the Unit. Senior officers are very aware of who they are having had the GR9 community praise them at every level. AO BM is a huge fan of 1ACC (an ex OC) and has been working very hard to maintain the war fighting capability of the ABM branch.

As a whole, the ATC branch is not a war fighting branch as its personnel are simply not prepared adequately. This is completely unfair on the folk within the branch are, in my opinion, very good at what they do. The blame falls squarely on the heads of sheds within the branch however, I feel that any planned changes may be too late. A rather large axe is about to fall on the RAF with AOBM having to make cost saving decisions. Sadly, I do not think the ATC airships have done enough to galvanise OOA training & despite the fantastic job you guys are still doing at BSN, I worry that the axe will fall heavily on you & not the ABMs who, along with TG12 are still heavily deployed in support of Op Herrick.

You should have looked at the FOM manning, the job does not warrant a TG of its own. TG12 could do the job in a heart beat and will probably end up doing so on a much larger scale than is currently being seen due to their manning levels.

 

[SirSaltyHelmet]

In answer to the first paragraph, yes. The service in theatre at the moment in very much inferior to that 1ACC & ASACS ERS provided. I have not worked with the USMC unit now in theatre but, the GR4 aircrew in theatre are less than impressed having Crowbar as a comparison.

1ACC made such a big issue about the success of the unit in theatre due to the incoming cuts. They had the common sense to sing from the top of hills about how good they were and it has almost certainly saved the Unit. Senior officers are very aware of who they are having had the GR9 community praise them at every level. AO BM is a huge fan of 1ACC (an ex OC) and has been working very hard to maintain the war fighting capability of the ABM branch.

As a whole, the ATC branch is not a war fighting branch as its personnel are simply not prepared adequately. This is completely unfair on the folk within the branch are, in my opinion, very good at what they do. The blame falls squarely on the heads of sheds within the branch however, I feel that any planned changes may be too late. A rather large axe is about to fall on the RAF with AOBM having to make cost saving decisions. Sadly, I do not think the ATC airships have done enough to galvanise OOA training & despite the fantastic job you guys are still doing at BSN, I worry that the axe will fall heavily on you & not the ABMs who, along with TG12 are still heavily deployed in support of Op Herrick.

You should have looked at the FOM manning, the job does not warrant a TG of its own. TG12 could do the job in a heart beat and will probably end up doing so on a much larger scale than is currently being seen due to their manning levels.

Must be a scopie to come out with all that. Obviously one who has worked at 1ACC. Have you considered that the service that 1ACC provided initially was the best?

The amount of FOMs and FOAs in support of Op Herrick probably dwarf those of the ASOPs and AS Mngrs in theatre.

As for AS Mngrs doing the FOM job, we will see

 

[Double Rock Right]

Apologies if my previous post offended you. I'm neither an ABM or TG12. I've no doubt that there are many FOMs in theatre, I was simply stating that the return of 1ACC from theatre did not really reduce the number of ABMs and ASOps in Afghan.

The suggestion that TG12 could do the job of a FOM is based on 3 things. Healthy manning levels and, perhaps more pertinent, the fact that I've seen them doing it. The fact that AOBM is an ABM won't help.

I honestly believe that the axe will fall on you guys due to the poor planning and foresight of your senior officers. Nothing to do with ability, I am very aware of how busy BSN is!

 

[lafyar kokov]

The powers that be in ATC are working very hard to make Mil ATC relevant but I personally think it is all too little too late.
I believe the way forward long term is for the controlling branches to be amalgamated (with the controlling SNCOs in their own trade group) and TG12 providing all of the Assistants to work in the tower etc. Therefore freeing up TG9 assistants to fill up the gapped posts that we all seem to have at the moment.
TG9 would operate as Flight Operations Specialists under the leadership (very loosely used) of Flight Ops Officers. I know they currently don't have people too far up the food chain and this may make fighting our corner a bit difficult but it will give both TG9 and Flight Ops in general a real identity rather than being the poor relations to the controlling fraternity.

Thoughts anyone??

 

[JFOM]

The powers that be in ATC are working very hard to make Mil ATC relevant but I personally think it is all too little too late.
I believe the way forward long term is for the controlling branches to be amalgamated (with the controlling SNCOs in their own trade group) and TG12 providing all of the Assistants to work in the tower etc. Therefore freeing up TG9 assistants to fill up the gapped posts that we all seem to have at the moment.
TG9 would operate as Flight Operations Specialists under the leadership (very loosely used) of Flight Ops Officers. I know they currently don't have people too far up the food chain and this may make fighting our corner a bit difficult but it will give both TG9 and Flight Ops in general a real identity rather than being the poor relations to the controlling fraternity.

Thoughts anyone??

I do like the idea of this, very reasoned and very sensible.

You should have looked at the FOM manning, the job does not warrant a TG of its own. TG12 could do the job in a heart beat and will probably end up doing so on a much larger scale than is currently being seen due to their manning levels.

I do however, take umbrage at the fact that TG12 people could just walk into TG9 Ops job. In the 20 years I've been in, there were very few commonalities in the different posts I've been to, with each role being quite unique in how it worked.

In my former life as an instructor, we had a TG12 remusteree who failed the course and only managed to pass on the second attempt. Whilst this is not exactly a good basis for an argument - one person - I do believe that we do and think things differently and not all TG12 is able to do our job, just as I may not be able to do a TG12 job.

I'm not saying that it couldn't happen, I'm saying that it is something that will take time to implement.

That said, we have a TG12 on unit assistance working in Ops at my sunshine location and I haven't met a bad one. They've all been very mature and capable individuals.

Just my two-pennies-worth.