Part 2 - PAs
Published: August 15, 2016
The first day of PAs would bring a high level of anxiety to the class. In a nutshell, we showed up on the first day of PAs to find a schedule on the wall of our different slots for PAs. Each of us was scheduled for 4 different PAs, two on local and two on ground. I quickly glanced at the schedule and saw that I was slated to have a local run at 10:50 that morning, AHH! I was pretty nervous, but trying to remain calm.
Before no time, my first 4 classmates were off to the PAs, not knowing what to expect. The rest of us anxiously waited in the classroom, some of us watching movies on our computers, some playing cards, others playing Battleship. The mood was pretty light, until the first two came back from PAs…and reported their scores were 16 and 18 points, out of 100. Yikes. This would be difficult to recover from, if not impossible. The rest of the class immediately spun into a tizzy of emotions and panic. The next 4 candidates immediately left the room and began trying to calm each other down in preparation for their runs which would start in less than an hour.
Before long, it was time for my first PA evaluation. I grabbed my headset and pens and headed towards lab 5, a lab we hadn’t used since the previous week (they’re all the same, though). We waited outside the room for what seemed like ages and finally the evaluators opened the door and invited us in. After a few attempts at bad jokes from the evaluators, they gave us a quick “let us know when you’re ready” and sat down behind us, clipboards in hand, ready to write down our every mistake.
“Local is ready” I said, just loud enough for the RPO to hear but not really with much confidence in my voice. A few seconds later... “Academy Tower, Bonanza 124AC inbound Riverside with Alfa touch and go.” Holy crap, here it was, this was it. The 30 minute run was not a difficult problem, but the level of my nerves was easily through the roof.
A short 30 minutes later, when the clock hit 30:00, the evaluator exclaimed, “that’s 30...” and the problem was over, just like that. He told me to take my headset and pens and wait outside the room. Out I went... with my ground control partner (who had done well, at least hadn’t caused me any problems). We discussed the problem among ourselves, predicting what we would lose points on, etc. Shortly thereafter, the evaluators opened the door and invited us both back in. This was a good sign, we were both getting debriefed at once, which means neither of us did horrible!
My evaluator told me I did a good job overall, pointed out my three small mistakes (he didn’t mention another couple mistakes I knew I had made) and presented me with my score...95/100. Phew! This was excellent news, I wasn’t eliminated yet and had scored well enough to give myself a huge buffer on later PAs.
That was all I had to do on Tuesday, just that one local run. The rest of my day was spent watching Lost episodes in the break out room in a comfy chair that didn’t recline.