Published: June 30, 2016
Today in class we had a pretty relaxed day for the most part. It is really getting into more practical information now in the classroom which makes studying a breeze. We finished the “general control” topic today, which was basically coordination between controllers, and some basic phraseology as well (our instructors really like to throw that in to help prepare us for labs). After that, we did a lesson on position relief briefing, and watched some videos of the “wrong” way to do a position relief briefing. The remainder of the day was spent on ground control techniques and procedures. Ground controllers are the specialists who are instructing planes on how to taxi from their parking spot (gate, terminal, remote pad, ramp) to the runway, where control then transitions to the local (tower) controller. Tomorrow we have a block test on this material.
Currently, a class about a month and a half ahead of us is doing their “PAs” – or performance assessments – aka their final lab tests. This is essentially what determines if you will get to be a controller or not. I’m not going to lie, seeing security walk people out is a very eerie feeling. While I think the odds are in my favor to pass, you really never know. People tell stories about how “he or she was the best in our class, and they failed.” You could freeze or choke on eval day, and bam, you’re gone.
Our instructors know this is what’s going through our heads right now. One of our instructors, gave us some words of wisdom today.
I’m pretty sure he got this story from somewhere else, as I found some variations of it online, but here’s his rendition of it:
“Have you ever been to Montana? It’s cold with not much around. In the middle of a field in Montana, there once was a single tree. In that tree there was a bird’s nest. In the bird’s nest, there was a baby bird. The mother bird had gone away to find some food, leaving the baby bird unhappy. It cried and cried and cried until it fell out of the nest from the tree into the cold snow. This made the baby bird even more upset, and now he was cold from the snow and thus continued to cry. A cow came along, heard the bird crying, and crapped on the bird. Now the bird was warm, but even more upset that he was covered in crap. So the bird continued to cry, and pretty soon a fox came along and heard the bird crying. The fox approached the bird, scooped off the crap, and ate the bird.
Morals of the story:
Not everyone who shits on you is your enemy.
Not everyone who gets you out of shit is your friend.
If you’re covered deep in shit, it’s probably best to keep your mouth shut. “
-(instructor at OKC)
His point here was mainly that the instructors here at OKC are here to help you pass, and truly enjoy teaching. They want to help you succeed, and will do whatever they can to help you. SL also told us that when you walk into the final eval (the PA), you’re going to lose 50% of what you know, the second you walk in. He said the way to combat that is to walk through the door at 150%. I agree with him wholeheartedly. He told stories about people in the evals fainting, wetting themselves, and becoming totally frozen, due to being nervous. So he asked us, how do you get over being nervous? Another student in class offered his techniques, but SL suggested the way to overcome the nervousness is confidence.