Written: January 14, 2020
Published: October 2021
Today we did our last two runs on feeder and finals. They were pretty busy and it seemed like the instructors were helping everyone a fair amount again. Crap ton of heavies, too. It was also the problem before the skills check. They really do seem afraid to let us totally tank and go into emergency panic vector mode because that’s not the point of this class, this is basically a math class. You have to have this spot-on math and perfect holes to fill or it’s wrong. It seems highly unrealistic, but that’s how they want it. I think with more time and training, the techniques could be applied in real life. I also think good controllers are able to do this subconsciously – but the math and numbers just keeps it more precise.
Skills checks were super easy problems compared to the previous runs. I monitored first (they let us do that in this class, oddly enough), and then ran final and feeder. Had to bust one out of my final since I ran a 7 mile hole and not an 8… and still tried to fill it… not sure where I miscounted from, but whatever. Instructor chewed my ass for “not using math” (I was, but I don’t use those damn “j-balls” – mile rings around airplanes).
Feeder problem was super slow and I didn’t have to count at all during it. The teammate running finals has been sick with the flu but still at class so I was trying to make it an easy problem for her by slowing down the feed and not sending any conflicts, but the instructor watching me called some major BS and told me to cut it out.
After class today we took an adventure to OKC IHOP. What a wild ride at 1am that is! Tomorrow we start staggers – gonna be a shiz show.