Good Afternoon! Hope this past week has gone well for you all!
Archie League Winners
You may have seen this already but we are proud to announce Josh Fuller, Mike Sellman, Brian Hach, Byron Andrews and Ryan Jimenez as the Northwest Mountain Region’s winners of the Archie League award. This group of controllers guided Tim Bendickson, the pilot of a C-182, to safety and ensured his family was able to see their father/grandfather again. This story is amazing enough on it’s own but the story you won’t read anywhere else is one of working together toward the common goal of safety. We could not be more proud of our controllers from two different areas coming together to save lives. Though the Archie League award will only have five names on it, every controller at Seattle Center’s commitment to teamwork saved this man’s life. Normally we would honor them at Communicating for Safety this September but due to the pandemic, the awards banquet will be held during Convention this coming May.
If you’re interested, this link has the story along with some pictures and audio from the actual event.
Training
We are starting to plan for some OJT to begin but it will not include everyone to start. NATCA and the Agency have determined this will only involve the partially certified people on a crew right now. Since these things affect the OJTI as well as the Developmental, here are some of things you can expect:
PSS - Personal Safety Supplies. Masks will be worn for all individuals when training is in progress when 6 feet (or whatever the current CDC minimum, the document is designed to change with the CDC recommendations) cannot be maintained. So, that would include the D side if the training is conducted on the R side, vice versa, to include the FLM if they are also plugged in.
OJT hours will not be “reset.” There will however, be an additional set of hours available but not required to be used. So, it will be different for each trainee.
Formula: hours used+target hours for that sector= new target hours.
Minimum hours have not been changed and Article 67 “spool up” time will be accomplished before utilizing OJTI hours.
In the past, some training teams have waited for “good traffic” to conduct a certification. It is important to remember that this is the new normal and it may be a very long time until we see the traffic we used to see. If there is a specific skill set that needs to be observed for the certification to be complete, that should be able to be accomplished in the simulator.
These are just a few of the items within the official Training Resumption Plan, the full plan can be found here. The Operational Readiness Workforce Plan provides direction for Air Traffic facilities related to social distancing, cleaning, signage, etc and can be found here.
It is important to remember that this guidance only gives us the parameters for when we start training and that it will take some time to collaborate a plan with management and to ensure the safest possible start to training.
Virtual Town Hall Meeting
We will have a town hall meeting Saturday September 19th at 11 am and 6pm. This will include our regional leadership to answer any questions you may have. More details and a meeting link to follow shortly.
In Solidarity,
Derek Adams and Amy Sizemore