smellthejeta
The plane I solo'd in
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2003
- Posts
- 588
RUNNINHORN said:
I don't know how to quantify the background check -- it's more lengthly than anything you've done for a civillian job (the paperwork is a royal PITA) but it's not as bad as the super duper top secret clearance that some people in other government jobs have to get. It's the same paperwork though
They're not going to care about your job history, as long as you didn't do anything criminal and get fired for it. By that, I mean if you stole from an employer and got fired, it would raise a flag, but bouncing around jobs isn't going to matter.
The two things you absolutely must do: Keep your credit straight. If it's messy, get everything caught up, and if you can't, get on payment plans with your creditors so you can demonstrate that you can handle your finances. The other is drug usage: Don't use them. You have to take a drug test as well.
Other than that, there's not a whole lot to worry about, presuming you don't have much of a criminal history. If you do, I can't help you with that.
Pay cut: My facility it was 30% for beginning "captain" pay. I'm now going to make $70k instead of $100k. Pay scale tops out at $100k, but that's this contract -- so I paid attention to what was going to affect me on this contract and not much about the back ends of the paybands.
I use the term "captain" pay because most people don't realize that ATC'ers don't make the "average" salary from the get-go. We have the equivalent of FO's (copilots) and captains (CPC -- fully certified controllers).
The amount of time you spend as a "copilot" varies from facility to facility. It can vary from under a year at some some tracons and towers, to over 2 years at the centers. My training pay comes in I think three phases. First is trainee pay at OKC Academy, which is $8.85/hr I spend 3 months there as a center controller. The tracon/tower guys spend about half that time there. Then, I have two phases of facility training pay. When I walk in the door at my facility, I make $30k/yr. I don't understand the training pay progression, but it's tied to competency, not time. It would be like an FO getting an instant raise the minute he gets his ATP, even if he wasn't a captain yet. After that, I get a raise to something like $40-$50k. Finally, when I check out completely, my starting "captain" pay is $70k. If you were in a tower/tracon, you should progress through training and pay much faster. One of the training pay scales doesn't even exist in the lower level facilities.
My medical is consuming most of my time and effort right now, so I haven't paid too much attention to the training progression and related payscales. I have some idea what I'm in for, but that's about it. Until this medical gets wrapped up, I'm not going anywhere.
