Originally Posted by
jheath
Small world. You're correct, I'm at Colgan for now. I've heard of that list too, but I haven't actually spoken to my HR rep about it yet. I just sent my initial paperwork packet in last month. If you go to the facility specific thread on stuckmic I think I read that ZDC had reached their quota for this year, and that there were something like 12 people in the queue for next year? I think they had like 20 or so go through this year, but I'm basing this on some pretty speculative information and I have no idea how many slots they have for next year. Either way, I don't think I'd be surprised if we maybe have something come our way next year, but I also wouldn't be surprised if it's 2013 either. The good news is things are picking up for PUBNAT 8 finally. I'm just happy to have a job I like in the meantime and happy to still be in the running because I had a friend apply to PUBNAT 8, get a 99 on the AT-SAT and still get the "thanks but no thanks" letter. I know he had VA on his geoprefs too. I heard a rumor last year when I was filling out my geoprefs that ZDC had a history of picking a larger percentage of former pilots than other facilities. I don't know if that's actually true or not but with a sample size of 2 it's holding true so far. Did you interview in Leesburg or somewhere else? I did mine at the STL TRACON.
I interviewed at ZDC. Everyone there was really friendly, seems like a great place to work. I talked to a supervisor there who said lately they have been getting people from the academy with little or no aviation background. He said it can be a problem especially when issuing climb, descents and crossing restrictions in conjunction with speed restrictions. I guess they could use some people who have sat in the cockpit to provide some perspective not to mention the fact that we have a pretty good background knowledge of the national airspace system.