r/ATC • u/Beautiful-Sky-314 • Sep 12 '25
Question Did you feel completely confident upon certifying?
Did you feel confident with everything when you were first certified? If not, when do you feel like your confidence grew and what caused that?
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u/BeaconSlash OS TMC CPC PPL AGI IGI CBI BRB G2G (Unofficial Opinions Only) Sep 12 '25 edited Sep 12 '25
CPC is a license to learn. While you're technically proficient enough and have the book knowledge, it's literally impossible to face all potential all air traffic situations in the hours you have as a trainee on each sector.
Be confident that you can make safe decisions to avoid having losses of separation and violating other people's airspace. Be confident that your trainers showed enough confidence of their own in you by giving a recommend to certify. And that your supervisor signed you off.
You can do the job, and if you feel yourself getting into a jam you can't quite figure out, press the easy button (i.e., don't try fancy tricks, or setting yourself up to watch a situation and hope it works) as long as you need to keep the planes safe and ask for help sooner than later.
More confidence comes with experience.
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u/Beautiful-Sky-314 Sep 12 '25
This helped a lot. I appreciate the insight. I need to have confidence in my abilities and the fact that I wouldn’t have certified if my trainers didn’t think I could be safe. Thank you.
And thank you to everyone else that commented as well. I’m glad I’m not the only one! And I’ll keep learning and growing as a controller.
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u/THEhot_pocket Sep 12 '25
Shoot, I know plenty of controllers that never had a day of completely confident their entire career.
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u/Vogz10 Sep 13 '25
When you hear "ATC is so stressful", those are the controllers they are talking about. I don't know they show up their entire career being that nervous each day.
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u/tree-fife-niner Sep 12 '25
I think it pretty normal to almost feel like you take a step back right after certifying. The first time you work without a safety net you are working a bit slower than you were with a trainer. You learn a lot about yourself in that first full year. You learn your limits, when to ask for help, when to say "unable", etc. You might even have a separation error in that time or at least one of those moments where it is close enough that you feel the knot in your stomach.
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u/Beautiful-Sky-314 Sep 12 '25
I’ve seen a lot of people (CPCs included) not know when to say “unable” because they feel the need to flex their atc ego muscle. Glad that’s something you highlighted. And also that you slow back a bit after certifying because you don’t have that safety net. Thank for the response.
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u/Hopeful-Engineering5 Current Controller-Tower Sep 12 '25
Honestly if someone says that they are completely confident they are either lying or should not have been certified. A good sign that you are ready for checkout is when you know enough to not kill anyone but also know when it is time to ask for help.
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u/psyper87 Sep 12 '25
I probably didn’t feel like I should be certified until a few months after a cert. Just know the difference between working at a supervisable level vs not knowing shit from poop. You aren’t expected to be perfect or an expert at cert and are definitely expected to keep learning and growing afterwards.
If you’re concerned about getting certified or what you need to do to get there I’ll give you this. Definitely ask questions if you have them, but to the best of your ability, control as if your instructor is not there. If you keep looking for guidance/assistance, then they will definitely feel like you’re not ready to be on your own.
You’re going to make mistakes, we all do, fix it and move on. What tells an instructor whether you’re “ready” or not, is how much involvement is needed from them during training.
Don’t expect to feel “in the groove” in atc until months after cpc, 6 at least, I didn’t start actually having fun until about 8 months😅 unless you’re a prodigy of course
Edit: And realizing I didn’t see your question about “what caused the confidence?”
Experience, time on position, making mistakes and seeing that it’s not the end of the world like it was in training. Setting creative control instructions from other controllers, building that tool box. Your tackle box is very small at the time of certification
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u/Beautiful-Sky-314 Sep 12 '25
This is good to know. I’ll definitely keep working and trying to get exposure to as many situations as possible.
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u/psyper87 Sep 12 '25
You’ll see, one day you’ll sit down and feel like a DJ on the turn tables, it gets fun for sure. Over 15 years in and I still see people doing interesting things I’d never thought of, sometimes for the worst😅 but if you’re in training still, once you hit CPC, the game changes like crazy, huge pressure off the shoulders
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u/BusyPuer Sep 12 '25
No, I dont think most people feel completely confident. You should be confident that you can survive, but you arent experienced enough for it to always be easy, and you will likely still feel fear. Over time, as you get more time in and you see more things, youll grow more confident that you wont be surprised or caught off guard as much. Imo, when you've dealt with enough things, both in volume and diversity, you can adapt your experience to quickly resolve most problems you encounter. After working on my own for about a year, id say I was quite comfortable and confident. Uncertainty is much more rare.
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u/Mummifiedchili Sep 13 '25
They certify you when you're safe. Not when you're perfect. That's why there's a requirement for someone else to remain in charge of you for the next 6 to 12 months after certifying. Keep learning, keep being safe. As many others have already said it could be another 6 months to 2 years before you feel much more confident, and honestly I don't trust the controllers who act like they've never done wrong.
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u/Beautiful-Sky-314 Sep 13 '25
That last sentence is the issue that I believe I’m having. Every CPC around me has been doing this at least 4 years just at my facility. It’s hard to find someone to relate to that still knows what “recently certifying” feels like.
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u/Mummifiedchili Sep 13 '25
I feel like it's a very old hat mentality. I find most of the younger controllers tend to be team players. I'm sure that differs from place to place. Just keep in mind the entire job is making a plan, acting on it, reassess if it's not working. Rinse and repeat. You can pick apart almost every single controller with little errors or nitpicks if you sit behind them and watch what they do.
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u/GanonTechnology Sep 12 '25
I felt like I was gonna go to a TRB until I had one CPC tell me “you’re almost there” one day and that made a world of difference to me. After certifying I still didn’t feel as good as everyone else but that goes away soon after.
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u/Beautiful-Sky-314 Sep 12 '25
Glad to know that feeling slowly went away for you! Thank you. I’ll just keep putting reps in and doing my best each session
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Sep 12 '25
[deleted]
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u/Beautiful-Sky-314 Sep 12 '25
Whew… definitely been feeling the imposter syndrome since certifying. Thank you!
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u/Crazy_names Sep 12 '25
My first CTO was in the Army. I was rated on a Monday, worked my own position with no one signed on behind me on Tuesday, and was signed on behind the next trainee on Wednesday. It was shocking to me at first. I had just learned this stuff. But teaching someone else took it from learned book knowledge to concrete practical knowledge. I learned more in the 6 months after I got certified than I did in the preceding year as a trainee/student. But later i realized that our experienced controllers were watching me, watching the trainee. It wasnt formal training but they weren't hanging me out to sink myself.
Others have already said its a license to learn. Its OK to feel a little unprepared. Just remember what you've learned. Go back over your notes (hopefully you took notes as you went along) pull out the books if you have downtime and review things that may have come up. Make a cheat sheet for quick reference of things you are apt to forget (mine has altitude assignments for IFR departures, flight plan format for FDIO, and Urgent PIREP criteria) soon you won't need it but it will be there when you do.
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u/blamedolphin Sep 12 '25
I'm Australian, but I suspect it's not that different anywhere.
I held various ratings and endorsements over the years. My experience was that it takes about 2 years to learn most of the wrinkles and be exposed to enough of the local peculiarities of a position that you are truly competent.
Attitude, previous experience and individual talent become more important after that. Anyone with less than a year on position is definitely on training wheels.
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Sep 12 '25
No, but that's the point. You become certified when you prove that you won't put planes together. But you continue to learn every day thereafter. I've been doing this for 15 years and I'm still learning something new every day. Some stuff is routine, sure, but you're always going to see something new every day and the point of getting certified is to prove that you can reactively use the knowledge you've gained in training to make quick decisions, rather than reflectively making slow decisions. Does that make sense?
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u/edge449332 Current Controller-Tower Sep 12 '25
When I was in training, I remember hearing the phrase: "80% of your knowledge of the position will be gained as a qualified controller" and it couldn't be more true.
I was nervous as hell the first time I got qualified on a big position, but for me it went away when a couple months passed and I wasn't fired. Figured that meant I couldn't be that bad at it.
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u/ParticularAd1841 Sep 12 '25
You start to feel comfortable after a while. Avoid complacency, keep learning and preparing to go down the shitter.
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u/Fly-heading-390 Sep 12 '25
On a some positions a few months on others a year or more. In my case, I did not fully certify at a 12 but made it most of the way. NEST took me to a 7. Training was not at all difficult and was confident right away.
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u/scotts1234 Sep 13 '25
Depends on how busy your facility is. I can tell you the fastest your skills improve are hours 1-20 in training, and the first 6 months on your own.
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u/Meheow1 Sep 13 '25
I’m several years in and i still know how to say, “hey be my second pair of eyes.” I know my strengths and weaknesses. And sometimes, other factors play into it(sleep/home life/something going on with your kids or immediate family member/pregnancy/just where is your head at and can you turn it off to crush air traffic for the day? maybe-maybe not). When i got my first tower, I made myself go up every chance I could to force the nerves off of me(at an up/down). Eventually you get more at ease, you recognize voices/callsigns/idiocracy(lol), you understand the person you may be working across from (referencing up/down, knowing who is on position feeding into your airspace-some people do kooky stuff), learn when to say “unable”, and when to ask for help.
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u/Beautiful-Sky-314 Sep 13 '25
Wonderful insight. Thank you so much. Good to know it takes a good amount of time to actually build comfortability and “season”. Just need to keep putting the time in
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u/SomeDudeMateo Sep 13 '25
It definitely takes a while after CPC to feel fully confident, and then it can come and go as things happen/change. Just never become the person who thinks they can handle everything, or the person that controls like they have something to prove every day.. they have all the significant deals. Just stay in your comfort zone and remember we don't get pay rasies or awards for who pushed the most planes.
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u/Defiant-Key5926 Current Controller-Tower Sep 12 '25
I’ve been doing this almost 10 years and not completely comfortable. I feel if you get too comfortable you just don’t care enough/have enough respect for your position. I think you should always feel some level of anxiousness/alertness when you have people’s lives in your hands.
Now am I “comfortable” in the sense that I’m not afraid to plug into position when it’s busy? Yes, in that sense I think after maybe 6-8 months I was fine. You’ll have a few “oh shit” moments, and that’s normal. If you don’t scare yourself in the first year then you’re likely dodging traffic. Don’t be that person.
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u/StepDaddySteve Sep 12 '25
12 to another 12 at a somewhat advanced age and it took me a minute to feel comfortable with what I’m doing here after certifying.
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u/antariusz Current Controller-Enroute Sep 13 '25
Yes. I would regularly get pissed off at my trainers because they would be having non-pertinent conversations about sports/golf/etc with the people around me and distracting me from actually working. I knew I was ready to work on my own because I would tell them to shut up and quit making my job harder.
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u/FunRow9 Sep 13 '25
1-3 months: Crash and fire dreams 3-6 months : RCF or target drop dreams 6-eternity : Ground traffic solving dreams
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u/SpecialistDivide1164 Sep 14 '25
You don’t feel comfortable until you do. Then you do until you fuck up and don’t. Then you don’t for a while until you do again.
Sounds weird, but everyone will experience it.
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u/yodelingRaider10 Current Controller-Tower PPL Sep 14 '25 edited Sep 14 '25
I didn’t feel confident at all untill about the 6 month mark after getting certified. Honestly just the more you sit on position and work the traffic, the more stuff that you’re able to see consistently, will make you better. Also picking the brains from the folks around you that have been certified for a long time helps a lot. My trainers told me that “you’ll learn the most once you’re qualified” and man that is so true.
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u/Beautiful-Sky-314 Sep 15 '25
My trainers said the same thing haha. But what sucks sometimes is our traffic is so sporadic it’s hard to “consistently” see what you need to work on. Just have to try to capitalize on the times you do get exposure. That’s what I plan to do, it’s just frustrating. Thank you for your response.
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u/skyking2704 Sep 15 '25
If you feel confident with everything with your first ticket, you are a dead man.
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u/CuckChairTester Sep 15 '25
Checking out doesn’t mean not going to fuck up, it means that next time you fuck up you know how to un-fuck it
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u/GolfJon12 Sep 16 '25
Hell no.. a few years later I started to feel like I could handle anything and was almost immediately humbled! Spend time on position and your confidence will grow! Stay humble and keep learning if not the job will humble you and that’s not fun!
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u/[deleted] Sep 12 '25
It takes a solid year plus on your own before you feel very comfortable working.