With respect to Air Traffic Designators is it enough to know that an A310 is an Airbus 310 or is it necessary to memorize the ceiling and weight class for each aircraft?

I start at YYZ IFR in June.

They must be stricter at YYZ than my ACC. We had a trainee that thought the B727 had 2 engines, the B737 had 3 engines and so on. Having said that he's a really good controller now......

I can't imagine you'd need to know the ceiling. It would vary so much with current weight etc anyway.

The weight catagory... maybe eventually. The Natsim-PC simulator on the IFR generic course seems to give the weight catagory (suffix to the aircraft ident). Not sure about the real radar.

There is no test on a/c identifiers; you just start using them. The instructors don't seem to expect you to know them ahead of time (aircraft or locations). But you'll have to learn them in the course... so if you have the time now...

The ITA CD has a few errors in the aircraft list BTW. They should be obvious (747-xxx with a B720 code or something like that).

What about the ITA test in general.. how well do we need to know all the info on the CD?

I'd make sure you know it well.

Back when I took my course, one guy was CT'd for failing the exam.

CAATS should help with the weight categories...but it does no harm knowing.
Especially when they come into the terminal airspace and no one knows that the aircraft you have just jammed behind a heavy is actually a light and not the medium everyone thought.

Got my Medical Certificate today

I'm taking the FSS course in two days. You mention one of your classmates got cease-trained for failing the exam. I'm a little paranoid, I know the stuff on the ITA CD fairly well, but my biggest fear is being cease-trained early in the course. When's the exam for this stuff? I dont have an aviation background so some of the material, mainly MANOPS, makes me a little queasy since I've only had two months to fully study the material.

reds7000:

On the IFR course, the exam is at the end of the first week. It is very similar to the final assessment on the CD. If you can do that, you should do well on the ITA exam.

Thanks yrp! I'm in Cornwall, and wow is NTCI an awesome facility. It's definitely making me feel at ease and reducing my stress level.