ATPL's and ATCO's

[360BakTrak]

I'm currently an ATCO and have been for about 5 years. I am considering starting my ATPL written course with Bristol Ground School.
I am wondering if there are any other ATCO - turned - Pilots out there who could tell me if they feel their ATCO experience gave them a head start or if they still found it as difficult as everyone else!?
I appreciate it is a very difficult course but how 'challenging' have people found it? Not just ATCO's but everyone?
:confused:

[WX Man]

Not an ATCO, but ex trainee ATCO from EDYY.

I've always flown and it was only 9/11 that made me reconsider whether I wanted to spend £30K on getting an ATPL.

Having briefly entered the career crisis stage towards the end of the sim phase in Maastricht, I decided that now was actually not a bad time to do it (first good decision I made for 6 weeks!).

I think you need to try it by getting a PPL and talking to people to see whether you'd like it. It's very different from ATC, but essentially you use the same mental processes insofar as you have to stay ahead of the aeroplane at all times. So aptitude-wise, you're probably fine.

But then again, I've never really been criticised by any of my flying instructors (except on the odd 'bad day'), yet my ATC was, to put it really quite bluntly, sh*te.