Originally Posted by
kcockayne
Some of the very best ATCOS I ever saw in action were those I met in Coventry, 2007/08. Working effectively in a Class G , very busy, environment whilst trying to provide standard separation to high speed IFR commercial aircraft takes some doing. There are plenty of NATS controllers who would not take kindly to this scenario !
After a 3 year cadet course with NATS (actually NATCS in those days) I was posted to Farnborough, where the aircraft weren't speed limited unlike IFR commercial flights in the then equivalent of Class G airspace; I was easily able to adapt to Buccaneers, Hunters and Lightnings flashing round low level at up to 550kts mixing it with slower traffic out of Blackbushe, Fairoaks and White Waltham but later trainees straight out of the college from about 1990 seemed to have great trouble doing so, often ignoring conflicting traffic if it wasn't showing SSR.