Originally Posted by
alfaman
Not dissimilar to the on unit training that the CAA asked of their cadets, though? Some may have had a couple of years, but for others it was a matter of months, as it depended on course availability & operational need. I believe in the 60s & 70s cadets were required to validate before progressing to the next rating stage, which seems similar. I seem to recall some of those (I detest the term "non state") airports even hosted cadets for for that training. Bearing in mind those who were ATSAs were working at that, as well as training as ATCOs, & were often tasked with other roles across the airport business, I'm not sure what appreciation was missed out on. I'd suggest some probably had a better understanding of the aviation world, than those who's entire experience was based on college & then posting to a single unit. The licence examinations were the same, & parochialism occurs within all ATC units, even now, so I'm not convinced that stacks up.
NATCS' (now NATS) own ATCO Cadets were required to undertake all rating courses at the college of ATC at Hurn and only if successful passing all three rating exams (written, practical, oral) would then progress to an operational unit for training in the field.
Fail 1 rating exam and you had to re-take with no further training.
Fail more than 1 (including a re-sit) you were terminated.(Unlike nowadays, re-coursing was not even contemplated)
Fail more than 1 over the whole 3 years you were terminated.
Units used for training on my course (at least for ADC - nowadays ADV/ADI - training) were all NATS units plus Ronaldsway, Oxford and Jersey; I don't recall anyone off my course being sent to Leeds but I could be wrong as it's nearly 50 years ago.
We started numbering 23 and graduated 16.
One resigned on the last day of the 4 week 'Initial' course.
Four (possibly 5) got terminated when they failed to reach validation standard or failed their validation board.
One simply couldn't take the stress in the second year - used to consume a whole packet of glucose tablets every lecture - and asked to revert back to ATCA (now ATSA) grade.
Much to my surprise, when I was first sent to Farnborough in my 3rd year, one of my 'chopped' colleagues was a tower controller at Fairoaks this beong long before the FISO License was invented.
As for ATCO Cadets being required to undertake airport authority roles, this was due to a 'glut' of trainees in the system in the late '70s or early '80s; there were no training slots in ATC so the aerodrome authority 'used' them instead.