I'm 19 years old and have applied to become an ATCO in South Africa. I am playing all the sims I can find to learn how to control properly. I've gotten quite profficient at it and am quite excited to start this as a career. The fact is that we now have all the instrumentation to "help" us control but the fact is that we still get trained to control properly. there can always be a power outage (Especially in Cape Town), loss of radar or some catastrophe which the computer OBVIOUSLY cannot "help" with and good ol' ATC-ing comes into play. What's gonna happen if we have ATM, and such occurences occur? Anti-virus programs say they are virus-proof, they we still update them. There's ALWAYS a loophole, and in ATC, you cannot afford one!
G