Hi,
I still personally feel that the ATC is a great recruiting tool for the service and for aviation in general -I spent seven years in it becoming a CWO ultimately.
I think it has a slight image problem with alot of the teenagers today -but that is a society wide problem.
yes, as a vouluntary organisation it does attract alot of 'wannabes' (you know the type,poncing around in flying suits pretending to be 'maverick' and the traffic warden turned uniformed god type),
However from my peer group we produced:
3 airline pilots
2 RAF pilots
3 RAF officers
numerous airmen
Not a bad result, I can still recall vivdly my first solo in 1988 at Benson in the venture (thank you flt lt hazelwood !)
and if it wasn't for that i wouldn't be sitting in a 757 today !