I'm training at the moment for my PPL, and I find the majority of ATCOs very helpful to student pilots, and only had the one negative experience (that was at Bristol, and I was messing up the sequencing by orbiting too far away from the field - believe me though, as a solo student a 737 piling down the ILS looks plenty close enough however far away you are! While it was my fault, I didn't know the airfield too well, and things like the distance at which to orbit isn't always easy to judge when things look new. Anyway, the guy got really snappy on the R/T about it.)
Had some great controllers though, who are very understanding towards students, and even had one female LARS controller at Yeovilton on a very quiet Wednesday (absolutely dead on the RT), at her suggestion, let me practice all sorts of strange calls and requests, just to get some experience of them. That is the sort of thing which really helps us students out. Bournemouth and Exeter are some other very good fields for helpful ATCOs, and I hope someone takes them some cakes soon!!!!
I think I'll start a new thread soon on fitness & exercise plans specially designed for ATCOs, as with all these cakes they're going to turn into a right bunch of fat bas***ds!!!
