Can't help on the truck end, but if you were to post a request on the PPL's forum I'm sure you'd find no shortage of people (myself included) more than happy to take you up for an hour or two for a share of the costs - which could readily be around £30/hr, or about half the running cost of a fairly conventional privately owned light aircraft. Whether this would be as useful as an airline trip would presumably depend upon where you work as an Air Trafficer, but certainly anybody who works LARS would probably learn quite a lot.
G