Couldnt agree more with Jonnys.
I work at a busy regional UK airport, with a good mix of traffic - anything from wide bodies to C150s.
The thing that amazes me is that despite having 5 flying training establishments mixing it with all the commercial traffic, and having nearly 20 airfields / light a/c strips within 25nm, we very rarely have student pilots visiting us, (or instructers if it comes to that!).
Although not all my colleagues agree with me, I believe that a visit to your local atc unit can make a huge contribution to understanding each others needs.
I'll give you a clue, I work south of Lat 54N, and if you went any further east you'd fall in the water!
To make visits really worthwhile, we can't realistically accomodate more than 4 people at a time, and all visits would have to be prebooked, you don't have to be based with us, just a genuine interest will do.
If you're interested, email me at
[email protected]