You never know what you can do till you try.
Geriaviator (your #5060),
Only too true ! Many aircraft accdents result from Pilot Error - often the basic error of not leaving the thing in the hangar and going by train !....D.
Warmtoast (your #5063),
Quoting your: "RAF Thornhill (5FTS), S. Rhodesia as an Air Traffic Control Assistant, probably the lowest form of life in the control tower apart from the tea lady".
Wrong ! - The Tea Lady/Chap takes precedence in Order of Importance (only just) below SATCO.
Your pics positively beg comment:
1. Eagle-eyed steely-jawed young ATC (Tom Cruise ?) stares unafraid at impending air disaster in sky outside, is about to issue masterly order which will save aircraft and all passengers (inc heroine) aboard. Final clinch, curtains, credits roll.
2. That Board !!! Most AFSs had similar ideas, all using very sharp map-pins: I particularly remember the Leeming one, a sort of huge multiple alarm clock with two clocks and a lot of knitting needles inside - you needed a full-time Assistant to work it. But never did I see one the size of that horror of yours !
3. Local Control - what luxury ! (You should have paid them for the privilege of working in a place like that). When I think of life in the freezing, draughty shacks that the RAF stuck on top of the old cubic wartime buildings in those days, I'm green with envy....D.
MPN11 (your #5064),
So that's what they were called ("Akeroyd"), was it ? The Leeming one was supposed to be the brain-child of a F/Sgt, who'd got an award of £250 for the idea. It was about 30 in square, 12 in deep, weighed a ton and sat on a table of its own in Local (anyway, I'm sure you remember it well)......D.
(your #5068),
You're spot on with age 35. After the war MCA were recruiting for ATCs. They advertised for 18 yr old Cadets (and trained them to PPL as part of their Course), and would take ex-pilots and navs (500 hrs min) up to that age.
But the RAF were more generous. I think they would take entrants for SSCs in all Ground Branches (in which they included ATC) up to 39, and curiously I had an experience very similar to yours with a student who must have been nearly that.
Again, it was a lady (name long forgotten), grossly underconfident (I really don't know how she got in in the first place). Anyway she'd been brain-washed at school into the belief that she would always fail at exams: she started at Shawbury with that mindset, and told us so.
"We're on a hiding to nothing here", I thought. But, "I haven't lost a student yet", I told her, "and I'm not going to start with you". Again, the outcome was the same as yours, she was a good average and got through all right. Then she was panicking about how she would get on at her first posting, so I suppose the SATCO (wherever it was) would have to do it all over again....D.
ACW418 and Clicker (your #5066, #5067, #5069),
From West Drayton and Swanwick, Good Lord deliver us.....D.
Regards to all, Danny.