Originally Posted by Danny42C
Static model of an airfield? (what was that?)
We sat at a local control desk, with the usual pin-board and comms, and for 'realism' looked out through sheets of perspex at a scale model of an airfield with 1" high hangars. You had to imagine where the aircraft were with reference to the airfield diagram on your pin-board, and correlate that with the R/T messages being transmitted through your headset by the Instructors.
During the Advanced Phase of the course, as you noted earlier, students did live training in Shawbury Tower. The problem with that training in Local was that it was totally traffic-dependent for training value. Cr@p weather = minimal/nil traffic, Valley diversions = too busy for student ATCOs
In my later career I was able to procure a proper dynamic visual simulator which allowed structured, progressive training. It went live in 1992/3, IIRC. Still in service ... It will be a relic one day!!
RAF Shawbury | Christie - Visual Display Solutions
Originally Posted by FantomZorbin
'My' Harry T retired from the RAF as CATCO at Brampton IIRC.
Yes, we are all taking about the same guy. He was my GCA Course Commander in 66.
And I think we older ATCOs are allowed to tiptoe in and out, so long as we wipe our feet and don't slam the door. After all, how could those Magnificent Men have got up and down without us?
Originally Posted by Danny42C
All the people were ex-war aircrew, and there was a marked contrast between backgrounds (our tumbledown tarred wooden shed "School of Air Traffic Control" and your gracious Georgian facade of the new building).
It appears from the course photos that the black wooden huts passed into history in 1962 ... subsequent photos do indeed show the elegant "Expansion Scheme" buildings. Where were those black huts?
Oh, and Dick Coombe I'm almost sure went on to be a sqn ldr on the ADP side of the house.