In the 90s, we had several ATSAs at Farnborough who'd originally been STPOs.
When I was 'recruited' to be an ATCA by NATCS starting in early 1969, (I'd actually passed the interview in late 1967 but then there was a freeze on civil service recruiting with NATCS being part of the Board of Trade) I was told to report to West Drayton. On arrival that first day, I was amazed at the number of times we were asked to either 'go and have a cup of tea' or 'have you had a cup of tea?'
There were about 12 of us starting that day, and after we'd had a cup of tea, we were redirected to the LATCC Training Section which was in the old SATCC at Heathrow,(where the Compass Centre now stands) which still housed the radar part of LATCC - only the procedural side was at West Drayton. As I was still living with my parents in Chesham, Bucks, the journey to WD was an easy commute in 35-45 min. We spent a week at Heathrow, then went to the College of ATC at Hurn for our 4 week Initial ATCA Course.
I spent the following 8 months at WD, then went to the radar unit at Heathrow for training as a CCTV board assistant. 12 months later, in early 1971, I was on the watch which closed down the LATCC radar unit when Mediator Stage 1 commenced. In Sep 1971, I left LATCC to commence my ATCO Cadet course and I must say I enjoyed every minute I spent at WD. I did several liaison visits to WD between 1974 and 2006, my final experience of WD was to attend simulator training and famil with Thames Radar/SVFR prior to the introduction of the extended Farnborough LARS in 2007 when LACC had already moved out. Shortly after this of course, LTCC moved to Swanwick and WD closed.
Last edited by chevvron; 3rd Mar 2015 at 10:01.