DMar,
The fact is you have to either join as a Trade Assistant general at the lowest rank in the R.A.F. and then qualify as an Assistant Air Traffic Controller (making tea, driving the land rover, answering the switchboard) then after a couple of years become a S.A.C. where you can sit on the right of a N.C.O. in local control (the glass house on the top) then in another few years as a corporal sit in the Runway Caravan (if they still exist). It would be optimistic to ever think you would be a SNCO Controller.
In the mean time, if you were accepted and joined as a Cadet Pilot, it would be a totally different structure and to put it bluntly, any ideas of ATC would be totally left behind. You belong to a totally different comissioned rank strucure and far superior to the ATC idea.
I am talking about two totally different worlds and the world as a pilot is undoubtedly the only one to choose. I joined at the bottom as an Assistant Air Traffic Controller and realised the mistake I had made. It took two years to effect the changes and join an aircrew course for the period I had signed up for then leave the R.A.F. and train as a commercial pilot.
Why not look at Cadet Pilot for Iberia or B.A. with your language skills? The salary would be a lot more than in the R.A.F. and although the job is not quite as interesting or demanding, in reality it's a lot safer.
I don't know the size of Iberia but I think BA is nearly twice the size of the R.A.F.
Last edited by 5aday; 31st Mar 2016 at 16:34.