gr4techie (#8),
...Originally Posted by 360BakTrak
Adopt the brace position!
...leaving the ATC college, whether it be RAF or Civil, will not make you eligible to walk in to a unit and be able to work the traffic in a safe, orderly & expeditious manner. You merely leave the college with a licence to learn at the unit you're posted to...
My opinion exactly ! When I started instructing at Shawbury, the thinking was that we were turning out Air Traffic Controllers (don't laugh, read my story below).
Later I came to think that we were turning out skeletons of Air Traffic Controllers, who would be clothed in the flesh of experience at their Stations. At the end I realised that we were really running a big Aptitude Test - if they could hack the Course, they could probably learn to do the real job at the desk.
But the practice did not always follow the theory ..... The newly minted D. turned up at Strubby in '55. "Welcome aboard", said SATCO, "we've been waiting for you - you're on Approach Monday afternoon - Flt Lt So-and-so will show you around - Good luck !"
In defence of that, I must remind readers that, in those benighted days, the Shawbury output was almost all ex-war aircrew, mostly pilots and navs, who had a fair idea of the job anyway. (It was said that the immediate postwar RAF Air Traffic Control Branch was set up as a Sunset Home for all the good old has-beens and neverwozzers of wartime leftovers). But I think that was just sour grapes. ...
Danny42C.