Life as a ATCO?

[AhDee]

Hi all I am very interested in being an ATCO
so before applying it I would love to hear from all you guys from ATC all over the world to give me some ideas on hows your REAL life being an ATCO.

;)

Cheers

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

Absolutely FANTASMAGORICAL in every way. In my opinion there aren't many more enjoyable things you can do without taking your clothes off!!

I revelled in every single nanosecond and, although I have always valued my time at home much more than at work, I miss talking to the jets very much.. and I retired over 2 years go.

I can't think of any other job which even gets close to ATC (and you can just forget flying) - it's even better than sliced bread.

[Report@Boddam]

I can't think of anything i'd rather be doing. The training is hard and not for the faint hearted but well worth all the agony.

If its only the money that attracts a person I'd say stay away, its not the right motivation.

No two days are the same as there is allways something slightly new to learn.

Give it a go its a great club to be in.
:ok:

[caniplaywithmadness]

Best job in the world, immense responsibility extremely satisfying, you don't take the job home with you. Shiftwork means plenty of time at home to see the kids grow, the money isn't bad and you get a lot of respect from people when they find out what you do for a living.


Why would anybody want to do anything else???

[Jerricho]

Plus, you can see the world. Live in exotic places. Work with interesting people.

As caniplay says, why would you anything else.

[flower]

Fantastic job, I wouldn't want to do anything else.
Shift work can have its downs but i still prefer it to a 9-5 existence, most of what I would say has already been said. Once the hard work of training is behind you I couldn't think of a better job to be in.

[with alacrity]

AhDee

I have been in atc as an atco for 34 years and still love the job.
It is challenging, rewarding and enjoyable. I feel that an interest in aviation helps especially when you are training.
As your location is Hong Kong you might get some local feedback if you posted in the Fragrant Harbour Forum as well.
Good Luck if you go for it.

[Lock n' Load]

And as well as all those exotic places, you can also live in Manitoba, right Jerri?

[vintage ATCO]

Beats having a proper job . . . . :ok: :D :D :D

[Jerricho]

You know it LnL ;)

Good old Winterpeg, and the somewhat warmer Artic :E.

[Lock n' Load]

Hey, it's balmy here. I walked to the pub in -23 last night. At Hogmanay, I walked about six blocks in my kilt when it was -20. Might have stung if it had been cold...
Wonder what the weather's like in Iqaluit?
If Stunty's still around on pprune, he's the guy we should envy, close enough to the coast yet still with great skiing just down the road.

[ayrprox]

jerricho, was that a warmer 18 wheel artic? :E

[Jerricho]

The cold reduces my ability to type......and spell.

[Barnaby the Bear]

It certainly has its minus points. But having said that the plus's easily out do the minus's. I enjoy going to work, especially when you work with a good bunch of people.
If you can handle the odd shift patterns, and people telling you you work with orange Ping-Pong paddles, Its bloody great!
The training was a bitch though..:ok:

[Get me some traffic]

Beats working for a living!

[AhDee]

wow thanks soooo much for all your valuable advise and exp.

I love flying very much and I am an airline pilot wannabe as well.

being an ATCO is not my second choice at all. I got the same heart beat feeling when I was looking at the SATCO and CAdet Pilot recruitment Post .... actually a bit harder hahaha:p

Wish I can get an interview soon.:O

[Scotsliveit]

About to start Nats training in a few weeks.

What did you find tough about training? Was it the intensity? The time taken to train?

Does it equate to an honours degree? Helps when what you're learning is interesting right.

Did you find it tough at CATC? Or tougher at the unit trying to validate? Or just plain tough all the way through.

Worth it in the end though:ok:

I enjoy reading threads like this about life in the job

[Partly Achieved]

CATC training is tough -is supposed to be - you're going into a demanding profession.

What is particular ? - I'd imagine it will be different for each person. But the learning curve is very steep, both in the classromm and the simulators. Workload is high. Assessments come thick and fast and your future hangs in the balance with each one.

Being keen and interested is essential - If not don't bother. :D

The time at CATC will fly by - One minute you're the "new boys & girls" and before you know it you're getting your postings!

Equate to a degree? - I don't know, I don't have degree. ATC is so specialised and of a practical nature, any comparrison is difficult. I remember our course being warned when we started that anybody who'd been to college/uni before and was expecting this to be similar - forget it! You're there 5 FULL days a week and lectures/sim runs aren't "optional" :D

Is it good fun? - Yes! You may not think so at the time, but you'll look back with fond memories. Plus, you'll make friends on that course that you'll keep for the rest of your life (Shared traumatic experience!).

Then, CATC will seem like a walk in the park when it comes to validating on unit. Suddenly you don't have "pause the clocks" option!

Not everyone will make it, but it's not impossible (by some fluke I managed it!) and it's worth it. ATC is a fantastic job.

Keep your head down, work hard and don't argue with your instructors/mentors. :D


PA

[atco-matic]

Most difficult thing about the training... learning piles of rubbish ad verbatum that you never need to use in the real world!!!

Best things about the job... the time off, holidays, the money.

Worst things about the job... not being able to spend Christmas with loved ones, nightshifts, living in the Southampton area...:yuk:

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

<<Worst things about the job... not being able to spend Christmas with loved ones, >>

Ohh crikey. I hate to mention this so I'll whisper it..... In 35 years as a watchkeeping ATCO, including 31 at Heathrow/TC, I worked on Christmas Day just once - that was the first Christmas in ATC when I was working in North Africa! I also never worked on our Wedding Anniversary or my wife's or my birthdays for all the 35 years! Nightshifts... well I went for 8.5 years at Heathrow without working one, which can't be bad.

All of this was achieved fairly - at Christmas I always volunteered to work any other day except Christmas Day so I worked a good number of Boxing Days and New Years..... avoiding nights is easy if you have colleagues who prefer working them - and there are a good few such loonies!

As for living in the Southampton area, well try living within reach of LTCC and then you realise that within a few miles of Soton you can be in Heaven..

[AhDee]

working in the special days........ haha I used to it already, including my own birthday =) as long as I my job can satisfy me in someway.

and I believe that most of you guys love what you are doing, and proud to be an ATCO as well. this make me so excited and erally wanna be one of you guys in the future :p

By the way, today is Chinese New Year, the year of Rooster.

Kung Hey Fat Choy!!

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

<Kung Hey Fat Choy!!>

Not while the train is standing in the sation.....

[Jerricho]

The whole issue of working Christmas Day can be a bit of a downfall for the good old shift worker. I've worked the last 2. Another person I now work with has worked 8 of the last 9. It can be a bit of a bitch, however as my wife and I don't have any Junior Jerrichos (well, none that I know of ;) ) , I don't really have too much of a problem working if it means those with younger kiddies can have the day off (and Mrs J begrudgingly agrees. Although, she does use it as leverage for more expensive Xmas presents.)

[atco-matic]

Heathrow Director,

"In 35 years as a watchkeeping ATCO, including 31 at Heathrow/TC, I worked on Christmas Day just once - that was the first Christmas in ATC when I was working in North Africa! I also never worked on our Wedding Anniversary or my wife's or my birthdays for all the 35 years! Nightshifts... well I went for 8.5 years at Heathrow without working one, which can't be bad."

Well you indeed are/were very lucky to be working in a unit where staffing is not an issue and you can pick and choose what you work over Christmas.

"avoiding nights is easy if you have colleagues who prefer working them - and there are a good few such loonies!"

Nights at LHR are hardly taxing so i cqan understand why people there would prefer to do them as opposed to working day shifts... now spare a thought for the rest of us who actually have to do some work at 2am and then you'll realise why many units are not full of loonies who prefer to do nights. :rolleyes:

[ILS 119.5]

I don't think it is the traffic levels that make controllers not want to work them especially at some stations. If it is busy then it is quite good (egnx for example). If it quiet then controllers get tired. At Heathrow half of the controllers sleep for the first part of the night and work second half and vice versa (basically). The real reason (I think) is fatigue and the effects on the body to readjust to normal life during the days off following. I never used to like doing them , sorry did, nor did I like flying through the night and then having to drive thirty miles home to my bed.
Generally pilots and atcos have good lives depending on where and who you work for. A simple analogy, atcos working at non 24 hour units is like flying short haul, (always in bed at a night time), atcos working at 24 hour units is like pilots flying long haul, always having to readjust the bodyclock. If I did both careers again then it would be at non 24 hr career.

PS when I mean pilots I do not mean the unfortunate ones who have to fly cargo/freight throughout the night, a job I do not envy.

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

Atco-matic.. I'd hardly say the units I worked at didn't have a staffing issue - quite the reverse in fact!! I was dead lucky that others preferred to work Christmas, eg some Scots preferred that to working New Year. Some actually liked beiang at work on Christmas Day, although exactly why I dread to think..

[Talkdownman]

AhDee,

I see you wannabee a 'plane driver as well. Well it is not impossible to combine the two. When on shifts every day is two days / two lives in one as I am sure other active ATCOs like HD will agree. It is by no means impossible to knock off ATC then go and fly a couple of sectors. Combining ATC with heavy metal flying is probably a thing of the past although it did exist some 30-odd years ago. We still have a number amongst us who fly corporate / business / flight instruction which, from experience, I found all most rewarding and complementary to ATC. But, be warned, it has become increasingly difficult to comply with some CAA Flight Ops restrictions and Secondary Employment restrictions imposed by some employers. (You would have to be very inventive to circumnavigate some of the iniquitous, draconian, impractical restrictions inconsistently applied by a certain ATC employer which I have in mind.)

Similar to HD this is year 39 wearing a headset, so I suppose it can't be all that bad.......after all.

But it is painfully quiet without you HD........

[Otis B Driftwood]

What about life as an ATCO in the Military???

I have been keen on getting into ATC for a while now and the Military seems interesting......

One doesn't seem to read much about the military side of things on here.

Is it possible to do 5-10 years in the Air Force and then move into the civilian world, or am I missing something???

I think time in the RAF or RAAF etc would be a great experience but I don't know if I want to spend 30 years in the service......


:confused: :confused: :confused:

[ADIS5000]

Otis B

I'm a Fighter Controller and I've been waiting for my ATC colleagues to reply to you, but seeing as they are being unusually quite today I'll have a bash at your questions!

Yes, it is perfectly feasible to join the Mil as ATC and then come out at a later date and go civvy (Lots of people do it). Here is my take on the plusses and minuses (?) of the equation:

For:

Mil lifestyle is fantastic and unique.
Fairly handy pension (at the moment, it's changing from mid 2006).
Unrivalled job security if you want it.
Lots of travel possibilities (mainly to war zones these days!)

Against:

After 10 years there is every chance that your civilian equivalent will be earning double what you are as a mil controller.
The vast majority of your mil qualifications won't be recognised outside the mil. You will have to do virtually the whole NATS course (and it ain't no doddle!).

Finally, if you're keen on the military side of things, the RN, RAF and RAAF also employ Fighter Controllers which requires the same aptitude and gets you involved in air to air tactics and battle management as well as ATC services. Oh yes, you do have to be much better looking though!

If you'd like more info, I suggest that you start a new thread in the Military Forum or PM me.

Regards, ADIS

[hangten]

for the benefit of scotsliveit who posed some questions earlier, as an ab initio trainee with no aviation experience at all i found the college harder (or perhaps just very different) than unit validation training simply due to the quantity of theory work to be absorbed in a small period of time.

i think that in six months i learned more at the college than in my three years at uni doing my batchelor honours - but then i did have fun at uni...:O

[Stunty]

Someone say my name????

Yes, things here on the west coast aint bad at all.....middle of feb and the temp right now has to be about +15....sweet!!!

[Lock n' Load]

Stunty!!! How ya doin' cobber? Don't know if you heard from our Aussie union rep, but the Aussie success rate at Edmonton just went up...
Yup, you BCites have it all so long as you don't work in YVR Centre. Commute for 2 hours to work, then have to avoid the drug war next to the carpark. I had a drive down through Shuswap via Banff, then south to Washington State (would have been cheap booze and tabs if Canada customs hadn't charged me a fortune in duty - was only in the US for 3 hours) and up through the scariest pass in the country from Trail to Creston, then Kimberley, over to Alberta on Hwy 3 and back up to Edmonton. That's 2,500km in 3 and half days. It was winter when I left, spring (or what seemed like spring - probably the depths of winter to you...) in BC and southern AB, and back to winter now. Today, it's -3. Ahh, tropical.

[Stunty]

I didn't know there was a new expat trainee in Edmonton....good on him/her for checking out. We dont get told much over here.....we dont really know/care what happens out east....and people out east dont like us and dont tell us anything. I think everyone is happy with that.

[REVOLUTION]

Highly recommend it! Working shifts gives you loads of time during the day to get things done, the pay is pretty good and the work is fun!