What IS the job of an ATCO, exactly?

[Life as a journey]

Hi

I am trying to put together an article on ATCO's, whether or not it is anything at all like Pushing Tin, what your mission statement is, and how that is achieved.

Ideally, I'd like to know how candidates are selected, what initial training is undertaken, the type of aptitude tests involved, job responsibilities, career progression, and so on.

How do you communicate with other FIR stations; how often do you do medicals, recurrent training, move jobs?

Who oversees an ATC station? Why are you ATCO's in the first place? What attracts you to the job?

Guess that's a start.

Anyone care to comment?

[Jerricho]

"To provide a safe, orderly and expeditious flow of Air Traffic........."

Says so in the Manual, so that must be it!

For a better answer, you could check the following web-sites

www.nats.co.uk
www.airservicesaustralia.com.au
www.navcanada.ca
(or any other ATS provider......)

[Life as a journey]

Thanks for the help.

[Scott Voigt]

Hello Life;

You can go to www.NATCA.net and look at our website that will give you some insight as to what controllers do. There are quite a few things on the site. You can also contact the National Office of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association if you need any further info, the address's and phone numbers are on the web site. If you need anything else, let me know.

regards

Scott H. Voigt
NATCA Southwest Region
Safety and Technology Chairman
Fort Worth Air Route Air Traffic Control Center.:ok: