Area Vs Aerodrome?
 

6 weeks into the ATC college introductory course and i'm already doubting my choice of Area as a discipline. We visited Bournemouth's clockwork and plywood control tower yesterday and still i'm swinging towards Aerodrome/Approach, any experienced ATCOs want to give me some tips on choosing????

Nobody can answer that question for you imho...its a bit like asking should I play football or rugby, personal choice is the only deciding factor.
Hope that helps:uhoh:

edited to add this wasnt meant to be arrogant....I just think you are the only one who can make a choice like that

In the London area the choices are: Do you want to see aeroplanes or do you want to do radar. Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton & Stansted have no radar facilities at the airfields so if you choose to watch the jets you won't do radar.

Good luck with whatever you choose

On my course (98) we were told that 8 of us would be going to TWR/APR and the other 17 to Area Control and just who would be decide towards the end of the Aerodrome Course.

'Twas an easy choice for me, I never wanted to be anything but a TWR/APR controller. So come the end of the Aerodrome Course the course manager came in and said "hands up who wants to be an Aerodrome controller". Of the 22 of us left about 17 hands went up :} ! "Hmmmm" said the course manager. Anyhow they brought in an Area Instructor (John Hallett ???) to give us a talk on Area Control and after that the split was about 50/50. In the end the course manager decided who was going TWR/APR and I was amongst the lucky 8 :D .

Nice of them to give us a choice though!

The righteous way is of course Tower..............:D

Hurn-ia
As squibbler states, in the end it is the course manager and other higher powers that decide your fate. All I can say from personal experience is that I wanted ADC/APR and I made sure instructors etc knew this. Not too sure if it helped, but I was chosen for ADC.
Don't mean to sound negative :( but I think you have very little control on what you end up doing. When you make your final decision, let others know, do your very best at the college and hope that the instructors etc all know how keen and dedicated you are to the job. It worked for me, but maybe that was just coincidence!
By the way, when do you find out who has been chosen for each discipline?

Away from home

I'm going to push for ADC/APP and I've made this know at the mid course interviews. After the visit to Swanwick yesterday I confirmed that area was definetly not for me.
I suppose it comes down to whether you want to look at a screen or out a window. My teachers at school often said I was skilled at spending most of my time looking out the window so I want to stick with that. :}

Your best bet would be to visit some more units before we have to fill in the forms. I'm going to chance my arm at one or two more visits.

I think that makes 10 of us fighting for 5 places. I propose we set up a boxing ring in FG10, last 5 standing get what they want ;)

I don't mean to throw a spanner in the works, but what if you don't get the approach course, if area definitely isn't for you? I don't know the way the numbers split for your course, but when I was there, it was about 3:1 area:approach. More people wanted to do approach than area, however, so a lot were disappointed. There are likely to be a few disappointed people on your course too, I'm afraid.

As for the area vs approach debate, I was happy to get the area course and was looking forward to my posting before I failed Area 2 :yuk:. Now working at an airport instead, and I love it, but I sometimes still wish I'd got through the area course. I like radar work though.

It's a personal thing, go with whatever you feel drawn to. But be prepared to take whatever cards you are dealt.

I was one of the old school to come out with all five ratings, have worked both area and aero and loved both!
Been aerodrome for the last 13 years because I value the life style and area I live in, but I'm still loving it!

But I would go with the others, keep ya options open! When we graduated we were given the choice of eight postings - which really turned out to be in them days; LATCC, LATCC, LATCC........

So Good luck :)

I don't work for NATS these days so I can't be sure but if you opt for Approach you could find yourself at LTCC. And it don't look much different to Area to me.

When I said it definetly wasn't for me, I was speaking in comparison to aerodrome/approach. Whatever discipline I do I'm sure I will enjoy it, but comparing each one, area would probably be my least favourite from what I've seen.

With ten people applying for five places I'm not going to get my hopes up so whatever I get I'll take it on the chin (one of them anyway).

Unlike quite a few from my course!!!!!:mad: :* :ouch: :mad:

FB

What was it that gave you doubts over your choice?

The deluxe tower(!?) at Bournemouth, seeing planes and the outside world, something the staff said to you?
Visit Swanick Swannick Swannik, damn that bottle of Fitou, talk to the staff there. Then decide. Is the option to change available?
If you do the ADC course, and pass, you could apply to airfields outside NATS.....

While pay issues have been fought over, I mean discussed, elsewhere on PPRUNE, there is a big differential between the top of the ATCO3 scale and top of the ATCO2 scale, even before these rediculous bands are taken into consideration.
What has been true for the almost 10 years that I've been in the job is that in the UK, Area is seen at the elite job, hence the best paid. I asked for, at got, APR on my course (97 Course) because I assumed that my abilities lay in that direction, and frankly I didn't want to live in or near London or Southampton!
Now that I've moved accross the pond, I've had to get used to whole new pecking order. And I like it! Terminal controllers are the prima donnas!

Let's say you opt or are chosen for area, you qualify, you validate.
12 months down the line, you realise area isn't what you thought it was, or perhaps area doesn't like you - unless there is a caveat that allows you to retrain on ADC (because you will have l;ost the ADC rating after 12 months if you don't validate it), and APR, you are well and truely in the brown stuff.

However, if you do the ADC and APR, but don't like working for NATS after the validation, you can walk straight into a job at a non NATS unit almost immediately.

The above scenario isn't by any means a common occurence, but it does happen, and should be considered carefully when or if you have a choice of which course to do.

What ADC rating? I think you'll find that when they're streamed now (since middle of this year?) it's down one road or the other - the old ADC rating and then going down the separate paths is a thing of the past.

I am pretty sure there is a dispensation for students on the NATS course that the 12 months doesn't start ticking down on the ADC ticket until you leave the college at the end of your APR or Area course. Not that the Area studes do ADC any more, much to their disadvantage.

I have to agree with Chilli Monster and confirm that you are talking pure tosh!

I was given my Aerodrome Rating in 1988, have never validated it to this date and yet it has just been issued in my new shiny Euro Licence ADV/ADI as issued in 2004!

As regards APP or Area some of what has been written is very true, some is total rubbish.

Virtually all APP units will be within LACC or NPC by 2009. EGPH/PF/PD will be at NPC and EGBB/HI will be transferring to LACC as soon as the LTCC boys and girls come to the sunny south. The only possible exclusion might be the Welshies.

So the question is do I want to say "cleared to land, cleared for take off" whilst reading The Sun for the rest of my life at a band 1 unit or get different traffic scenarios every shift doing 8 or 9 different Area sectors getting Band 5 money reading The Guardian.;)

I know which I'd rather do.

But being really positive 60% of you will fail to validate anyway so don't worry about it!

talk about glass is half empty, Course 201 will all validate, we have to we've already ordered course mugs!! :-)

Doesn't matter where you go.
 

Panic not, NATS is like that old physics experiment in school, Pascal's tubes if memory serves; where water finds its own level.
If you aren't much good at one thing you will be moved to another...... you can have absolutely no aptitude whatsoever to control traffic, even answering a telephone can be a major event.....don't despair.....you will be moved to another unit....your qualities and strengths may lie in a managerial post. Before you know it you will have achieved greatness, but not necessarily the respect that goes with it!
The massive ATC mega-centre is pleased to welcome a chap from the aerodrome world as new Deputy GM, and I'm sure he will guide us to a bright future, finding 68 controllers to cover the staff shortage might be a good start.
By the way, if you have over 45 minutes aerodrome experience there is a vacancy for Watch Manager at Gatwick, and don't worry, the selection process is designed so that ability and competence-to-do-the-job elements are filtered out.