[Magdalen] Gap year (or more)

[Roger Stokes]

On 05/06/2015 22:05, Jon Egger wrote:
> After my son got his degree in Professional Piloting, and flew up and down
> the Aleutian Islands, he discovered that piloting wasn't for him, so he
> applied to enter the FAA ATC (Air Traffic Control) school.  The first
> summer of training was in OKC, and the instructors LOVED that 12 in the
> class of 15 had pilot licenses.

I can understand that.  The pilots know what it's like in the cockpit 
and what they look for from ATC to help them bring their aircrsaft down 
safely.  Their experience would also help the trainees understand and, 
perhaps at times, give some personal support (as I have done in a 
different field of training) which relieves the official titor to an extent.

> It made teach so much easier, and the
> pilots helped the non-pilots learn.  The program has several washout times
> (big tests, etc) and those who finally graduated were very lucky, indeed.
> He was fortunate, too, that he got the sector he wanted, Minneapolis. ATC
> is not for older people...once he was in the Minneapolis sector his first
> assignment was learning all the three letter airport codes for EVERY
> airport in the sector, and sectors are huge areas!

It seems to me that a big difference between UK and US air traffic us 
that you have a lot more commercial airfields per given area than we 
do.  We have a number of smaller private airstrips which operate under 
visual flight regulations rather than instruments and below a certain 
ceiling.  From what I understand the density of airfields in some areas 
can be a real problem.

Roger