The Federal Aviation Administration has stipulated an applicant must have a minimum of two years' general experience and, for the higher grades and more demanding positions, from one to three years specialized experience. This is how the Federal Aviation Administration defines the required background:
General Experience: Progressively responsible experience in administrative, technical, or other work which demonstrated potential for learning and performing air traffic control work.
Specialized Experience: Experience in a military or civilian air traffic facility which demonstrated possession of the knowledge, skills, and abilities required to perform the level of work of the specialization for which application is made.
It is possible to substitute certain education and flight training for experience. Therefore it would be well to request the latest regulations of the Federal Aviation Administration with regard to the qualifications for this job before planning your career future. The physical requirements are not overly stringent. "Applicants must be able to pass a physical examination (including normal color vision). Air traffic control specialists are required to re-qualify in a physical examination given annually."
Applicants must also pass a comprehensive written test and have a complete personal interview. Alertness, decisiveness, diction, poise, and conciseness of speech are evaluated during the course of the interview. Both men and women are employed, but few occupations make more rigid physical and mental demands on employees than that of air traffic controller. Because studies show that the unique skills necessary for success as a controller diminish with age, the maximum age of thirty was established without exception for entry into a Federal Aviation Administration tower or center controller position.
The nature of the work, the working conditions, and job location of the three specialist positions are as follows:
Air Traffic Control Specialist at FAA Airport Traffic Control Tower:
The air traffic control specialists direct air traffic so that it will flow smoothly and efficiently. Controllers give pilots their taxiing and takeoff instruction, air traffic clearances, and advice about weather conditions based on information received from various sources. They transfer control of an airplane that is operated on instruments to the Air Route Traffic Control Center when the aircraft leaves their airspace, and they also receive data from the center regarding aircraft flying into their airspace. In addition these controllers also operate airport and runway lighting systems and prepare reports on air traffic and communications. They must be able to recall quickly registration numbers of airplanes under their control, the aircraft types and speeds, positions in the air, and also the location of navigational aids in their area.
The controllers normally work a forty-hour week in FAA control towers at airports using radio, radar, electronic computers, telephones, traffic control lights, and other devices for communication. Shift work is necessary and each controller is responsible at separate times for giving taxiing instructions to aircraft on the ground, takeoff instructions and air traffic clearances, and for directing landings of incoming planes. At busy locations these duties are rotated among the staff about every two hours. A controller must work quickly, and mental demands will increase as the traffic mounts, especially when poor flying conditions occur and traffic stacks up. Brief rest periods provide some relief but are not always possible. Radar controllers usually work in semidarkness.
The FAA employs over 12,500 controllers at more than 400 airports. A few towers are located outside the continental United States in Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and American Samoa.
Promotion from trainee to a higher grade professional controller depends on the employee's performance and satisfactory progression in her or his training program. Trainees who do not successfully complete their training courses are separated or reassigned from their controller positions. During the first year a trainee is on probation and then may advance from positions backing up professional controllers to primary positions of responsibility. It takes a controller from three to six years of experience to reach the full performance level. Some professional controllers are selected for research activities with FAA's National Aviation Facilities Experimental Center in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Others are selected to serve as instructors at the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Trainees receive from fifteen to nineteen weeks instruction at the FAA Academy and are then assigned to a tower for on-the-job training under close supervision until successful completion of the training period. From time to time the FAA conducts training to upgrade controllers, thus air traffic control training continues long after the controller has reached the full performance level.
Air Traffic Control Specialist at FAA Air Route Traffic Control Centers:
The specialists give the pilots instruction, air traffic clearances, and advice regarding flight conditions along the flight path, while the pilot is flying the federal airways or approaching airports that do not have towers. The controllers use flight plans and keep track of the progress of all instrument flights within that center's airspace. They transfer control of aircraft on instrument flights to the controller in the next center when the plane enters that center's airspace and also monitor the arrival time of each airplane over various navigation fixes and maintain records of the flights under their control.
Using electronic computers, radio, radar, telephones, and other electronic communication devices, air route controllers, work at FAA air route traffic control centers. They work in semidarkness and unlike the tower controllers never see the aircraft they control except as blips or "targets" on their radarscopes. Work is demanding in most areas. Registration numbers of all airplanes under control as well as types, speeds, and altitudes are automatically displayed on the radarscope, but each aircraft must be closely monitored to avoid other aircraft. Controllers are employed at some twenty-one air route traffic control centers located throughout the country, and in Guam, Panama, and Puerto Rico.
Air Traffic Control Specialist at FAA Flight Service Stations:
These specialists render pre-flight, in-flight, and emergency assistance to pilots on request. They give information about actual weather conditions and forecasts for airports and flight paths, relay air traffic control instructions between controllers and pilots, assist pilots in emergency situations, and initiate searches for missing or overdue aircraft.
These specialists use telephones, radio, teletypewriters, and direction finding and radar equipment. They work shifts in offices close to communications equipment with forty hours being their normal workweek. The FAA flight service stations are found at nearly 300 airport locations throughout the United States, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico.
Trainees are paid while they are learning their jobs, starting as a trainee in the flight service station and then advancing to assistant chief, deputy chief, or chief of the facility. A few positions at higher levels are available in FAA regional offices with administrative responsibilities over flight service stations in the area's jurisdiction.
It is not expected that the number of these specialists will increase as much as the jobs in other areas of air traffic control. With greater use of long distance telephones and other communications devices, flight service stations will serve larger areas. Nevertheless, these jobs will be more challenging as automation is more extensively introduced and they will become stepping-stones to air traffic controller careers in FAA airport traffic control towers and control centers.
Because studies show that the unique skills necessary for success as a controller diminish with age, the maximum age of thirty was established without exception for entry into a Federal Aviation Administration tower or center controller position.
