"The weather was rolling in hard over Pensacola, Fla. A sky full of U.S. Navy training aircraft was struggling to get down before the worst of it smothered their airfield. Departing cross-country flights were making a break for it, fleeing the oncoming front. Pilot-requested deviations were the order of the day as military trainers tunneled under and over the building cumulonimbus.
For me, the FAA trainee radar controller seated before an aging scope, the darkening skies and mounting unpredictability brewed up the perfect conditions for my first checkride."
Opening excerpt from "A Controller's Checkride"
IFR Magazine
March 2009 issue
My first-ever published non-fiction article in a national publication. 1800 words (plus graphics) detailing what it was like to get my first radar certification as an air traffic controller. This was a huge step for me as an aspiring writer, and I thank the terrific folks at IFR Magazine for contacting me and offering me the opportunity to write for them. It was a great experience.
The magazine's web site is: IFR-Magazine.com. They don't have an online version of the full article, but I know a lot of you guys and girls are pilots who either subscribe or might be around flight schools that have copies around. For the controllers out there, the mag opened up my eyes to a lot of things that go on in the cockpit, both from a technical and psychological standing. Good stuff.
2 comments:
It's fantastic that you're getting this opportunity, and you write very well. It's well deserved. Please keep in mind, however, that IFR magazine is pretty much an anti-ATC rag.
Very anti-atc
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