Aviation Start podcast episode focuses on air traffic control careers

The fifth Aviation Start episode turns from pilots to air traffic control. Jamail Larkins hosts the career-focused video podcast, and his guest is Marcus Miller, a controller at an FAA en route center who writes about the job on social media as PropHatCat.

Larkins called the subject timely. He pointed to a large wave of controller hiring that he expects to run close to ten years. Miller said his views were his own and that he was not speaking for the FAA or the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.

Miller's path to the job was unconventional. He spent his fifth birthday at Waco Regional Airport in Texas, got interested through Flight Simulator X in eighth grade, and started college in musical theater before switching to aviation. Time on VATSIM, a network where flight simulator users talk to simulated controllers, pushed him toward the real occupation. He finished the FAA's Collegiate Training Initiative at LeTourneau University in Texas and applied to the agency every year for five years before he was hired.

The episode also covered the main routes into the FAA. Controllers leaving the military move across directly. Applicants with no aviation background must be at least 18, hold a high school diploma, and show one year of work experience. Graduates of the Collegiate Training Initiative skip the Air Traffic Basics course at the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City but still complete their tower, terminal, or en route training there. Under a newer option, Enhanced CTI, accredited colleges deliver that track-specific instruction on their own simulators, with an FAA evaluator signing off before graduates report straight to a facility.