Spotting From The Control Tower : Edition 4

Welcome back inside the tight next work force of the IFATC team where we have had many highs and lows throughout making sure you the community have the best experience possible. Baring in mind the hearty traffic loads we see on a daily basis and without you the passion for controlling is still growing to this very day.


The story told to you today is by one of the IFATC team’s Recruiter who has had the time to share something really intresting and inspiring whilst proving that anything is possible.

“My whole story and progress in IFATC is about mentors that have been helping me throughout my journey, mentors are not just for IRL business but they are here too! I joined IFATC in march 2019 I applied to join in October 2018, GHamsz was my recruiter back then, I was lucky to have this great man as a recruiter, I did not know much about him and about his legacy in IFATC, after failing my two written, I told him you know Gary, I gave up thank you for everything you have done, and I was serious that’s ATC is not my thing, however Gary had another opinion he encouraged me to take the last chance, which I did and I passed. Then finally went to the practical and passed it. Here I was invited to a whole new world, great people in a great community, when i started controlling I was trying to adapt this new whole thing, then i met Anton De Zeeuw, he came to my airport and started to give me beautiful advices on how to deal with people, he was a supervisor and I thought supervisor is a scary thing, where they want to test you and if you failed you are out, he has proven to me that supervisors are different, supervisors are there to help you out to improve by giving you great feedbacks, Anton helped me a lot in the beginning of my career he was my first mentor in IFATC, back to Gary, which I consider him as one of my mentors, everyone who has been flying in IF for the past 4 years knows who is GHamsz and how he is an engineer in approach controlling, and my biggest goal is to be like him and to be like another person his name is Manoel Goncalves who without him I wouldn’t have been where I am right now.
I kept watching many of Gary’s videos and saw and analysed his tactics in approach, which helped me a lot when I started my officer career. Gary is my second mentor, he helped me a lot, whenever you need to ask him a question he is there to help.
My third mentor is as I mentioned him before a great man and a great friend, Manoel Goncalves, I first met him when he was angry why I used two runways only in JFK, one for dep and one for arrival, to be honest it was a mistake! And I thought this guy is the scary supervisor I was thinking, well… I was wrong, I had chance to know Manoel more, I kept asking him on how to improve, also flew to many airports he was controlling, and I admired his approach controlling, I still remember when I controlled Sochi airport’s tower and he controlled approach, he had that beautiful amazing line and I was like I want to be like this guy, he gave me uncountable number of advices and tips before and after being an IFATC officer, he was also my recruiter in my radar career. Its a long story that needs many paragraphs to fill, my whole point is, those great people and others I haven’t mentioned were the main reason why I am now in this rank. My advice to everyone here who is inspired to be a good IFATC, learn from the best, keep asking questions, watch, analyse, take screenshots and ask the controller why you did this and that. And trust me, you will reach your goal.”

There are also so many more Recruiter’s that would have loved to be appart of todays blog post but just sadly didn’t have the time. Those great people are @Declan, @MJhendo , @Flying_Pencil and @Grizpac who need that mention anyways.


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Feel free to join the IFATC to explore and experience some of the best community aspects out there but only you can be the judge of that and hope that this blog post has inspired you all.


This thread design was helped by using : Adobe Spark Post & SnapSeed.

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nice thread! I always love these!

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I’m super duper pleased :) Any suggestions with new ideas are always welcome.

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Might use what he’s doing in one of my sessions 👀!
Great thread!

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I was really inspired by how it was all done and is quite incredible how some people can work on thease high work loads.

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Nice thread Joshua! 🍪😏

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Lovely work as always, Joshua! 👏

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Thank you very much 💛

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Amazing!
Thanks for the great story Jamal, and thanks for Sharing it Joshua!

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Nice one Josh, best trainer ever. Would like to give a cookie, you well deserved it!

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This is an awesome thread thank you for posting it.

I have applied for IFATC and have failed my written test once and am due to take it again tomorrow and I can say after two weeks of revising and taking the IFATC practice tests numerous times over the last two weeks my score has gone up from 50% to 86% so I am confident I will pass this time and be a trainee IFATC with just the practical to pass 😁✈️

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@JasonG I managed to get one of my trainees through the resit of the written and sit the practical in one day and with your determination I am sure that passing the practical will be easy peasy. I tell everyone to remember the key fundamentals of why Sequencing is so important and once nailed is a winner in any practical test.

Best of luck there and I am sure your going to nail it!

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Thank you I appreciate your kind words 😁 I’ve been practicing every day on training server and have been very efficient and feel confident in tower controller procedures depending on how my written goes tomorrow and then training for practical I may see you on the other side of the control tower very soon 😁😁

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This was an amazing read! Thanks :)

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The key for passing the written exam is of course drawing the scenarios out so you can visualize where everything is in the pattern. Even creating some of your own scenarios is a great revision tip that helped me pass and everyone has their own tips and strategies.

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I love reading these!

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Yeah I’ve been drawing out the patterns and a mock runway in my notepad to have to hand for when I practice on training server on tower and it has also helped me a lot on the written tests having the diagrams to hand to look at and imagine the scenario in my head to decide the correct answer, thank you 😁😁

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I loved it!


I really wanna be an IFATC, but i feel scared 😕

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Thanks Joshua for sharing my story, its just a small story of a journey full of stories.
just for copyrights issues :P the screenshot posted, was an approach session for the great @MannyG, i tagged with him for 2 hours in 14th of June 2019 at Sochi airport, FNF.
i was tower and he was approach, and that was the session that inspired me the most to be an officer, i spotted that from the control Tower :).

@EdCruz i felt scared too, i gave up after failing the written twice, but decided to face that and continue and i never regretted that decision

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What a great story! Thanks for sharing 🙂