Air Cops

Written by a retired air traffic controller, Air Cops: A Personal History of Air Traffic Control takes a closer look at this adrenaline pumping occupation. Author Billy D. Robbins draws on his experience in this profession to describe navigation systems, past and present. Robbins started his training as a military control tower operator in the U.S. Air Force in 1950. His first job began during the Korean War at the March Air Force Base in southern California. It was there that he learned the daily activities of running a control tower, not all of them pleasant. Boredom, coupled with spurts of intense stress, created a difficult working environment-one that not everyone could handle. Robbins, however, thrived on the life of an air traffic controller and continued in the aviation profession for the next forty years. From the tense moments of dealing with airplane hijackers in Florida to the introduction of automated computer systems, Robbins’s research and experience produces a sometimes hilarious, sometimes tragic view of the air traffic control profession.