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People always say being an ATC is the most stressful job that you can have. But this sounds worse, even if the system worked properly. Does anyone know starti

• VLM 13y ago
  $9/hr during training (seriously!), $33K at your first assignment. Pay follows a "public school teacher" trajectory, or at least like the trejectory in my district. Such that you'll start your career eating ramen and living in your car, but by retirement you'll be hauling in $100K or so. The FAA workforce is gray. No other way to say it. So you tend to see ridiculous averages like your local TRACON might pay on average $80K. However as a noob you'd only get $30K or so... you need 30 years in to get rich. Most pilots get to know ATC people for obvious professional reasons. You can probably get interesting anecdotes from a private pilot. Also more than a few ATC personnel ARE private pilots. Helps to understand the other side of the radio, so to speak. I am told there is a narrow window where you're "too old" to be an ATC and get mandatory retirement, yet still young enough to be a CFI, and this is where gray haired flight instructors come from. I do not know if this is true or not. In other words mandatory retirement age for CFI > ATC but not by much.