Piloting an Airplane and Air Traffic Control (Aviation Careers)

I had never thought much about Air Traffic Control, but now that we've talked about it, I can't stop thinking about it—about all the things that are involved with the radar tracking of planes all over the country (world), all the time. It's kind of overwhelming. This packet about Air Traffic Control was awesome. Lots of interesting information you never thought to wonder about. We had fun looking for some of the things we learned about (not just the control towers, but the other radar towers and relay stations, etc.) when we went to the airport.

We liked learning about the instruments used to fly an airplane. When you look into the cockpit of a commercial plane, it's so overwhelming! (Seb has this poster in his room, of a 747 cockpit—so many buttons!) But there are really just six basic instruments that can tell a pilot what he needs to know. We had this poster up on our homeschool bulletin board which shows them all, and how to read them.

For more on those instruments and controls, this site is great. It has TONS of stuff about learning to fly—for real pilots (or people wanting to actually start their training)—but also for children who are interested. Here's a worksheet to test your knowledge of the gauges and controls. There are lots of more worksheets and pages about every conceivable aspect of flying planes. Such a good site.

My children really like the phonetic alphabet. We all tried to memorize it. You can sound much better when playing airplane if you refer to yourself as "Bravo Zulu Six-Niner-Niner."

This is a kind of funny list of terms airlines use (you'll never be able to STOP noticing them saying, "At this time, we DO hope you have a wonderful afternoon" again).

And here is a list of more essential aviation jargon!