> noise-cancelling headphones
After 8 hours, my ears actually hurt from wearing air-traffic-controller style headphones all day.
After 8 hours, my ears actually hurt from wearing air-traffic-controller style headphones all day.
The guys in the tower are ATC, they do ground control (still ATC) and local control, surface to 2500' with a 5-mile radius. The dark room guys (TRACON) do surface to the top of their airspace (depends, 18k, 23k) with a 60-mile radius (roughly). Then there is center/en route, which does air traffic above the TRACON when you are level flying at 30k+.
Simplified version.
Source: Was an air traffic controller.