This whole fiasco surrounding ATC Dad was created and blown out of proportion by the FAA. The controversy started ATC Dad back in February when a LiveATC listener heard a seven year old on JFK ATC. He then proceeded to record the boys transmission and share it on YouTube.  The ATC Controller’s only mistake was that he did not consider the PR his action would create.  Some of the facts surrounding this incident:

• All the planes were on the ground
• The controller could interrupt his child if something was going wrong
• The pilots knew ahead of time a child would be transmitting

The real problem with this incident is how the FAA worded their press release. Had they said, “Air Traffic Controlling is an exciting and challenging career, and we occasionally children to explore this field under the supervision of an experience controller.” Or if they were even smarter they could have been proactive and release a possible press release before the media caught wind of the youtube video, “Today, pilots at JFK airport heard a different kind of voice on the radio, as part of the FAA’s mentoring program.”  If they were to have done this, then this news story would have made the Friday feel good story of the day.

For further commentary on this story, Robert Mark of JetWhine shares his opinion.

 I noticed that you can now listen to the air traffic control frequencies for  Thunder Bay International Aiport on LiveATC.net.  They are currently streaming the frequencies for:

Thunder Bay Ground: 121.9 
Thunder Bay Tower: 118.1 
Thunder Bay Terminal: 119.2 
Winnipeg Center (CZWG) – Marathon Sector (GND/FL280): 132.125 

I just heard a CF-18 flying over my house, and then the controller said, “Follow the F-18 inbound.”  And later I heard, “F-18 is departing the runway.”  I think the actual radio for the pilot of the F-18 was too faint to hear, so I couldn’t hear what he was saying.  It sounded like he was asking for clearance to fly the pattern again, but the controller said no because he has seven Cessnas inbound.

So have fun with this!  If you’re a Grounded Pilot like me, you’ll enjoy listening to real ATC.  I think the future of flight simulators will embed real live ATC and traffic data so you can fly alongside real world traffic.