The FAA is hiring controllers.
How you get hired, how controllers actually talk (straight from the FAA's own handbook), a radio you key yourself and say the call into, a radar game to see if you can keep the planes apart, and timed practice for the kinds of skills the hiring test measures. Free, no sign-up.
The five steps (the FAA's own list)
- Apply on USAJOBS when the FAA opens a hiring announcement. Two-page resume max, with dates and hours a week for each job. Have transcripts (or a college training program letter) and your DD-214 if you're claiming veterans' preference.
- The ATSA: the Air Traffic Skills Assessment, a 3.5-hour computer test of thinking skills, taken in person at a Pearson VUE center. You need a "Well-Qualified" result to move on.
- Medical and security: fingerprints, background check, drug test, a psychological evaluation and a medical exam.
- FAA Academy in Oklahoma City: several months of training in simulators, paid while you learn.
- On the job: you're placed at a tower or radar facility anywhere in the country and spend 1 to 3 years becoming a Certified Professional Controller.
The money
The FAA says Academy trainees start at $22.61 an hour with benefits, certified controllers average more than $155,000 a year within 3 years of graduating, and you can retire at 50 with 20 years in.
Getting ready while the window is closed
- Announcements open and close fast. The FAA says apply early; the last one is closed now. Set a saved search for "Air Traffic Control Specialist" on USAJOBS so you hear the day it opens.
- Get your two-page resume and documents ready now.
- The ATSA isn't public, so nobody can show you its real questions. FAA research papers describe parts like reading instrument dials, quick math, judging angles, scanning a screen, and a traffic-scenario test. Practice those skills (the Skills practice tab) and learn the language (Talk like a controller).
From the FAA's hiring page, faa.gov/atc-hiring (updated April 2026). Rules and dates change with each announcement; the announcement on USAJOBS is what counts.
The call:
Voices marked "online" come from the browser's voice maker (Google or Microsoft): only the pilot's scripted line is sent to them, never your voice or your microphone. The others speak from this device.
Your voice stays on your device: the page only uses speech recognition that runs on the device itself (Chrome or Edge with on-device recognition, or the Hall Pass app). Anywhere else you say the call out loud and check it yourself. Nothing is recorded or sent anywhere. A radio drill, not the ATSA: it grades the words and their order, and the pilot reads back one call in four with a mistake for you to catch.
Every answer is checked against the FAA's controller handbook, Order JO 7110.65BB, Air Traffic Control, and cites the paragraph. Real controllers learn the whole book; these are the basics you hear on every frequency.
A 20-mile radar scope. Tap a plane, then turn it or change its altitude. Two planes closer than 3 miles need to be at least 1,000 feet apart (the FAA's terminal radar minimum). A ring turns yellow when they're getting close. Get them off your scope safely.
A game, not the ATSA and not real procedures: no wind, no wake turbulence, planes fly straight until you turn them. Data blocks show the flight and its altitude in hundreds of feet (110 = 11,000 feet), like a real scope.
The ATSA's real questions aren't public. FAA research describes the kinds of skills it measures, so here's practice for the same kinds of skills: fast, timed, 10 at a time. Practice, not the test.