Directing traffic (at 35,000 feet).

• Position: CAREERS - Air traffic controllers - Brief article

Occasionally, a controller at Academy Airport in Oklahoma City makes a mistake, and planes collide and erupt in a bar of fire. Fortunately, none of it is real But this isn't just another video game. The virtual control, tower at the Federal Aviation Administration Academy helps train future air traffic controllers, with the F.A.A. expecting to train about 1,700 new controllers a year for the next decade. In a class on radar control techniques, students practice with simulated airplanes in rear airspace--10,00O mites of sky above Mississippi and Louisiana. Students also...