Undergraduate Program
The purpose of air traffic control is to ensure the flight safety of the aircraft flying in and around the airports and airspaces, to regulate the air traffic flow, and to increase the efficiency of the total system. The Faculty of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Air Traffic Control Department, provides undergraduate-level education that trains air traffic controller candidates in accordance with national and international standards. The teaching process largely consists of the basic infrastructure courses required for air traffic controllership, theoretical courses, and the application of these theoretical courses in air traffic control simulators. The education also provides the necessary scientific background to solve traffic system problems such as air traffic delays, capacity problems, aircraft trajectory prediction, and collision avoidance.
Air traffic controller candidates are required to know English at a level determined as Level 4 by the International Civil Aviation Organization and the Sivil Havacılık Genel Müdürlüğü of our country. Therefore, students who are successful in the English proficiency exam held at the beginning of the education process can directly start the undergraduate program. Students who are not successful continue to the English Preparatory Class for one year. In order to improve students' ability to use English, at least 30 percent of the courses within the program, especially simulator courses, are conducted in English. In the program, it is aimed to teach students the basic knowledge of aviation, air traffic control methods by making use of today's technologies, and to gain the ability to conduct research and problem solving by doing experimental and theoretical teamwork. In addition, our students are provided to get used to the simulator environment in the 10 working day virtual pilot internships at the end of the 1st year. At the end of the 3rd year, the unit internships are 30 working days long, and these internships must be done at airports with heavy air traffic in our country. Unit internships and the airports where the students will go are determined by the Department in coordination with the Devlet Hava Meydanları İşletmesi. Students actively reinforce the theoretical knowledge they have gained through unit internships and the experiences they have gained in the simulation environment with internships in real-life air traffic control units. Virtual Pilot Internship and Unit Internship are compulsory internships of the air traffic control department.
Within the scope of the program, a significant part of the courses are held one-on-one in the simulators of the airport control and radar control simulators of the department, with two students per instructor. In order to graduate, students are required to take “Development Applications for Air Traffic Management” and “Simulation of Air Traffic Control and Operations” courses in their senior year and complete the projects they will prepare here, first as posters and then present them in front of the jury.
The Air Traffic Control Department has a state-of-the-art radar and square control simulator equipped with voice recognition technology, which provides both training and research and development opportunities, as well as self-training. The radar simulator has 12 working positions. In the square control simulator, a 360-degree view is provided by 10 ceiling projectors. Six major airports of our country and one generic airport are loaded and ready for simulation in our airport control simulator. Both simulators greatly increase the teaching efficiency of our students and also allow them to investigate different air traffic management problems.