DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Hailee Williamson calmly directs a virtual airplane to land on a runway that looks exactly like one at the airport in Oklahoma City where the Federal Aviation Administration trains future air traffic controllers.
But Williamson, 20, is not at the FAA Academy. She’s more than 1,000 miles away, at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, standing behind the controls of an elaborate simulator, where four large video screens stand in for the windows of the airport control tower.
“They teach you all the tools here to properly work your aircraft,” says Williamson, who is studying to be an air traffic controller. Still, she says, simulations like this can get stressful — especially when they require you to maintain proper separation between many airplanes of varying sizes and speeds…