Moderators: richierich, ua900, PanAm_DC10, hOMSaR
AirbusMDCFAN wrote:Link/Source: https://www.wired.com/story/airport-tra ... ffed-cave/
"The next time you fly into Florida's Fort Lauderdale airport, look out the window and see if you can spot what's missing. The answer? A 160 feet high tower."
"That’s what airport officials at the airport say would have been necessary for them to be able to safely control the movement of planes on the ground, taxiing to and from gates and runways at the recently expanded airport. That would be doing things the old fashioned way, by line-of-sight—aka looking at the planes. Instead of an elevated perch, ground controllers at FLL have an even better view from inside a nearby squat, building."
"Controllers sit in front of a video wall, which shows them what’s happening in real time. The infrared images offer improved visibility at night and in the fog. Wearing headsets, they calmly issue cryptic sounding instructions to pilots, and then track the plane moving. It’s the first of its kind in the US, and could set the bar for other airports around the country."
Are there any other airports trying this system out
FredrikHAD wrote:atcsundevil wrote:SheikhDjibouti wrote:If so, the next Control Tower to be featured on the list, might have a negative height.
The "tower in a basement" you're referring to is already happening. The FAA started testing the remote tower concept with Saab last year at Leesburg Airport. I work at a nearby facility, but I don't really know much about it other than what I've heard and read. If it does completely replace the existing tower (which is the goal), the location of the controllers could technically be anywhere.
...
As mentioned before, this is indeed happening. Swedish airport ESNO/OER at Örnsköldsvik is completely remote controlled from Sundsvall, 150 km south of there. It has been in regular service (not in test mode or as proof of concept) for over a year now. Several other airports, including Sundsvall (SDL) and Linköping (LPI) are to be converted to this concept. Scandinavian Mountain Airport in Sälen (Sweden) is to be built with no tower at all, a first in the world (well, for airports needing a tower function that is).
http://www.lfv.se/en/services/airport-s ... n-21-april
About Sälen (Swedish only, sorry):
http://www.flygtorget.se/Aktuellt/Artikel/?Id=11893
Oh, sorry, I have no info on the height of those towers, not even in meters
/Fredrik
N353SK wrote:This is a poorly written article. Broward County is using this for FLL's ramp controllers only. All FAA controllers are still in the tower.
Here is a better article, written four months ago:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/transp ... story.html
PatrickZ80 wrote:It's a nice system, but it has one flaw. In case it fails you still need to fall back to the old system, which is line of sight. That means a tower. Imagine what would happen if you demolish the tower and there is a failure with the video wall or something like that? The whole airport would become uncontrolled.
I'm not saying we should not use this new system, of course we should, but we should also keep the old system as a backup.
Chemist wrote:So if the video feeds fail, a horde of controllers scurry up stairs to a real tower? The visual of that is priceless.
atcsundevil wrote:The idea is that the remote tower wouldn't be collocated with the airport. This idea is many, many years in the future, but a number of remote towers could be housed in the same facility (possibly either an ARTCC or a TRACON). That means that supervisors, tech ops, and other resources could be pooled into Bangalore
DfwRevolution wrote:atcsundevil wrote:The idea is that the remote tower wouldn't be collocated with the airport. This idea is many, many years in the future, but a number of remote towers could be housed in the same facility (possibly either an ARTCC or a TRACON). That means that supervisors, tech ops, and other resources could be pooled into Bangalore
Fixed it for you.
atcsundevil wrote:DfwRevolution wrote:atcsundevil wrote:The idea is that the remote tower wouldn't be collocated with the airport. This idea is many, many years in the future, but a number of remote towers could be housed in the same facility (possibly either an ARTCC or a TRACON). That means that supervisors, tech ops, and other resources could be pooled into Bangalore
Fixed it for you.
Under no circumstances would that ever happen. NATCA would never allow it (NATCA is very prolific and influential with its lobbying), and politically it would be a non-starter.