Broadcast of arrival and departure times
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Broadcast of arrival and departure times
Back in the dim and distant past when I was an ATCA at Heathrow, I seem to recall that the Air Controller broadcast the landing or take-off time of each aircraft. It was done mainly, I think, for the benefit of various people monitoring the frequency rather than that of the aircraft.
I was wondering if this is still done at Heathrow (or anywhere else for that matter) or has the introduction of modern technology removed the need for this practice?
NB
I was wondering if this is still done at Heathrow (or anywhere else for that matter) or has the introduction of modern technology removed the need for this practice?
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N o t a
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Wasn't it also done for the Departure Cell at West Drayton? Heathrow stopped doing it for sometime but then reverted. Not sure what they do now.
Aaaahh.. Telemove. Great people who had a giant steel cabinet full of chocolate bars which they would sell to poor, down and out ATC staff at very reasonable prices!!
Aaaahh.. Telemove. Great people who had a giant steel cabinet full of chocolate bars which they would sell to poor, down and out ATC staff at very reasonable prices!!
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Bren, you're at it again!
You're leading me down memory lane again!
Telemove became BASIS and BAIR at Heathrow in 1978. Mrs OddOne (before I met her) worked in Apron Control at the time, running the 2 systems in parallel until Telemove's replacement was bedded in. We acquired a number of good people who were with the old system, one of whom is still, I believe, head of Ops at Birmingham.
The big advantage of telemove for us using it at the receiving end was that if you missed anything, you could fish miles of tickertape out of the bin until you found the bit of onfo you needed, parking stand, registration or whatever. It was also jolly useful at weddings and parties as a sort of cheapo confetti....
TheOddOne
Telemove became BASIS and BAIR at Heathrow in 1978. Mrs OddOne (before I met her) worked in Apron Control at the time, running the 2 systems in parallel until Telemove's replacement was bedded in. We acquired a number of good people who were with the old system, one of whom is still, I believe, head of Ops at Birmingham.
The big advantage of telemove for us using it at the receiving end was that if you missed anything, you could fish miles of tickertape out of the bin until you found the bit of onfo you needed, parking stand, registration or whatever. It was also jolly useful at weddings and parties as a sort of cheapo confetti....
TheOddOne
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Nearly 30 years on...
...and at LGW, we're STILL having to employ someone, 24 hrs a day, to just listen to ATC and input times. In this case, we're just left with pushback times (and ground moves), but no-one has yet reliably automated this process, despite several attempts.
You try sitting for hours listening to GMC, picking out data from perhaps one transmission in 20, then accurately noting it. Requires a lot of concentration and gets mind-numbingly boring after a while.
TheOddOne
You try sitting for hours listening to GMC, picking out data from perhaps one transmission in 20, then accurately noting it. Requires a lot of concentration and gets mind-numbingly boring after a while.
TheOddOne
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There are a couple of ATCOs at Manchester who do give the a/c their landing and t/o times, quite "unofficially" of course...
watp,iktch
watp,iktch
Last edited by chiglet; 17th Oct 2006 at 21:17. Reason: beeeer
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I thought EFPS did that?
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TheOddOne.. One or two ATCOs at Heathrow had the extraordinary ability to do GMC without writing anything down (making life hell for those taken over from them!). They would watch the ticker-tape and remember stand numbers, Leslie Welch-style. The lesser mortals would write the stand numbers on a sheet as they appeared on the tape, marking it with a pen as it clicked past so we knew where we'd reached. Sometimes a heavyhanded "tick" would break the tape, resulting in extreme panic as attempts were made to repair it!! Deft staff members would quickly stab a finger on the rapidly disappearing end of tape and it would then be re-connected using a piece of thin adhesive tape. If the end was lost, the whole thing had to be re-threaded. If only pilots knew........
The people in Telemove were Communications Officers - great people. And do you remember the original Telemove keyboard, before "PC-type" keyboards were introduced? The old Exchange-telegraph system employed a clockwork tape printer which had to be wound up. This drove the printing wheel and in Heathrow Tower the tape then ran along a metal runner about 10 ft long across the GMC desk with a motorised "puller" at the far end. When a transmission was started the tape started to move one space at a time and the tape would continue moving even if no letter was sent. The Telemove keyboards resembled pianos and when a key was pressed to send a character the tape would stop whilst the little wheel with the typefaces on typed the letter on the tape. To prevent the tape charging off the "piano key" had to be held down until the next letter key was presssed, then the tape would advance one space and the next character printed. It was: Press key and hold down, press next key and hold down, then release first key.. It was quite a technique to get right and it was fun going into Telemove and seeing a room full of Reginald Dixons!!!
The people in Telemove were Communications Officers - great people. And do you remember the original Telemove keyboard, before "PC-type" keyboards were introduced? The old Exchange-telegraph system employed a clockwork tape printer which had to be wound up. This drove the printing wheel and in Heathrow Tower the tape then ran along a metal runner about 10 ft long across the GMC desk with a motorised "puller" at the far end. When a transmission was started the tape started to move one space at a time and the tape would continue moving even if no letter was sent. The Telemove keyboards resembled pianos and when a key was pressed to send a character the tape would stop whilst the little wheel with the typefaces on typed the letter on the tape. To prevent the tape charging off the "piano key" had to be held down until the next letter key was presssed, then the tape would advance one space and the next character printed. It was: Press key and hold down, press next key and hold down, then release first key.. It was quite a technique to get right and it was fun going into Telemove and seeing a room full of Reginald Dixons!!!
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Telemove
My father worked in Telemove as a Communications offficer. The keyboard was like a piano with black and white keys A-Z left to right. They also had Lamson tubes to the tower and approach. I visited as a child.It was on the 4th floor of what is now the old tower it was an odd floor because it was like 2 stories in one. Later I worked in the same room for the LFMU London flow management Unit. I also worked at LATCC and there was a position CCTV Closed circuit TV we monitored Heatghrow and Gatwick departure frequencies and wrote on a glass with a chingraph pen so the TMA sectors could get the departure times.
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They were the Golden Days Dave...the dreaded Ticker Tape, which used to break causing extreme panic for the GMC controller as he watched all the stand allocations disappearing down the chute!!
