Originally Posted by
escaped.atco
I get the whole training scenario, a rating from a training college is one issue but a unit remote tower validation is another matter altogether! The thought of a Spanish or any other country you care to name, getting ANSP contracts within the UK and validating controllers on units that they have never ever seen makes me shudder. I still can't get my head round how they would circumvent the actual unit training process if they haven't been trained by any currently valid OJTI types. Couple that with the fact of securing data lines through several different countries and I'm sure it would all be fine. Surely nothing could go wrong there?
I respect your opinion but from the bottom of my heart I hope you are wrong.
As far as AyrTC says, I don't believe controllers have any problems with technology. If you look at the rate of change there has been over the last 30 years then I don't think anyone could argue that all of the innovations have been detrimental. SSR is one simple tool that has improved controlling techniques and abilities beyond belief, there are many others. The problem is that remote towers are being pushed for one reason, that is cost saving and so called efficiency. Safety may be given lip service with the PTZ cameras, if these cameras are so fantastic then bolt them onto the current towers! It's as though someone has come up with a solution to save money, now they need to justify the problem to solve. It's all the wrong way round in my humble opinion. But hey ho, we live in the days of the bean counters, risk assessments and outsourcing. As others have said, maybe in years to come some bright spark will come up with the idea of having real towers at real airfields to ensure safety.
Believe me, I hope I’m wrong too, but I suspect that’s the way things are going.
You can see it already with the SESAR trials and sims in area/en route. ‘Any controller, any sector’ is the mantra. No local expertise, but compensated for by massive levels of tool support, telling the ATCO what to do. Likewise, Surface Managers and Integrated Working Positions, if we put aside the practical issues of putting such a system into real-life ops, make the job petty easy for 99% of the time. I’ve tried one simulating Paris CDG GMC bandboxed and after about 30 mins I was handling the same traffic as two or three ATCOs do there today. I say that not as a demonstration of my capabilities, far from it, but as an example of how tools and safety nets (reactive and predictive) can make the job so easy (for 99% of the time) that even non-ATCOs can make a decent fist of it. And that’s the holy grail.