Originally Posted by sejo
Hi BD, Glad you liked it!
Very much
, despite having worked at West Drayton twice (first in 1978) I had not seen that broadcast.
If you drop me a PM with a postal address, I'd be happy to send you a better quality copy on DVD which you could circulate to any interested colleagues.
Or even better if there are any guided tours somewhere up for grabs I could bring a copy in person
Pm'd you
PS It certainly looks like it was a challenge at the London TMA sectors with so many people crowded round each position...so much so I think the film shows one bit where someone accidentally head butts Dave Vaugnan while he is on the phone. I can only presume its all a lot calmer these days?
It was indeed quite cramped and it could get very hectic, particularly for the Sector Chief (which was the role Dave was doing then) who did all the coordination. Obviously there has been enormous change but some things don't change. Where they spoke about the 9020D and the Host Computer System having FAST startovers, that still happens sometimes. A computer is a computer and if you put garbage in you get garbage out, however our Flight Data Procesing computer systems are very much more resilient now. When there is a failure it is investigated and measure put in place to stop it happening again.
The programme touched on the introduction of Flow Control, now called Traffic Management its a real growth industry
Much more of an integrated system now though throughout Europe.
Probably the biggest physical change has been with the move of the Area Control task (Terminal Control still resides at West Drayton until next year) to the new (well it opened in 2002) centre at Swanwick. The introduction of electronic coordination reduced phone calls by about 90% and there is none of the crowding round you seen in the programme.
Cheers
BD