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Old 15th Mar 2007, 11:03
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songbird29
 
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Centre of old Europe
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I visited Ankara ATC Centre some eight or ten years ago. Talked with management and stayed the whole day at the sectors in the Centre, to get the feel. Very motivated staff at all levels, but poor and outdated computers (286-based, for those who remember this predecessor of XP and Vista), awaiting replacement as part of a modernisation plan.

Huge problems in civil-military relations were apparent. Military jets (Turkish and other NATO) were crossing airways and other controlled airspace, without any co-ordination and giving rise to nasty confrontations.

Funnily enough it reminded me to situations in Western Europe during cold war high-days in the seventies when military flights also had the habit of crossing and even dogfighting into "our" civilian airway. With a bit of luck you had a transponder signal but mostly you could only see their primary (at the time we still had primary), which gave you the shivers. They could be anywhere between 3000' and FL 300, but you couldn't afford to miss out on essential traffic information. Horror, luckily the 'big air' theory has always been on our side.

With better technical means and procedures things got much better in most parts of Western Europe. I wonder whether there has been improvement in Turkey.
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