Originally Posted by
BAND4ALL
Maybe BD this is where the costs are too high mate, ever thought about that
OK so lets take your 'do nothing' suggestion to it's logical conclusion. Let's say we (NATS) never changed anything in ATC in the UK (if that were feasible). Unfortunately Johny Foreigner can (and does) have the right to make airspace changes every AIRAC cycle and we (NATS) must respond and comply. So there's change creeping in, could be airspace or it could be standing agreement or an update or change to the OLDI messaging or it's protocols. So someone must negotiate these changes for NATS and make the changes within the NATS infrastructure. Unless specific to a single NATS unit that'll be people working centrally for NATS and they'll be based at the CTC.
How about equipment, can we just keep going forever on existing equipment? Much as we might like to it doesn't last forever, things break. So we need spares but we can't buy a massive stockpile of spares 'just in case' (apart from the cost of purchasing and storing, we don't actually know what the attrition rate is until things have been in service for a while). So we set up a maintenance/support contract with the manufacturer for a period of time (because it costs money to have a maintenance/support contract and the longer it is the more it costs). The engineering team who look after systems centrally are based at the CTC and because it's a contract we also need some legal experts who can look after our interests, also based at the CTC. Sometimes we can buy stuff off the shelf for repairs but there is a team whose job it is to negotiate and get the best deal for us. They're based at the CTC.
Eventually the equipment will come to the end of it's life (in part because the manufacturer will no longer support it) so we need to replace it (preferably with something better with more bells and whistles). If you're replacing a big operational system, like voice comms, it's a really good idea to plan it. So you need people who are looking at new technologies as they come out and what's on the market as well as people who can plan the installation of your replacement system, they're based at the CTC.
You also need to pay for it which will involve going cap in hand to the banks for the loot. You need to pay for it (which you're not going to do in one big lump sum) and you need to have control of how and on what the money is being spent. This is another team of people plus various others with responsibilities and accountabilities. They're all based at the CTC.
Gosh that's quite a lot of people already surely they're not very busy? Well actually we're not just doing one thing in a linear fashion, NATS is doing lots of things all at the same time, like decommissioning the old Ops room at PC, running our area and airport operations and planning for the new things coming along like the olympics, VCCS change for LAC, LAMP (London Airspace Management Programme), iTEC, radar tracker replacement and a host of others. All of which need considerable planning in and of themselves and you don't want to be in the situation of planning a big engineering change to systems which will require operational Staff to be trained on it whilst someone else is planning an airspace change for delivery at the same time which also needs to be trained. The people doing the planning are based at the CTC.
I've only very briefly touched on some of the tasks performed by people based at the CTC to give a flavour of what the HQ staff are doing, there are plenty of other tasks being performed. I think it might be something of an eye opener for some operational staff who've never been there to go and have a look at the work being done to support them and understand that all of the changes which come along aren't done in an instant by magic pixies
BD
Previously based at Swanwick, based at CTC for the past 4 years and moving back to Swanwick.