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Old 25th May 2017, 15:52
  #100 (permalink)  
Uplinker
 
Join Date: Nov 1999
Location: UK
Posts: 2,494
Received 103 Likes on 62 Posts
I am not an ATCO, I am a pilot*.

Good luck with it: I just worry that this is being marketed as a great leap forward when the underlying reasons are surely to reduce manpower, i.e. your jobs.

And it cannot possibly be the same as a controller physically being there in the Tower.

If the remote digital tower was laid out like an actual tower, with giant HD screens surrounding the controller where the windows would be, then it might work, but the field of view for each 'window' would need to be from above the horizon to what? 45 degrees down? The human eye brain is an awesome combination: using processing and memory to build up a 3D 360 degree picture that appears simulultaneously zoomed in and wide angle**. A camera lens has to have a particular focal length at any one time, which limits this.

I would also have concerns about the low-light performance of the cameras and also how they dealt with highlights, such as the sun shining directly down the lens - again, the human eye/brain combination can cope with a huge contrast ratio that cameras cannot. As for zooming and panning, it was claimed that any 4 pixel object such as a helicopeter or drone could be tracked, how do you do that without zooming and panning?

*I have made it a point to visit the control towers of the airfields where I have been based (and some where I wasn't, e.g. The old EGLL Tower), and it is always a fascinating experience. I did fly in and out of London City between about 2002-2005, but there was never time on a turnaround to visit the tower there.

** If you have ever tried to take a picture of a sunset or the moon, you will know how different the sun/moon appears in the photo against how it seemed at the time to your own eyes.
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