ATC system

[eglnyt]

EFD is pretty much just an electronic version of paper strips. There is very little integration with anything else except the UK's National FDP system which supplies its data. The Air Situation Display is driven by a system which was originally from Siemens Plessey but extensively developed over the last 20 years by NATS.

[Legrandprince]

Originally Posted by Hotel Tango

Legrandprince, I suggest you go visit Eurocontrol's Maastricht UAC which is possibly the world's most advanced UAC. They did away with paper strips not long after the Wright brothers flew

I know MUAC has a very fine system. Some of my ACC colleagues have given them a visit and were quite impressed. But I'm not sure their system suits terminal control as it's only used for area control.
Do you know what system LVNL use for terminal control in Amsterdam?

Originally Posted by Middles

Then visit TC Swanwick where it's just too busy to have electronic strips.

But I guess some very busy terminal control units use a paperless system (even if very few places get as busy as London). I'm trying to figure out where, that's part of the reason I've launched this thread.

What's in the offing for TC Swanwick?

[wobo63]

There is an Austrian company called AviBit. They developed electronic flight strips (amongst ASMGCS and so on) a decade ago for the new TWR in LOWW.

It is the first and only system that has been developed by ATCOs only and offers very good usability (because of the ATCO influence).
They sold it to England, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Romania, Germany and so on for all TWR, APP and ACC. It is worth to have a look at!

[ltdris]

Middles,

It's coming, only a matter of time!

[Lon More]

Then visit TC Swanwick where it's just too busy to have electronic strips

We were invited o have a look at that before it went operational.
Written strips produced electronically, right down to the co-ordination done check mark IIRC. Very little thought given to the data presentation, it seemed.

Forget "strips" there are much better ways of doing it.

[dan saaf]

Prestwick has EFD up and running, don't know if they like it.

I take it you mean Scottish Area centre Prestwick, and not EGPK Airport? Or do they have it too?

[middles]

Scottish Centre at Prestwick are able to T and P the position i.e. when busy one controller does the electronic input and one controller talks to the aircraft.
In TC Swanwick the 'plan' was for one controller to do the lot. When the engineers/bean counters/management finally grasped the futility of a controller operating TMAs or TMAn and trying to keep up, on his/her own, the penny finally dropped and the project was binned. When TC is operating on a new platform with the ability to split the electronics and the r/t then paper strips will be consigned to the past. I reckon 5 years at least.

[Glamdring]

Originally Posted by DaveReidUK

As do Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and London City towers.

And also Aberdeen and Edinburgh.

[Comte Roller]

striptic

A prototype of mixed paper and electronic strip, called Striptic, has been developped by a team at ENAC Toulouse :
Strip'TIC a DTI/ENAC project
The concept is interesting although, obviously, radically different than stripless systems. In particular, this system offers a larger, and more efficient in my opinion, variety of input (the system recognizes any writing on the strips, the position of the strips on the board, etc.) than the tedious "Windows like" dropdown menu of stripless system I have experimented (Eurocat).