ATC History
 

Hello

I'm interested in the history of air traffic control in the UK, and was wondering, when did London Airways (or London Control) start using radar?

From information I have managed to find so far, I notice that during the 1950s Gatwick had radar (Director) but seemed to have only procedural approach until the aircraft was past Mayfield VOR. Also, in a recording of Heathrow ATC in 1975, I noticed that Director asked all arrivals to squawk ident, which seems to suggest that they were coming from a non-radar controller.

If anyone has any info on this I would be interested to hear about it.

Thanks

Callum

Ps - just one more question while I think of it - I see in the early days Gatwick had PAR approach but this was replaced by the SRA approach, does the Gatwick Director at Swanwick have a special radar mode for this, only I did not see it when I was there?

London Radar from Flight, Feb. 1950

More important, where was the first pub that controllers frequented after shift, at least hopefully after shift.

There used to be a hangout for SOCAL controllers withi sight of the facility. Bulldozed, think its a used car lot now.

The Maggies WC?

Callum. In the early days of Gatwick and London Approach the procedural, or Approach, controller would descend aircraft in the holds and often issue instructions to leave the hold. The No 1 Director would then descend the aircraft and once it was clear of other traffic he would hand it to the No 2 Director for pistioning on to the ILS.

PAR was used for talk-down before the days of ILS. When ILS first came into service it was not as accurate as nowadays so PAR was used to monitor all approaches in poor visibility. As ILS became more reliable, PAR was withdrawn from most civil airfields - the Heathrow PAR went in the mid-70s i recall. No PAR equipment existed at West Drayton and does not at Swanwick. At Swanwick and most major ATC units SRAs are carried out using the same radar as used for sequencing. Some airfields do have older, dedicated, SRA radar equipment.

I was at Heathrow in 1975 and I don't understand why yoiu should think that only a procedural controller would ask an aircraft to squawk ident? That is a radar function and only a radar controller would issue that instruction. "Director" is a 100% radar control function.

London Airways - the procedural element - was the "executive" controller who used London Radar so expedite traffic as needed. Later, the control service became wholly radar and all controllers now exercise the radar and procedural aspects.

Shout if you want more info. Some people on here go back a long way.

I think what he means is that the aircraft came to 'Director' from a non-radar unit, after which 'director' asks them to squawk ident...

In 1975 probably only 76 codes, so unless a handover given,no Identification?

Sorry for the misunderstanding. By the end of 1972 LATCC and Heathrow had full 4096 codes, but not callsign conversion. We did not therefore need to identify inbound traffic off airways, but obviously needed to ID npn-airways traffic and any Brecon departures off 09R, which London Approach worked..

Lon More

Shouldn`t that be 64 codes?

(anyway, having spent the first 8 years of my atco life with primary only (Marconi 264), I regard SSR as being the invention of the devil....secondary will never catch on, mark my words!)

The pub I remember was "The Three Magpies" on the Bath Road, somewhere near Black and Dekker Corner if memory serves.

SSR was introduced to a small number of UK Area units in June, 1963 and arrived at Heathrow in the late 60s. Initially, responses were two slashes with a third for "ident". Carriage of 4096 code transponders became mandatory in the UK above FL100 in CAS in January, 1972. Radars at West Drayton were always able to display the four-figure codes plus height readout from the time the radar controllers moved there. First and second digits indicated route and the last two for individual aircraft.
(Info from the book Heathrow ATC - the First 50 Years).

All I can say is "Thank God" as I would never have validated without SSR. One watch at Heathrow viewed SSR as black magic and always switched it off!

right of course, 64 codes. Was thinking about something else.

Radar was still on North Side when I was there. Must have moved in 1969, whilst I was sunning myself at Sopley learing to listen two two frequencies(wearing 2 headsets, answer the phone and write on the board at the same time, an ATCA 2's life was never boring) Only 64 codes there

This could turn into an interesting thread - pity Arnold Field isn't still about..

Thanks everyone - the article from Flight magazine in 1950 was very interesting. Thank you for your explanation HEATHROW DIRECTOR and can you just clarify the purpose of the executive controller - what part of the airways in particular did they control and what parts did London Radar control?

Also, would you recommend the book Heathrow ATC: The First 50 Years?

Regards

Callum

Excellent book- the most comprehensive account of the history of Heathrow ATC you will find.:ok:

callum91.. Back in the early days, Airways control throughout the UK was in the hands of Air Traffic Controllers grade 2 (ATCOII). They were the executive "D" Controllers (don't ask me what the D meant - maybe "decisions?). They basically did the controlling but were backed up by ATCOIII controllers on radar. If a traffic situation could not be resolved procedurally, the radar man was called upon to sort out the situation and then hand back to the D controller when it was resolved. (I worked this system when I was abroad for several years. I was a D man with radar backup). I don't know the extent of UK radar cover in those days, but guess it would have covered most of the airways.

Apologies in advance if any of the above is not quite accurate; there are some ATCOs on here from those days who might able to correct things - my brain tends to hurt nowadays..

HD - in those days did FPS stand fopr Flight Progress Slate?? :p

Thank you - that makes sense! I'll look for somewhere to buy that book from now - thanks. :ok:

anotherthing - exactly and we were issued with steel scribers too! Must say it all looked a lot better when we got paper strips and Letraset to enter the details!

I wonder how many of the current breed of ATCOs view multi-lateration and ADS-B as black magic and would prefer it not to be there?

That's too complicated for me.
Anybody else remember the metal strip holders on the North Side?

I see ADS-B transmissions daily and it does concern me the inaccuracies which can occur compared to ground-based radar systems.

If you watch a "radar" picture of ADS-B equipped aircraft flying into Heathrow, for example, you'll see that the odd one "lands" in Windsor Great Park, or Wimbledon High Street. If the accuracy needed by ATC is to be determined by crews setting up their ADS-B equipment correctly I think the integrity is in doubt. If someone squawks the wrong code it can easily be picked up... but how does one know that an ADS-B location is true?

Hopefully someone can put me right.

I think many feel that way still about mode S :}

I started at the old London ATCC on the Northside of EGLL in May 61 as an ATCA. I well remember the old metal strip holders as I soon got caught by one Gerry Took, an ATCO who called out 'Here's a hot one' as he tossed me a stripholder, which of course had been sitting on the top of the old style cast iron Central heating radiator for 10 minutes. [ he wore a glove for the throw!] Oh happy days. En-route controlling was all done procedurally by the 'D' men. Us ATCA's wrote all the strips by hand and distributed them to the various sectors. I moved to Sopley JATCRU in 63 and spent 3 happy years monitoring the R/T and recording the flight data on 'edge lit display boards' with Chinagraph pencils. The radar was the long range RAF 'Type 80' with a pinhead size blip and the SSR was up to four short horizontal 'slashes' behind the primary blip. If I remember correctly the width and number of 'slashes' gave you the code. The Controllers soon learned to recognise their particular allocated SSR codes. No height read-out or callsign conversion or anything else in those days.

Coming back to "D" men. My recollection is that on the area side the "D"man was the director and the "A" man his assistant. Titles borrowed from the US where the procedural airways system was originally developed. Of course here in UK the assistant was not a controller grade, although some of us did towards the end of the non radar environment become "A" men. Director has as far as I know always meant an approach radar controller this side of the pond. Incidentally some very good "A" men were actually female, in those far off days gender discrimination was an alien concept.

I was a 'D'-Man once. I think I was the youngest for a while, most of 'em were 'rather older'. Eventually the sectors became too busy for procedural control with radar 'intervention' and the 'radar' tail started wagging the 'procedural' dog, hence 'Mediator'. It was quite a challenge when the radar was out and we had to revert to the old 'T1 + T2' formulae' (can anyone remind me of them?) In 'Stage Half' the 'A'-Side was (wo)manned by ATCA IIs but there was always at least one ATCO III on each bank to make executive decisions on behalf of the D-Men. In 'Stage One Mediator' each Sector had an ATCO III ASC in addition to an ATCA II SA. The ATCA did the strip-bashing and the ATCO III did the cruising level allocation and the coord. If one had a good ATCA who was maybe cadet material one could leave them to it on a 'long lead' and have a bit of fun. I have a nice collection of photographs of the North Side in action fifty years ago. The other job of the ATCO III was to do the FIR hence the anachronism 'FIR Controller'. It meant they could get a good grounding on using the wireless. Heady days....fond memories.

Heady days indeed Talkdownman. I was one of the ATCA IIs on the A side at Preston. We of course did not have the "benefit"of the mediator but I seem to recall a couple of hours a week (was it Wednesday afternoons?) when LATCC reverted to manual whilst the confuser underwent routine maintenance. We always reckoned the estimates got better during that period. Incidentally I was one of the cadet material. Three happy vagrant years, followed by thirty five doing what for me was an ideal job.

I was there with him!

And elsewhere methinks!

Was I right in thinking that original D men were IIs and the Radar men were IIIs??

Zooker asked " Where does the term bandbox originate? "

This is how it was explained to me when I joined ATC 41 years ago.

A bandbox is a 17th century word given to a light cylindrical box used by military officers, clergymen and the aristocracy for storing their ruffs (then known as bands), collars, caps etc.

Over the years it has also come to mean to tidy things away i.e. put them in a bandbox.

In the early days of ATC many of the senior controllers were ex-RAF officers and the term "bandbox" was coined to indicate collapsing sectors onto one position or tidying up as you might say. The fact that radar consoles at that time were circular made it seem as though all the sectors had been put into a bandbox.

This explanation had the ring of truth about it so I've always believed it.

HD, yep, Ds were IIs, Radar (wo)men were IIIs.
Hyper, yep I think it was Wed when the 9020 went off and we went manual, threes, fives and eights.
Atcham, I was with you, but prob not at PATCC. Was there early '68.
And, yep, I'm still using a 424.

I was at PATCC from Jan 67 to Apr 69 so we obviously overlapped Talkdownman. In 68 I was an A Man.

Yup, me too. I think about the time Tom Hod was CS or DCS.

That's right. In fact if I remember correctly Tom was a watch supervisor when I got there but was promoted fairly soon afterwards. Not that I would have dared to call him Tom in those days

That's a big ask Zooker. Area radars moved from place to place to start with. Hack Green/ Antrobus to Patcru for instance. In my day Patcru had 264 at both Manch and St Annes. Border had types 84? and 85, Northern at Lindholme had type 82, Gailes type 14 and 7, Sopley type 80. That's just the area units I recall, don't know the types for Highland at Buchan for instance. Airfields become mind boggling. ACR6 at Manch , 424 at Hawarden, Blackpool, Liverpool ( replaced by a 430), AR1 subsequently upgraded at IOM. Then there were the 232s which preceded the 264 there were also oddities like the DSAR1 at Llanbedr and the funny periscope thing at Lasham. I even, very briefly, worked traffic on an AA4 mk.7; an anti aircraft gun laying radar. Add in the PARs and you are looking at a long list. Best of luck with the research.

Buchan had a Type 80 with 64 code SSR. It was mounted on a hill pointing downwards, and provided very good cover at low level on the North Sea. There was also a Marconi S259, the forerunner of the S264. This was circa 1975.

Zooker...
I was at Eastern radar, on the civil side for a short time in 1974. Eastern civil provided the radar coverage for Preston ( Barton Hall) for the sector roughly E of Otteringham out to Bluebell (UB1). North from Gabbard to South Fisher (UA37). and the route Dogger-Newcastle (UR14)? The D man sat at Preston and was on the same frequency using the old 'push to talk intercom. (132.7 I think). The ATCA 2's (as was) manned the 'edge lit board', and the 'store dot display'. The edge lit board was exactly that, a board lit from the edge with a background format geographically arranged to represent the passage of aircraft through the sector. The ATCA task was to take flight plan details from the 'electro-writer' and transfer it to the edge-lit board. The ATCA would then do all the strip marking type tasks for the Radar ATCO using a chinagraph. Meanwhile, the ATCA manning the store-dot display would have a proper radar console. The way the thing worked was for the ATCO to inject a bright dot alongside the primary return which the ATCA would 'rate' so that it would fly with the radar return along the airway. The point of this was that the store dot would carry a code (A1 etc), this could be co-related to the 'tote board' display at the front of the ops room, think of it as a very rudimentary form of SSR label, and boy was it rudimentary. The pacing computer would gently let the store dot fall away from the primary return requiring endless fine tuning by the ATCA to get it to remain 'on target'. How the RAF coped with it on manouvering targets I just don't know!
Eastern mainly used the type 82 at this time but had access to the 84 & 85. The latter two radars had very slow time bases and thus had dead sectors. I think I'm right in saying that the 82 was designed as part of the old Bloodhound missile system and was a 10cm radar operating out to about 140nm. The power required to do this required sterile areas around the radar heads as the radiation would microwave anything that got too close.
I certainly enjoyed my short time at Eastern working with Des Adams and Winston Boardman, among others, who certainly helped the time pass quickly on a quiet duty. As it was a damn long time ago I apologise in advance for any unintended errors!
Oh. By the way, I do realise the reporting points probably mean nothing to you so think of it as a sort of combo of the MACC East and London North sea sectors, (very roughly). Me being an airports person I know little of such skullduggery!