I am sorry if I have constructed "Groundhog Day", but I didn't really see the earlier posts. I will endeavour to read them.
You say that nothing in this proposition indicates anything of the sort ie reducing staff by getting one ATCO to do two ATCOs' work. Maybe not, but I struggle to see the possible benefits & savings if it does not involve cutting staff.
As you say, "there may be a ton of reasons why the current VCR is not fit for purpose". But, why can't either a new VCR be built, or the remote operation be exercised from, within the LCY complex?
I don't wish to "limit progress for the sake of it", but the whole ethos of ATC, as I was educated in it, appears to be under threat here. Either principles have changed drastically, or these principles have been abandoned (apparently under cost pressures). If so, I cannot imagine why they should have been & I am surprised that a body such as the Guild Of ATC has not been active in trying to uphold them. Does it still exist ?
"Until a system is proved reliable, it isn't accepted". I have to ask exactly how was this proof obtained ?
It is difficult to assess the benefits from my viewpoint - although, I accept that things may have moved on since my day. If so, I guess that I will have to accept that I am just a dinosaur !

Zooker, I'm guessing you see this move (LCY to Swanwick) as a precursor for tower controllers simultaneously controlling more than one airfield/runway?
That is a valid concern - and one which would face fierce opposition I'm sure.
But there's no suggestion, certainly from what I've read/seen, that anyone is saying that LCY controllers would have to get dual-valid at a.n.other airfield and provide both services simultaneously.
Probably be better to stick to facts rather than fiction. Should such a hypothetical situation be the case then that's the time to challenge it.
As the case is, it's a question of whether a controller can operate using video rather than seeing out of a set of windows. That point has been proven (albeit at lower intensity airfields).
If it's safe to do it at low intensity airfields what's to prevent it being used at high intensity airfields?
A low intensity airfield might involve 3 aircraft an hour, but they could be concentrated in a 3 minute period - what's to prevent that same 3 minute period being replicated 20 times in an hour?
If it's safe to do it's safe to do.
It's the same job, regardless of the scale. If the equipment is fit for use, and the controllers are suitably trained, then the bigger question is why not, rather than why?

Will this require a separate rating?...............ADI/ADV/ADS?

Kcockayne, I'm an advocate of experience (believe it or not!).
There are lots of ways that sharing of experience helps...whether we're talking about valid ATCOs or trainees.
GATCO does provide opinions on such subjects...and I'm pretty sure they're opposed to simultaneous operations too, from what I've seen (quite rightly, in my opinion).

I am purely guessing here, but there are opportunities provided by co-locating APC with ADC. If APC is short, for whatever reason, by a controller what does that mean for arrival regulation to said airfield? What if ADC was short, for whatever reason, by a controller what does that mean for arrival regulation?
If the difference between the two arrival regulations is significant then maybe it'd be worth cross-validating controllers? Just a thought....

I sincerely hope not - especially for the controllers involved - that would surely limit their (future) ability to transfer jobs to other (non-digital) airports.

I can't see why it would require another rating. It's the same job, with the same responsibilities, using the same skills.

As far as I know there's not a separate rating for it in Sweden.

According to Wikipedia, NATS is a private/public partnership, 49% owned by the UK Government. This means that whoever has the 51% stake will be keen to maximise profits, but the Government probably are too, to help reduce the Country's deficit.

Having a remotely operated Tower is presumably their beancounter's way of doing this - if they can make it work. They will have to pay for the technology once but will save thousands of pounds in London staff wages etc, year on year, and will no doubt roll it out to other airfields.

Instead of each Tower needing its own extra controllers to cover shifts, leave, and sickness etc, one set of spare controllers could cover several Towers controlled from the same room at Swanwick. I don't know the figures so am going to pluck some out of the air and guess at 10 controllers for a small airfield Tower - so say four Towers that used to need a total of 40 staff could be remotely controlled by a complement of say 20 staff at Swanwick?

My figures might be way off but the principle is what I am talking about.

Someone on this thread said the Met office now use remote sensing instead of experts 'on the ground', and I think their forecasts are worse than they used to be. Where I live, they are often plain wrong. I fear this will happen with NATS. En route controller frequencies are already getting busier and busier because more and more traffic is being controlled by fewer and fewer contollers, to the detriment of the service and flight safety.

No amount of cameras, automatic drone spotters and other gizmos can make up for the situational awareness that comes from actually sitting in the Tower with one's binoculars - seeing the Red Arrows cross your airspace, observing the storm clouds in the far distance, watching the police, ambulance or traffic helicopter and all manner of SA clues and cues that you just won't get in the same way on a couple of HD screens.

And of course, when the video links go down - and they will !! - What then ??

But you will see the Red Arrows, the storm clouds and all the helicopters you mention!

Your point about the visuals failing is the important one. The redundancy and resiliency of the system is key. If the visuals did fail then the fallback is effectively LVPs - which would certainly affect capacity until the visuals became serviceable again.

Losing visuals and comms would effectively shut the airport. But then losing comms would effectively shut the airport with its traditional tower too.

What about depth perception? Is that just overrated?

Related to depth perception is parallax.

The NATS rep interviewed on TV last week made great play of the fact that there would be no fewer than 3 diverse comms links between LCY and Swanwick to provide redundancy/fallback.

She omitted any mention of the obvious single-point failure modes, not least the camera installation.

"But then losing comms would effectively shut the airport with its traditional tower too.

Not necessarily, good egg.

The airfield I worked at had an 'ECU', an Emergency Control Unit. It was a 'Portakabin', located a considerable distance from the control tower, from which an Aerodrome/Approach Control Service could be provided in the event of the main facility becoming unusable.

Many years ago, contractors had to remove asbestos from the control tower building and many of us provided Aerodrome Control from this facility for an entire week-end.

I believe EGLL has the digital equivalent of this facility today......In my book, an acceptable use of this technology.

Many years ago, a comms failure at EGNX resulted in one of the ATCO providing a very limited service using the radio in a light a/c parked in front of the tower.

That's great Zooker, but I'm fairly certain LCY doesn't have that facility.

I'm sure they don't, but neither does the place I worked at........Said 'Portakabin' was wrecked in a gale, but hasn't been replaced.

I suspect that for all but the largest operations that there is little point in providing such a facility due to the reliability of the current facility and the prohibitive cost of setting up a spare one which would be used so infrequently.

My point about the visuals is that a few cameras displayed on a couple of flat screens does not give the 360 degree instant zoom in / zoom out and geospatial surround picture that the human eye/brain in tandem with instantaneous head movement does. There is also no depth perception available.

The human being in the actual Tower can simultaneously track all the local traffic, the approach and departure traffic and what is happening down on the ramp whilst taking in the weather conditions and any number of similar situational awareness cues.

Having to pan and zoom cameras all the time it is easy to get disorientated and miss the big picture.

As for video audio and comms links, well I was in that field for 16 years..........Good luck.

And this is all for what? To make controllers lives easier? To improve safety? To increase traffic flow?

NO. To make more profit, that's all.

ATC centres have managed with remote comms over many, many miles for years.

Indeed as have many airports, LHR tower uses two off-site Tx/Rxs.

Any ATC unit requires two completely separate and independent RT comms systems to function.

You've raised some concerns that you, and others, will hold about this technology.

Depth perception is regularly raised as a concern but depth perception is only effective over a relatively short distance (in the order of a few hundred metres). I'd suggest that, in a lot of cases, the control tower is further from the runway than this effective distance and, that even in cases where it's not, that trying to apply any form of separation based on depth perception from the tower is ludicrous.

Your views on multitasking are at odds with what has been learned on the subject over the years. Indeed the whole field of "human factors" has progressed massively. Some people will mock the field without ever reading or learning more about it but that is ignorance, whether conscious or unconscious.

Do you have any experience of operating a PTZ tailored for Air Traffic Control use? It's difficult to be objective about it if you haven't.
(Also, from experience, controllers don't use binoculars all of the time - they are used infrequently and only when something is required to be seen in more detail - so why on earth would controllers be "Having to pan and zoom cameras all the time"?)

Everything I've read, seen and heard from controllers who operate and who have tested digital tower systems has led me to believe, providing redundancy and resiliency measures are effective, that this is a positive safety step for airport ATC provision...and I'm not just talking about glossy press releases.
The consistent feedback I've had from those controllers are the improvement in their view over the airport and the improvement in their situational awareness. (Incidentally traditional tower mullions obscure the view of an airfield to some extent, depending on their siting, width, distance from the controller, etc...you may laugh at that, yet the blind spots these can create have been factors in ATC incidents and will continue to present a risk. That is just one of the ways, tiny it may seem, that digital towers can improve the overall view to the controller.)

Digital towers are not a cheap option. What they do open up is potential for "efficiencies down the line" (Mike Stoller, NATS Airports Director), i.e. pooling of multi-disciplined controllers with potential for more flexible staffing over a number of airports.
The unions are, rightly in my opinion, vehemently opposed to a controller simultaneously controlling more than one airport at a time - that scenario would open up a huge amount of issues. I'd also suggest that during a shift it may be inadviseable for a controller to plug in at Aiport A then switch (with or without a break) to plug in at Airport B. These are issues that are yet to be faced and will be subject to intense scrutiny.

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.

Good points Uplinker, and interesting to hear the views of an 'end-user', as modern business-terminology describes your profession.

Historically, 'monocularly' always de-barred an applicant from holding a Class 1 aviation medical.

I believe PPLs could/can operate with this condition, as their medicals are 'Class 3'?

Now, ATCOs have Class 3 medicals, so 'Monocularity may be acceptable for an ATCO Licence application?

The r-TWR system is essentially 'monocular.

And as a keen photographer myself, your bottom line is spot-on.

Funnily enough I wondered about that too. Don't know enough about the condition to know if it would be a problem for operating touchscreens etc.

Also, the standards of colour-vision required for the ATCO medical are possibly a relevant factor?

How accurate are the visual sensors/displays in terms of colour-fidelity?

Thanks for your added detail.

A demo video of digital/remote tower capability - albeit some time ago - indicated automatic FOD detection warnings and the ability to automatically track anomalies without operator input.

I don't know the design spec for this project but I have seen various ways in which sun glare etc can be resolved...some are automatic adjustments others are manual (very similar in fact to lowering a blind!).

If advances in mobile phone cameras performance in low light are anything to go by then I doubt there'll be an issue with the sorts of high-end cameras selected for projects of this scope.

As a long time ATCO (retired 10 years), a current FISO and A/G Operator all over the place, I used/use binoculars a lot when operating - comes of being nosey but is the gear down, what is that aeroplane over there, is that something on the runway, etc. Presumably bins will just enlarge the pixels?

Uplinker - wise words indeed.

High-end cameras and displays will obviously incur high-end costs.

Back in the 1960/70s, I worked at a non-state airfield which has a 3 storey ATC facility.

When the airfield opened, the 'low-level' VCR wasn't a problem, but as the terminals expanded, the view out of the windows became more and more restricted.

The last time I visited the VCR, prior to the introduction of a new, taller structure, the VCR looked like a TV studio control-gallery, and the ATCOs were not happy bunnies.

In the early days, one of the cameras was aimed into the rising sun, to look at the 28 holding-point, and it did an 'Apollo 12'. The tels guys who installed the system were not happy bunnies.

Serves them right Z - they should have set it up like the TfL cameras that shut off when pointed at the MI6 building - I'm sure someone could write a prog to follow the sun :-)

I'll bet most ATCO's could tell a story about new kit that did something the boffins hadn't thought of. Just look how many software revisions there have been to Windows 10 already.

I can see remote stuff working at places like City, simply because there's only one runway & standard in/out tracks. However, If I look back to the days of the Flying College @ EGPK, the thought of it in use at those traffic levels worries me somewhat !

Just thinking about the remote/digital tower concept in the light of today's problems that are affecting "The World's Favourite Airline".

According to some observers, today's problems could be the result of cost-cutting' and the outsourcing of 'in-house' IT systems.

Given the present trend at NATS for outsourcing, globalisation, alliances and cost-cutting, could such a scenario as has befallen BAW affect r-TWR ops?

At least when 9020 went pop, as it did, we could keep the service going, a bit.

Yesterday I watched the video from the 'EGLC Virtual VCR' at Swan Wick and I was stuck by the difference in image colour/contrast across the 'windows'.

The day before, the r-TWR system was discussed at some length, with 3 other retired NATS staff, with about 130 operational years between us.......And we still couldn't get our heads around it!

We agreed collectively that one day, about 20 years in the future, some management whizz-kid might think.....'Hang on, what if we put the ATCOs in a 'purpose-designed structure', which is actually AT the airfield?

Shame it never happened before I hung up my headset - might have had the opportunity to match our GM, and work from home!

Nice work if you can get it TCAS.

the last AME I used did just that. His 'surgery' was in his front room. He said it's brilliant this set up, about the best job I've ever had......And, all my patients are usually in the best of health to boot!

Zooker - you forgot to mention the cheque for 250 quid for a half-hour's work!


Your point about a whiz kid in 20 years' time - I was just about to say exactly the same - in each case, essentially change for the sake of change, oh, and brownie points for personal advancement.


2 s


2 s

He's a super chap 2s.

One year, I needed an audiogram, and he had to ask the man next-door to stop mowing the lawn while did it.

You can't beat having a cat wandering about while you're reading the eye chart.

Failure is not an option -- it comes bundled with Windows. Just ask BA. :E

Vulcan Lover. I agree regarding situatioinal awareness. Very early on in my career - like 50 years ago - my training officers insisted "Get your head out the window!" I fear that this new toy will take up more ATCO working time to the detriment of the task in hand.

I don't think you should knock it until you've tried it VL.

Have you visited the current City VCR?

Likewise when I was a trainee at Glasgow about 45 years ago; I had a Heron inbound to runway 10 and was sitting there gazing at my strips when my mentor* said 'your Heron's crashed'.
Of course it hadn't but it could have been true.
*George later became Centre Superindent at Prestwick centre.

VL

I couldn't care less whether you believe me or not. Curious what theories of mine you were talking about though?

Cameras aren't replacing the human eye/brain, those will still be used intensively. Cameras will be used to maximise the field of view for controllers (more so than a traditional tower can). This view can then, "at the touch of a button", be overlaid with additional information to aid situational awareness - which you yourself have said is so important.
I agree wholeheartedly that situational awareness is a key factor, as is the ability to oversee the entire movement area during routine ops. (Situational awareness becomes even more important in other situations, such as low vis, when neither the view from cameras nor the view from a traditional VCR would be sufficient.)

You could argue that the existing view could be improved by building a new traditional glass tower at the airport - and I'd agree with you.
But that new tower wouldn't readily support the additional tools which are purportedly available and indeed the further tools envisaged and under development.

I'd reiterate that digital towers are not a cheap option (although, in most cases, I would expect the capex to be less than building all but the simplest traditional tower).
Providing their redundancy and resiliency are satisfactory then I believe digital towers are a better option, especially with a view to "future-proofing".

If the proposed digital tower at LCY is deemed a success (as judged on a variety of criteria - the most important of which is of course safety) it will be interesting to see what the uptake of digital towers is after the first few entrants into this brave, new world. It will also be interesting to see where other airports decide to locate them (on-site or remote). But those are choices, as indeed is building a traditional VCR, when a new tower is required.

The operating efficiencies envisaged "down the line" by the ANSP are, in this case, a long, long way off IMHO.

But only time will tell.

Let's face it chaps and chappeses, good egg, however much experience he has, has apparently been brainwashed into believing remote towers are a good thing, which I admit they might be for less busy airfields, but most of us have the 'natural' scepticism and caution of an experienced Air Traffic Controller when it comes to such a radical change in the way we do things.

I can't imagine having information overlaid on the field of view. This whole thing is going bananas... but I expect someone is doing very nicely out ot it!

I'm sure every ATC technological development over the years has been challenged by ATCOs from the existing and previous eras. A difference now is that, alongside the painstaking detailed analysis undertaken by ATCOs as part of safety management, it's also done, haphazardly, via social media.
People have opinions and now have an easily-accessible outlet for them (me included btw).
I'm certain though that a lot of people type before they think/investigate - it's easy to do, especially if you have an emotive response to a subject and/or limited access to relevant information.

Challenge is good though. Every new technology should be challenged. New technology can introduce benefits and risks. No one should blindly accept that new technology is better - indeed it would be foolish too.

How much each person understands those benefits & risks - and their associated management and mitigation - will shape their opinion of the new technology.

I don't consider that I have been brainwashed. I have sought out information, asked questions, considered responses and made my own assessment.

My assessment and your assessment are different.

Really. Think of approach radar. Would you rather have just primary returns or would you rather have information on aircraft type, callsign, speed, altitude, destination, etc.?