Air Traffic Control

In Air traffic control things have come a long way from the early days. This section is to provide reference pictures of the various styles of layout that are now in common.

With modern screens it is a surprise to many, how light and airy many control centres are. One thing hasn't changed and that is the requirement to minimise the noise, therefore most are carpeted.

Screens are now typically either rectangular or square flat screen. Background colours vary according to the equipment's manufacturer. All have computor generated routes and approach/departure tracks. Each aircraft return a "blip" which has an ID plus a 4 figure transmitted figure (as directed by the controller) with altitude information. The return also has a short tail, like a faint wake to give an indication of its current heading.

Pictured right is a ground radar display which is principally used by the tower. This system is usually confined to larger international airports. It provides valuable eyes for the controller. Visibility may be 800 metres thus adequate for take off/landing but impossible for the tower controller to see across a 4 mile wide airport.

A very important aspect is "manual reversion", ie what happens when (not if), the computor system gets a headache. The answer pictured right are "strips". They date back to the earliest methods of control but importantly they work. They also give the controller a simple picture of "whose arriving, who have I got and who am I handing off to next".

For the art dept there are some nice details that add gloss to a set such as the lit keyboard right Any large flatscreen computor display screen could easily be made to double for the real thing.