Remote Control Towers in USA

dell30rb

dell30rb

Final Approach
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I've flown remote control planes at several fields, but never seen one with a control tower. The larger events will have someone in charge, but even they don't have a tower . . .
 
Hank S said:
I've flown remote control planes at several fields, but never seen one with a control tower. The larger events will have someone in charge, but even they don't have a tower . . .
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Click the link Hank. They aren't talking about RC planes.
 
I know that, that's why I put "" in there.

Don't think I'm in favor of someone in a dark room looking at a few cameras before clearing me to take off. It's hard enough seeing traffic a couple of miles away without trying to do so on a video monitor. Sure, people are supposed to be on frequency, but no group of people is always right and correct.

A person in the tower with radar, or at least binoculars, will have a better chance of spotting non-complying traffic, to say nothing of NORDO aircraft.
 
Let's talk about the implications of this. Boy is it wonderful how we continue to fix problems that don't exist with technology. My generation seems to be all about this and there seems to be nobody speaking up going, "Do we REALLY need this??"

"The traffic demand at certain aerodromes might be such that it enables RTC controllers to operate a maximum of three aerodromes simultaneously."

Three aerodromes simultaneously. Can you imagine the implications? Okay, so one could argue we could operate three different towers that have different patterns of traffic throughout the day. But in the event of an emergency, there could be MAJOR problems of multitasking and operator overload the second an emergency happens.

"Pan-Tilt camera with zoom capabilities"
Well, thank god we have one of those. Because a controller being able to pull out a pair of binoculars and see an airplane in a matter of seconds is exactly comparable to taking a computer system and zooming in a spot. Let's not even mention the problems with a scratched or dirty lens on one of those cameras just when they're needed most.

"Metrological sensors"
Yes, we can predict the weather. Can we see obstructions on the runway? A dog running across the field? Rain approaching that can't be seen on radar or on the cameras?

The IT issues with this are through the roof. We can continue to say that we can simulate real life by having cameras and sensors and displays. But is it REALLY the same as actually being there?

The people who designed this are probably the same people that designed the advanced headset display system in the F-35. The one that lets pilots see under the aircraft. You know what old fighter pilots used to do, when they needed to see directly down?

They banked the airplane.

Perhaps to reduce the costs associated with a tower, maybe controllers can take a pay cut? Yeah, I'd hate to lose my $120,000 paycheck. But perhaps I'd be willing to do it for $60,000 if it meant I didn't have to sit at a desk to do my job now.
 
I'm afraid I don't see how this will save any money at all. There has to be someone in the "virtual tower" just like the real thing. How is it cheaper to have someone in a central location with tons of technology than to have the same person on site with a pair of binoculars?
 
steingar said:
I'm afraid I don't see how this will save any money at all. There has to be someone in the "virtual tower" just like the real thing. How is it cheaper to have someone in a central location with tons of technology than to have the same person on site with a pair of binoculars?
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Because that one person can 'man' multiple towers, while a person on site can only man one. And you don't have to pay benefits and healthcare to cameras and hardware.
 
EdFred said:
Because that one person can 'man' multiple towers, while a person on site can only man one. And you don't have to pay benefits and healthcare to cameras and hardware.
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No, that one person can't. You can have incipient incidents at two different towers simultaneously, each is going to require its own operator, otherwise their going to be unmanned during some periods. If that's a period when someone is flying in, well…

Keep in mind that many airports have towers because they have lots of and lots of airplanes flying in. I just don't see the benefit, unless you're going to stop manning towers altogether. But at that point having a tower at all makes little sense.
 
EdFred said:
Because that one person can 'man' multiple towers, while a person on site can only man one. And you don't have to pay benefits and healthcare to cameras and hardware.
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Dunno if one person can 'man' multiple towers but multiple towers run from a single site wouldn't need as many bodies available since they could share a relief person along with sharing supervision, training, etc. Of course maintenance needs would change with installation of the cameras, radios, and infrastructure.
 
steingar said:
No, that one person can't. You can have incipient incidents at two different towers simultaneously, each is going to require its own operator, otherwise their going to be unmanned during some periods. If that's a period when someone is flying in, well…

Keep in mind that many airports have towers because they have lots of and lots of airplanes flying in. I just don't see the benefit, unless you're going to stop manning towers altogether. But at that point having a tower at all makes little sense.
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No, I'm pretty sure they can. One guy can run multiple sectors at ARTCC, so one guy could easily man multiple towers. They would put this place at places like SAW, or other facilities where you have to call in twice to the tower. Once to wake the guy up, and the second time to actually talk to them. I could also see more "towers" going up in places where there currently aren't. All in the name of surveillance safety. You know, for the children.
 
steingar said:
I'm afraid I don't see how this will save any money at all. There has to be someone in the "virtual tower" just like the real thing. How is it cheaper to have someone in a central location with tons of technology than to have the same person on site with a pair of binoculars?
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If one assumes the purpose of these systems is to provide the traditional functions of a control tower, separation on the surface, I don't see how it will save any money. This appears workable only at locations that do not need a control tower so the system is purely an additional cost.

This system is being tested at Leesburg Executive Airport, KJYO, which currently has no control tower. So at the end of the test period all you have is a comparison of remote tower operations vs. untowered operations.
 
EdFred said:
No, I'm pretty sure they can. One guy can run multiple sectors at ARTCC, so one guy could easily man multiple towers. They would put this place at places like SAW, or other facilities where you have to call in twice to the tower. Once to wake the guy up, and the second time to actually talk to them. I could also see more "towers" going up in places where there currently aren't. All in the name of surveillance safety. You know, for the children.
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When one guy is running multiple sectors at ARTCC he's generally doing it from a single radar display. The only adjustment may be changing the displayed range, he sees all the sectors he's working simultaneously. Virtual control tower appears significantly different.

RemoteTower-main-3.jpg


RemoteTower-main.jpg
 
More rows of monitors easily fixes that. Row 1 is the tower at [airport 1], Row 2 is [airport 2], Row 3 is [airport 3], etc, and a little tower/frequency ID overlayed on each monitor so they don't forget which one is which.
 
EdFred said:
More rows of monitors easily fixes that. Row 1 is the tower at [airport 1], Row 2 is [airport 2], Row 3 is [airport 3], etc, and a little tower/frequency ID overlayed on each monitor so they don't forget which one is which.
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Right, that would definitely eliminate any possibility of confusion. How silly of me.
 
There is more benefit than just personnel. not maintaining or building new towers (just a pole with camera on it) would be much cheaper.

Plus, the FAA could source talent from smaller markets (less pay) and sAve considerable coin.
 
You know what would be fun?

Cover the cameras with duct tape and hijack an airplane. Now nobody knows where you are! If you're lucky we could even have robots operating fuel trucks and FBOs, so there's almost no chance of anybody seeing you.
 
roncachamp said:
Right, that would definitely eliminate any possibility of confusion. How silly of me.
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Yes, because that never happens as it is. A recent conversation with CLE Approach:

"7DS, you have traffic at your 9 o clock, and 5 miles, Bonanza"
"Negative Traffic, 7DS"
"7DS, traffic, 9 o clock, 3 miles"
"Negative Traffic, 7DS"
"7DS, traffic, 9 o clock, 1 mile"
"Negative Traffic, 7DS"
A few seconds later, here comes the Bonanza, and enters my field of view off my RIGHT wing.

Controllers are currently infallible, how silly of me.
 
EdFred said:
Yes, because that never happens as it is. A recent conversation with CLE Approach:

"7DS, you have traffic at your 9 o clock, and 5 miles, Bonanza"
"Negative Traffic, 7DS"
"7DS, traffic, 9 o clock, 3 miles"
"Negative Traffic, 7DS"
"7DS, traffic, 9 o clock, 1 mile"
"Negative Traffic, 7DS"
A few seconds later, here comes the Bonanza, and enters my field of view off my RIGHT wing.

Controllers are currently infallible, how silly of me.
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Right. So the controller that is already making mistakes due to overload should be helped by giving him more places to control.

Excellent solution.
 
I'm thinking that this could help "see" airplanes. A little video analysis technology ought to be able to identify and highlight moving objects (airplanes) on the screen.
 
EdFred said:
Yes, because that never happens as it is. A recent conversation with CLE Approach:
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Not a control tower.

"7DS, you have traffic at your 9 o clock, and 5 miles, Bonanza"
"Negative Traffic, 7DS"
"7DS, traffic, 9 o clock, 3 miles"
"Negative Traffic, 7DS"
"7DS, traffic, 9 o clock, 1 mile"
"Negative Traffic, 7DS"
A few seconds later, here comes the Bonanza, and enters my field of view off my RIGHT wing.
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Odd that that relative position did not change.
 
F01LA said:
I'm thinking that this could help "see" airplanes. A little video analysis technology ought to be able to identify and highlight moving objects (airplanes) on the screen.
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The navy uses similar technology on carriers. They also have infrared cameras for night vision/low vis.

No problem having a camera as a backup in the tower. Then it's excellent. But as a replacement...I think we can use technology to solve bigger problems.

Personally I think Saab should stick with cars/jets anyways.
 
roncachamp said:
Not a control tower.
Odd that that relative position did not change.
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Controllers are controllers, whether in the dark room or not.

What's more odd, is that he didn't know 3 o clock from 9 o clock.
 
EdFred said:
Controllers are controllers, whether in the dark room or not.
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You do know that, almost from outset of training, tower controllers go through an entirely different training course than ARTCC/TRACON controllers?

Using that as an argument here is like saying flying IFR is the same as VFR. We're talking about two entirely different modes of control.
 
roncachamp said:
Not a control tower.



Odd that that relative position did not change.
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Maybe in his head he was talking to the airplane on the right. Note to self - if traffic is called at 3 o'clock and I don't see it, take a second to check 9 o'clock.

A tower in the middle of no where doesn't seem to make much sense, but combining a couple of neighboring class D under or adjacent to a Class C or B might work. There are two class D's easterly from and nearby Rogers, AR. Maybe both could be run from one tower. They are pretty close to each other and on the same side of the Class C.
 
janikpilot said:
You do know that, almost from outset of training, tower controllers go through an entirely different training course than ARTCC/TRACON controllers?

Using that as an argument here is like saying flying IFR is the same as VFR. We're talking about two entirely different modes of control.
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Irrelevant. They still tell us what to do.
 
roncachamp said:
IThis appears workable only at locations that do not need a control tower so the system is purely an additional cost.
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So it will be perfect for the airports that don't need towers, but have them anyway for various reasons.
 
What about light guns? I guess there would be a turret mounted light gun to aim when needed. Seems like more tech to fail when it's needed the most. "Uht-oh; can't provide light signals, the turret tracking computer hasn't been used in 6 weeks and doesn't appear to be responding."
 
EdFred said:
Bureaucracy, and OpsSpecs. As little traffic as SAW gets, there's no compelling reason for them to still have a tower.

http://flightaware.com/live/airport/KSAW
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There I agree, and I can point to other airports including my own beloved home drome. But the solution isn't more technology. The solution to a tower that shouldn't be there is just to close the thing and be done with it.
 
steingar said:
I'm afraid I don't see how this will save any money at all. There has to be someone in the "virtual tower" just like the real thing. How is it cheaper to have someone in a central location with tons of technology than to have the same person on site with a pair of binoculars?
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It seems to me that the right lobbyists and sales people are talking to the right government officials such that they extract a right large amount of tax dollars for superfluous technology that will no doubt require right large service contracts as well.
 
roncachamp said:
In other words, you have no idea.
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I do, but at some point I might misplace a comma in my response, and you'll go off on some inane tangent like you usually do. I'm not going to get sucked into it.
 
Airnav and FlightAware say KSAW has 40-42 operations per day. On what planet does that justify a control tower? I've been to some sleepy towered airports, but wow!
 
EdFred said:
Bureaucracy, and OpsSpecs. As little traffic as SAW gets, there's no compelling reason for them to still have a tower.

http://flightaware.com/live/airport/KSAW
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The military is what keeps SAW open. From what I see they have B52s, F-106s, F-101s and F-111s based there. :D

Seriously though, it's not necessarily the traffic but the type of traffic that keeps that tower open.
 

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EdFred said:
I do, but at some point I might misplace a comma in my response, and you'll go off on some inane tangent like you usually do. I'm not going to get sucked into it.
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I can't recall ever criticizing punctuation. If you could have been more specific you would have.
 
Velocity173 said:
The military is what keeps SAW open. From what I see they have B52s, F-106s, F-101s and F-111s based there. :D
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Sawyer was home to the B-52, F-101, and F-106, but the FB-111 was on a road trip. Their home was actually Pease AFB.
 
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