London City Airport is getting a new tower. And that one won’t be a tower you see everyday.
Let’s hope there will be no blackout.
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A tower 80 miles away? Geez 😂
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I have never seen something lik this. This is very interesting!
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This wouldn’t become a trend, would it?
Personally I think that we will see more of those kind of things in the future.
There are a lot of advantages. Let’s take a city like London:
You could centralize every tower, ground controll, approach and departure of every airport in one building. I think that could be a big advantage for organizing the whole airspace. It’s also pretty safe and you have a much better view with the zoom. You also could install night view cameras, …
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It would also save a lot of money. I can see men in suits shaking their heads thinking, why didn’t I think of that?
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While it could save money, it has many risks. Camera blackouts, unseen angles, other issues. I would much rather have someone at the airport.
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That was exactly my reaction. It is a serious risk for a crowded airport, the radar panel isn’t enough for a tower controller
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Very intresting article, as I am sure you search before posting and fo8nd that we had discussed earlier last year, though that thread has now been closed. Some intresting points worth reading especially from our head of ATC here at IF.
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hmmmm interesting
this could be the future my friends
To add to the discussion about centralizing cities’ controlling.
Having ground and clearance are still, in my opinion, necessary to be at the airport.
The tower would be very helpful to have at the airport.
But approach/departure/center would all be no big deal to be in a centralized location.
Having a camera break could shut down the entire airport, is this a good idea?
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This looks like a great way forward for the industry. If this works at EGLC i can see it being deployed at similar sized major airports around the world. It will allow for expansion of this space limited airport and yes it could go wrong but there will be back ups and procedures for everything.
This looks promising. Lets hope theres no teething problems like there have been at other airports in the London vicinity. Cough T5 Cough
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That is often the case now anyway. Swanwick in the UK (based in Southampton) does this for the UK.
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Correct me if I’m wrong, but hasn’t this already been done in Australia, Sweden, Norway, and Ireland? Only airport I’m sure this happened at is Ornskoldsvik Airport.
It’s about to be implemented on several swedish airports fairly soon.
I think we have at least three that are already converted.
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Here in Norway similar things are happening. Avinor want to move all minor and some major airports to centrals in “Bodø”. If safety wasn’t a great enough issue, they will never be able to hire that many controllers in the city as most controllers moves to their hometowns in the south of Norway.
I personally don’t like this expansion, though I see the benefits of melting smaller airports and airstrips ATC together.
I remember this being posted a while ago, I personally am not a huge fan of the idea, they would need pretty reliable back up systems I think
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I’m with the @Aussie_Wombat on this, not a fan. The redundancy that would need to be in place for so many possible scenarios. Blackouts being one them, I know they probably backup generators for power however, living in Hurricane Central, I’ve seen more than my fair share of generators fail.
Don’t get me wrong, I wish them the best and hope it’s a huge success, I just don’t believe anything is “fail safe”
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That would be so cool if they leave the old tower as an exhibit and spotting area!
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Sounds like a great technology, may it not fail too often…