IFATCA The Controller - 3rd quarter 1998

THECONTROLLER JOURNAL

Communication Technology

OF

AlR

TRAFFlC

CONTROL

I Farnborough 98 I African lssues I Corporate Membership 1

3/98 3rd quarter 1998 volume 37 ISSN00 l 0- 807 3

PUBLISHER IFATCA. Internationa l Fed eration of Ai r Traffi c Contr olle rs' Assoc iations. See

bottom of page 4 for contact address .

THE JOURNAL

EXECUTIVE BOARD OF IFATCA

OF

A IR

TRAFFIC

CONTROL

Samuel Lampk in President and Ch ief Executive Offi cer

n This ssue

Paul Robinson Deput y President

Oliver Fariray i Executi ve V ice-President Afric a/ M iddl e East

George Chao Pao Shu Executi ve V ice-President Asia/ Pacific Marc Baumgartner Executive V ice-President Europe

s

Obituary We report the sad loss of our Executive Vice President Americas

6

Foreword Deputy President, Paul Robinson

8

Busy Bee A report about famous aircraft

9

New Operational Units Patrick Schelling reports from Sw itzerland

12

The Martin JRM - 3 Philippe Domogola reports on the 'Mars' Fly ing Boat

16

New Communication Technology An American report on support for future ATM operations

18

Images of Farnborough '98

20

European Airspace Structure Changes A reply from Eurocontrol concerning human invo lvement

22

Conference

26

The Airbus A 3XX Daniel Casanova report s from Tou louse

28

African ATC Infrastruct ure A lbert Taylor files a di sturb ing report from Afr ica

30

Corporate Membership Harry Cole reflect s on a long associat ion w ith IFA CTA

Un i ted Kingdom

32

Charlie 's Column

Vo l um e 37 No 3

John Redmond Executive V ice-President Finance

Martyn Cooper Execut ive V ice-President Professional

Martin Cole Execut ive Vic e-President Techn ical Terry Crowhurst Executive Board Secret ary/E d itor

EDITOR Terry Crowhurs t 29 Heritage Lawn, Langshott, Horley, Surrey. RH6 9XH, Un ited Kingdom .

Tel. +44 (0) 1293 784040 Fax. +44 (0) 1293 771944 email: terry _cro w hurst@compuse rve.com (home) Intern et : terry.crowhurst @srg.caa.co .uk (w ork)

CMG CHAIRMAN Edge Green O .B.E

AND ACCOUNTS

'99 information

and registration

4 The Rook ery Peasemore, RG20 7JY, United Kingdo m.

Tel. +44 (0) 1635 247890 Fax. +44 (0) 1635 247891 email: EdgeGreen@comp userve.com

ADVERTISING AND SALES OFFICE Ron M ahendran 107 Drake Road , Rayners Lane. Harrow, M idd lesex. HA2 9DZ, United Kingdo m.

Tel & Fax +44 (0) 181 868 7399

September 1998

SUBSCRIPTIONS Tim Ma cKay "Dunad ry". Min shull Lane, Wette nhall.

W insford . Cheshire, CW ? 4DU .

Advertisers in this issue Airsys ATM, Breitling, Crimp, Miller Freeman, Navia Aviation, NEC Corporation, Raytheon, Schmidt

United Kingdom.

Tel +44 (0) 1270 528363 Fax +44 (0) 1270 528478

CONTRIBUTING Patrick Schelling

EDITORS

Photographs T Crow hurst, P Domag ala, P Schelling , Nation al archives, sw isscontrol.

Ch . Sur le M oulin, 1261 Le Vaud.

Switzerland .

Tel +41 (0) 22366 2684 Fax +41 (0 ) 22366 430 5

The Contro ller, Jou rnal Of A ir Traff ic Control . is published qua rterly by the Internation al Fed eration of A ir Traff ic Co nt rollers' A ssociat ions (IFATCA ).

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CONTROLLER

Issues Appear End of March, June September December Contributors Are ExpressingTheir Personal Pointe;or View .ind Opinion<,. Wh1ct1Mel., N01 N<'Ct''>'>ilf1h.

Coincide With Those of The lnterna11 011alFederation of Air fraff1cControllers Associations lFATCA IFATCADoes Not Assume Respons1b1l1tv For '>tJtc mtnt'- M,H..lf and Opinions Ex.pressed11Accepts Respons1 bil1tr For Publishing TheseContnbu11onsContributions A.reVVelcome as A.relommen ts and l 111,c1c.m No P,wmf·r· 1 .ir be Made For ~/lanusrnpt s Submitted For Publication m The Controller The Ed11orReservesThe R1gh1 to Make An,, Ed1torra!(h,rnge; n M.1n11s(l1Pl'> ·,Jvt1nI tit Believes Wil l Improve The Matenal W11hou1 Altering The Intended Meaning Written Permission b\' The Editor ,s Necessa,..,For Repr1nt1ng~\11, P111 ,, ! h1• c ir' ·1

3

Corporate Members of lFATCA Th e Internation al Feder at ion

A DACEL PTY LTD Canberra, Au stralia

MILLER FREEMAN EXHIBITIONS London , UK

AIR TRAFFICAND NAVIGATIONA L SERV ICES Co. Ltd. Johannesburg, Repub lic of Sou th Afr ica

NAVIA AVIATION Horten , Norwa y

A ssociation s w o uld like to

NAVIA AVIATION AS Oslo , Norway

organi sation s, and institutions

NICE SYSTEMS Ltd Tel Aviv , Israel

with the ma intenance and

AIRSYS ATM LT D. Chessington, UK ALENIA Rome, Italy AM BIDJI GROUP PTY LT D M elbourne, Australia ARINC INCORPORATED Annapolis, MA, USA ATS AEROSPACE St. Bruno, Canada BREITLING SA Grenchen, Sw itzerland BRITISH A IRWAYS Londo n Heat hrow A irport , UK

of Ai r Traffic Controll ers'

invite all corporation s,

intere sted in and conc erned

pro motion of safety in air NORTHROP GRUMMAN Baltimore, MD, USA

traffic to join their organisation as Corporate

OMNILIFE Overseas Insurance Co. Ltd. Lond on, UK RAYTHEON Co .

Marlborough, MA, USA RAYTHEON SYSTEMS Ltd. Burgess Hill , UK

CESELSA M adrid , Spain

REFLECTONEUK LTD Bristol , UK

CELSIUSTECH SYSTEMS Jarfalla, Sweden

SCHMID TELECOMMUNICATION Zurich, Switzerland

CRIM P A/ S All ero, Denma rk

SERCO-IAL Bat h, UK

Memb ers.

Corpor ate Members support the aim s of the Federation by supplying the Federation with technic al information

and by

means of an annual subscription . The Federations' interna t ion al journal 'Th e Con t roller' is

CORIS Le Plessis Robinso n, France DENRO Gaithersburg , MD, USA

discu ssion of t echnical and SIEMENS AIR TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT Chessington , UK

DICTAPHO NE CORPORATION Stratf ord, CT, USA DIVERSIFIED INT' L SCIENCES CORP. Lanham, M D, USA FLIGHT REFUELLING Ltd Wimb orne, UK FREQUENTIS lmmendstaad, Germ any

procedural development s in the field of air tr affic control.

SOCIETED'ETUDESET D'ENTREPRI SESELECTRIQUES Ma lakoff , France

DA IM LER - BENZ AEROSPACE AG Ulm/ Dona u, Germ any

offer ed as a platform for the

SONY COMPUTER W eybrid ge, UK SWEDAVIAAB Norrko ping, Sweden

For furth er inform at ion conc ernin g Corp o rate M emb ership, or g eneral IFATCA matt ers, ple ase cont act the :

TELUB AB Solna, Sweden

IFATCA Office Man age r:

TERMA ELEKTRONIK AS Birkerod , Denmark

Suite 408, Montreal,

12 SS Un ive rsity St ree t ,

Quebec H3B 3B6

HUGHES A IRCRAFT COMPANY O F CANA DA LTD Richmond B.C., Canada

THOMSON-CS F, Division SDC Meudon-La -Foret, France

IAI - MLM DIVISION Beer Yaakov, Israel

VITROCISET S.p.A. Rome, Italy

JEPPESEN& Co . GmbH Frankfurt am Ma in, Germany

WAV IO NIX SOFTWARE LTD Geneva, Sw itzerland

CANADA Tel: +1 S14 866 7040

4

Fax: +1 514 866 7612 E: ifat ca@sympa ti co . ca

I r ll CONTROLL ER

Obituary It iswith great regrettriat we reportthe folbwing messagereceivedfrom our Mexrcancolleagu.es:· A SOCIAC ION DE CONTROLA DORES DE TRANSITO AEREO DE MEXICO /!/. ·. C A CTAM. PRESS RELEASE. ENGLISH/SPAN ISH INGLES/ESPANOL M R. SAMU EL LAMPK IN. PRESIDENT IFATCA, IFATCA HEADQUARTERS, EVP'S IFATCA , M EM BER ASSOCIATIONS OF IFATCA. PRESENT IT IS W ITH GREAT SADNESS FOR THE AIR TRAFFlC CONiTROLLERS' IN• /v\E-XICO TO INFORM THAT, ON,A UGUST 5th T998 AT APPR.OXIM'.t\TLY fs-A.M'.M EX ICO Cl TY Tl/v\f, MR . CARLOS OLMOS M ENDOZA EVP'-AMA DIED. OF A HEART ATIACK WH ILE:HE WAS DRIVING HIS AUTOMOB ILE ON, TO HIS:ATC OFFICE:IN, M EX ICO ClTY MR . OLMOS CONiTRIBUTED TO M'AN,Y Tf!/.SK S: IN, THE: ATC SYSffM IN /v\E'XICO DURING HIS-ACTIVE DUTYAS -AN,ATC IN,MEXICO' APP/ DEP'CONTROL-TRACON A ND W HElil HE GOT THE FIRST STROKE HE HA D A REVO KED ATC LJCl:NS'f. BUi CONiTINUE TO DO MANY. M'ANY TASKS IN THE OFfiCE POSITION FOR THE' A'l'C BENEFITAS.ATC SPECIALIST AND ATC INSTRUCTOI{',HE:WAS.IN LOVE'WITHA1C HE WAS A FORMER PRESIDENT A ND FOUNDf lf /v\'E'MEfff{' OF ACTAM, HE' WA':{.

IN,VO LVED INTO IFATCA FOR MANY YEMS . AI\JD HE: WAS. VERY ENfHU.SIASl TO .

PROMOTE IFATCA W ITH II\JTHE AMERICA'S Rl:GION M'.A:NYYE'ARS:AGO(IN fHl:70 'S:), THEN, HE BECAME EVP-CENTRAL AND SOUTH·AMERICA, THE'N HE ORGANIZED THE' ACAP ULC0'90 CON FERENCE IN T990. AFTEI<THAT HE-WAS INVOLVl:D WIT H CJUR EMPt.OYER 11\1 , THE MEXICO'S. A IR TRAFFIC CON;fROL 5'¥S:fl:M IM PLEMENTATION AND MOIDERNIZ'ATION OF MANY SYSTEMS FOR- THE LAst· 7 YEA RS, HE ALS'O ON lilHIG f'ERT~lil •WA S INVOLVEO lfll,MANY TASKS-W ITH ICAO REGIONAL OF'FICE, AND SiNCfAPR II!.T99s;Hf BECAME-AGA IN EVP-AMA RE-CION, HfWAS ,VERYOP'TlMISTIC A LL THIS, TIME TRYING- TO IMPLEMENT NEW THINGS' WITHIN THE AME-RICA'S REGIOtlJ,AtlJD•V.M·S.TRYING T'CJ Sff SCHEOULl:D fSR--OGRAM TO V ISIT AND PROMOTE LOCAL Atl!D REGIOtlJALM EETINGSTO IMPROVE BE'fil:RCOMMUN ICATION W ITHIN THE AM ERKA' SoCOUNiT.RIES:AND THEIR MEMBER ASSOCIATIONS AND TO GET A TIGHT BLOCK FOR BETIER DEVELOPING OF AMA - MA'S. CARLOS, WE W ILL NEV ER FORGETYOU AS ONE OF'THE BESTOF TH E GROUP, YOUR LES.SONSAtl!D YOUR SUPF'ORT:Dl!DICATlON AND CON1RIBUT ION TO THE ATC IN THE COUtlJ1RYAND IN THE WO RLD.

JAVIER CAMARl:li!A INiTERNAT IONA L Aff°A IRS SECRffARY ACTAMAC. LIA ISON OFFICER ACfAM/I FAfCA MEXICO

PR'fS'ENff CON GRAN TRISTE"ZALOS CONTROLADORES DE TRANS ITO A EREO DE MEXICO , INFO R.MAMOS (JUE. EL 5 DE AGOSTO DE 1998 APROXIMADA M ENTE A LAS 8 A .M .

HORA DE'LA CIUDAD DE M EXICO, EL COMPANERO CONTROLADOR DE TA SR CARLOS OLMOS.M ENDOZA FALLECIO DE UN ATAQUE AL CORAZO N MIENTRAS SE TRASlADABA MAN EJANDO SU AUTOMOVI L A SU OFICINA EN LA CIUDAD DE MEXICO El SR. OLMOS CONTRIBUYO EN M UCH AS TAREAS DENTRO DEL S~STEMA DE TRANSITO A EREO DE MEXICO DURANTE SU V IDA ACTIVA COMO CONTROLADOR DE TA EN EL CONTROL DE APROXIMACION RADAR DE LA CIUDAD DE MEXICO . LE CANCE LARON SU LICENCI-A DE C.TA DESPUES DEL PRIMER ATAQUE AL CORAZON , PERO CONTINUO TRABAJANDO EN LA OFICINA COMO ESPECIALISTA EN TRANSITO A EREO E INSTRUCTOR Y MU CHAS MAS TAREAS QUE SE LE ENCOMENDARON PARA BENEFICIO DEL C.T.A . FUE M IEMB RO FUNDADOR y PRESIDENTE DE ACTAM. ESTABA ENAMO RADO DEL CONTROL DE TRANSITO AEREO, COMENZO A ESTAR MUY ACTIVO EN IFATCA DESDE LOS ANOS 70'5 Y FUE MUY ENTUSIASTA EN PROMOVER IFATCA PARA LATINOAM ERICA, DESPUES FUE EVP DE LA REGION CENTRO Y SUDAMERICA Y ORGANIZO LA CONFERENCI A MUNDIAL ACA PULC0'90, DURAN TE ESTOS ULTIMOS 7 ANOS SE DEDICO DE LLENO CON NUESTRA EMPRESA A IMPLEMENTAR NUEVOS SISTEMAS Y A LA MODERNIZACION DE LOS EQUIPOS Y DEL EL ESPACI O AEREO MEXI CANO TAMBIEN CON OACI EN LA OFIONA REGIONAL TENIA MUCHAS TAREAS Q UE HACER EN PRO DEL C.TA DESDE ABRIL DE 1998, FUE ELECTO EV P-AMA Y ESTABA MUY OPTIMIST A EN LLEVAR A CABO UN CALENDARIO DE VISITAS A TODOS LOS PAISES DE AMERICA y DE FOMENTAR LAS REUNIONES LOCALES Y REGIONALES. LA COMUNICACIO N Y LA UNION ENTRE LOS PAISESY ASOCIAC IONES M IEMBRO DE IFATCA PARA FORM A R UN BLOQUE MUY UNIDO Y PODER TRABAJAR EN NUESTRO BENEFIC IO CO M O C.T.A.'S PARA UN MEJOR DESAROLLO CARLOS, Nt.JNCA TE OLVIDAREMOS COMO UNO DE LOS ME JORES DEL GRUPO POR TUS LECCIONES Y POR TU APOYO , DEDICACION Y CONTR !BUCIONE S A L CONTROL DE TRANSITO AEREO EN EL PAIS YEN EL MUNDO GRACIAS "C.O."

SR. SAMUEL LAMPK IN F'RESIDE:NiE IFATCA, OFICINA CENTRAL IFA'r'CA, EVPS. Il"ATCA. ASOCIACIONE:S M ll':MBRO

JAVIERCAMARENA SECRETARIODE ASUNTOS INTERNACIONALES ACTAMA .C. OFICIAL DE ENLACE ACTAM / IFATCA MEXICO.

DElf'A'fCA

Ca'rl'(ll:~a:g.~lll -rff~ the dut ies of Ex-e(w1-t'< i1Ye%ere-President Amer icas, fu ll0w ing his elect ion at the last lf'Ai(A A nnual Conference in Tou louse . In June, Carlos attended his first Ex-ecutive Board meet ing in Fr ankfurt, Germany Dur ing this meeting it qu ickly became

"F CONTROLLER

apparent how ded icated he was to t he air t raffi c concerns within his region . A la,s he was unable to pursue many of his aspirations but hopefu lly others w ill fo llow his example and pursue t he cau-sesthat he so veheme ntly believed in.

The funeral for Carlos was held

in Me xico on Friday, August 7 19-98. Our heartfett condo lences have been emended to his family. Carlos we will miss you .

In celebration of his life, the IFATCA Off ice Manager has arranged a Mass to be offered dur ing the period of the January 1999 Executive Board meeting .

The Mass will take p lace in St Patrick's Basiilica , Montreal , on Friday, January 15 1999 . All are we tcome to attend . Furthe r information can be obta in ed from the Office Manage r (contact details on pag e 4 )

5

Foreword Looking to the Future Paul Robinson, Deputy President

As

we come to the end of the tw entieth centu ry many of our past working practices, and the philosophy supporting them, are changing, not only from a technical perspective, but also in the professional aspects of our employment. The primar y objective of safety has not changed among controllers , but some providers of air traffic services are exploring th e "new " environment of safety at a reasonable cost. This is fertile ground for the more fiscallydriven employers, and one of the most popular methods of implementing this concep t is through the commer cialisatio n (some call it privatisation) of air traff ic services. This move has been gathering momentum for the last ten years w ith countries such as Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, South Africa, and Switzerland now providing these services on a commercial basis. Wh ethe r this structure involves generat ing a return on the sharehol ders investment, or simp ly operating on a cost-recov ery basis, it has led to a more focused

examination of the costs of providing air traffic control serv ices, wh ich in turn is placing pressures on those at the "coal face" .

Th e Federation's trad itiona l stre ngth has been its technica l expertise. Without doubt we spend a larger portion of our scarce resources representing our members in technica l matters tha n on professional issues. This is partly because of the ex plosion in technica l improvements associated with aviation over the last forty years, and part ly because we have always mainta ined a clear position that IFATCA is a nonindustrial organisation . We are not a union of air traffic controllers, but a federation of auto nomous national units, and I suspect that we have taken a cautious vi ew of the relationship bet w een professio nal and industrial issues. We also have a long history of public service, where most control lers had their indu stria l interests represented in a relati ve ly confined manne r by a qu asigovernmental umbrel la

organisation wh ile belonging to IFATCA for their tec hnical representation . Many of our Member Associations (MAs) still have no union mandate, and some quite like a degree of "separateness" between the ir professiona l association and trade union. Having worked within both environments, I have a clear view w hich arrangement I believe to be more effective. Some countries do not encourage free bargaining, and those controllers strugg le to obtain direct negotiating representat ion.

Whi le it is fair to say that we have tended to place more emphasis on technical rather than professional issues, the Federation has had some invo lvement in setting international professional standards for controllers.

IFATCA's influence was instrumental in the International Labour Office's decision to convene a "meeting of experts" to discuss "problems concerning air traff ic contro llers". The meeting, in Geneva in 1979 ,

was a bi-partite forum between Government representati ves and unions /associat ion s.

IFATCA took a leading role in these discussions, and the "conclusions" of the meeting became the definitive guide lines for what was considered the most desirab le set of conditions for the ATC profess ion. These conc lusions form the cornerstone of much of our professional po licy, and have subsequently been used extensively by both MAs and other organisations to achieve better cond itions for contro llers .

As the pressures I mentioned above have increased, discussion at Conference has turned more to meeting our objective of protect ing and safeguarding the interests of t he air traff ic control profession .

One of the questions we have faced is "how can we achieve th is - do we sit back and wait for the unions to do the work for us, or do we become mor e industr ial in our out look?" The role of the Federation in the area of prof essional and indu strial issues was tack led by

THECONTROLLER regional sub-editors AFRICA MIDDLE EAST

AMERICAS

ASIA PACIFIC

Mr Albert A idoo Taylor P.O. Box 9181 Kotake International Airport Accra GHANA Tel: +233 21 773283 Fax:+233 21 773293

Rosanna Baru (ATCA U) P.O. Box 6554 Montevideo URUGUAY Tel : +598 2770299 Fax : +598 2770299

Mr John Wagstaff ATMD, CAD Hong Kong International A irport Kowloon Hong Kong Tel: +852 25510081 Fax: +852 23628101

Neil Martin 67 Castle Rock Dr ive Richmond Hill , Ontario CANADA, L4C 5W3 Tele: + 1 905 508 477 1 (H) + 1 905 676 5228 (W) Fax: + 1 905 676 3121 (W)

Mr Philippe Domagala M erelstraat 5 NL - 6176 EZ Spaubeek THE NETHERLANDS Tel: +31 46 4433564 Fax: +31433661541

and Mr Khaled Koo li Aero port lnt. de Tunis-Carthage CNA-2035 TUN ISIA Tel: +2 16 1755 OOO Fax: +2161 782 106

6

EUROPE

CONTROLL ER

SC6 last year, w ho presented a w orking paper at Conference resulting in the adoption of new policy which we hope will enable us to resolve this conundrum and place increased emphasis on professional issues. The policy clearly states that IFATCA has the right to develop policy on all matters associated with the provision of air traffic services. This is supported in our Convention where we state that "theparties hereto bind

themselves to co-operate with each other in all matters affecting their common professionalinterest." We are noticing more and more that issues are no longer so clearly "technical" or "professional". In many cases there is a blurring of individual subjects across several fields and we are now looking to increase the interaction between our Standing Committee s to meet this situation.

SC6 concluded that, the terms "industrial" and "professional" refer to the approach to, and implementation of, such policies rather than the matters themselves. For example, the prevention of controller fatigue is not an

industrial issue, but the forum and manner in which it is conducted could lead to it becoming one. Given the level of pressure being exerted by some employers in recent years, occasionally matters presented as "professional" end up having to be resolved industrially, but that is outside the scope of IFATCA. At that stage our recognition of the existence of other organisations that have a role to play in representing the legitimate interests of air traffic controllers becomes appropriate .

It is not possible for IFATCA to enter into the bargaining process on behalf of MAs. We have neither the expertise nor the resources, and it would be contrary to our well understood and accepted modus operandi.

MAs are themselves responsible for seeking the implementation of IFATCA policies within their area of representation, either on their own behalf or by ensuring these policies are communic ated to the bodies that hold their negotiating rights. Our policy - in countries where the Member Association does not hold negotiating rights, it should be

encouraged to communicate IFATCA policies to the trade union or negotiating body and, so far as is practicable, to co-ordinate their implementation.

At an international level IFATCA should seek a common or co-ordinated approach with any other bodies representing air traffic controllers. We have the knowledge and expertise to provide advice and information about professional matters (and in particular human factors ), but we recognise that other bod ies may be more suited to devise strategies for their implementation.

Finally, w e have an obl igat ion to assist our MAs w here possible.

The Executive Board has debated at some length how we might fairly decide the allocation, nature, and ext ent of such assistance and inform al guideline s have been adopte d pending furth er inp ut from SC6. In general t hese guidelines follo w t he fi nal part of th e new policy wh ich states IFATCA shou ld cont in ue to act as an intermediary when so invited by Member Associat ion s involved in dispu t es,

either at inte r nation a l or nationa l leve l an d t h e Executive Board shou ld b e allowed to conti nue to exercise its d iscretion as to the appropr iat e sca le of IFATCA inv olveme nt in any part icular case . W e have recent ly assisted Zimbabwe in th ei r dispute , and are conside ring oth er appli cations for support.

You wil l f ind this new polic y at t he fr ont of th e Professional sect ion in t his year's amendmen t. Simply appro v ing new policy w ill not ease the problems of some of our MAs ; t his w ill requ ire action on your part to bri ng information on such problems to the Federation in a timely man n e r.

How we deal w ith these prob lems w ill depend to a degree on both our resou rce s and on the support and expert ise which can be d erive d with in the neighbour ing region Howe ver, the polic y doe s g ive us a cleare r framew o rk to build relationships bo t h w ith o u r MAs and w it h ot he r ATC groups , and to look at how we can give a hig her p rofil e to a maJor componen t of o u r activ ities w hic h for so me time has receive d less foc us than Is desirable

lFATCA - 40th anniversarystory It has been decided to present an historical perspective of IFATCA in book for m fo r the Federat ion's 40th A n niversary in 2001 .

Information is now being collected for this task . Contributions of a historic al nat ure, p hotographs, interest ing / humourous anecdotes, recollections/ reflections, supplementar y paper s etc . are inv ite d .

If you can contribute information to:

in any wa y, please contact or send rele v ant mat eri al (not p hotogra ph s in the in itia l instance)

Bernhard Rueth y Buerenstr. 23 CH-3312 FRAUBRUNNEN Swit zerland

Neil Vi d ler c/ o A.TM .D ATC Cent re , Air Traffic Control Tower Road Che p Lap Ko k Internat ional Airport, Lanta ll, Hong Kong

Phone : +41 31 76 7 8235

Phone :+8 52 2792 2757

Fax: +41 31 76 7 8235 email 100245.1460@compuser

v e .com

Fax: +852 279 1 4747 email : nrvi dl er@netvigator .com

Any cont ribution, no matter how large or small,

ii CO NTROLLER

and

wmbe appreciated

.

7

History of famous aircraft B eing 737-2R4C ef Busy Bee Philippe Domqgala. Contribut ing Editor

Y

ou r:ea_d.ev,erywh ere the obitua ry of famous

people when the y die.

Esp ecially, w hen those famous _people did extraordinary things in th eir liv.es. But ther.e are also aiFqaft, whi ch during the ir lifetime did extrao rd inary things, or,at l ~ast Jed v.ery exciti ng f lying liv.es, QUtyou cannot r.ead their

awaiting d_eliv.ery.--H:ow_ev_e r, Boei 11 g ·co.uld-n_ot-deliv.er it because t his mo.d ifie.d ·mo.d:el had been cons Lder.e.d ·:H~h Tech ."·by the US:State department w ho ·bloc k.e.d it5 sate to a fore~gn communist _co.untry .

Boeing was stu_ck with the aircraft .

obituaries wh,en t hey .d ie. Well, I have-decided to remedy this shortcoming_and am going to

At the same time,:BlJ:SY:Bff, ;a

giv.e you a new series of articles ,

was ·com_petin.g f.or:a Nnrw .egran Army cont ract that irtelu:de:d

sm.al I:e:h.arter ·c.om:p.:any·fr.om Norway :o:p_erntirig=F:okk.er2 7-s,

,each dep icting the fanta stic lives of some famous airer.aft.

·parachu tin:g,an:d:o:p:erating fr.om

Think.about t he ·Conv.air

take t-h.e -ALY:EMDA 737 aft:er

rou.=g h fiel.ds. T·hey:d:e:ci:dedto apparent ly the prop erty of the Chinese airline Xin Hu a.

·Coronado of Spantax that

asking fo r .:anoth:er-mo:difi:cat ion .

unprepared strips of 800 metres

collided w ith .a DC9 at 29 ,000 feet over Nantes in 1973 , whie:h survived wit h half a wi n:g t om off and was rebuil t t oo! -Or t he C L44

The ·mod ifi-c.ation was -to cb:e:abl.e to remove the b.a.ck'f ight do-or in fl ight . to .allow for p-arachuttnK The air-cr:aftw.as·d:elivere dto

length. Between the military wntract5, the 737 was used 'normall y ' t o carry passenger s .and 'freight withi n Norway or

belonging to T.A-R of Ar_g.entina, tr.apped by a deco y VOR ·off t he bor-der of Turkey that.a{:tuall y 'sh0t' down a Mig 25 wi t h its

-Bu.sy:B:eeinDecemb.er 1979 .

Eurnp e, maimly on behalf of

was leased to Sahara Indi a, a new Indian company . It

-As ·npbody befor e -had cever

Braathens Safe, the other 'Norw egian domestic airl ine .

received a new regist ration (VT-SIA) . Th e 737 only

propellers w hile being

jumped o.ut ·of a passenger jet :aircraft, tests-hadt o b:e-made.

interce pted 0v.e r USSR airs-pace,

In October 1993 , the aircraft

operated a few flights, but had a spectacu lar end . On a

Th e tests took p lace in th :e .USA,

ir he aincraft was easily recogn isable with a cartoon -like

training flight, during a touch

or Emperor .Sok.ass.a 's ·Car.av.elle

over Mos.es Lake ·near Seattl .e.

cir.awing of a smiling bee on its

and go in New Delhi airport on

and its -myste riou s d iamond s.

These w ill come in lat er issues .

For now, I w ill r,eview th e life of a

The d-o:orwas taken o.ut of t he

tail. i!3usyBee ceased oper ating the 737 ·in May 1991 and put it up for sale . It was sold to Alaska-

8 March 1994 , the aircraft missed the run way and, during

famous Boeing 737

dumm y .w.asthen fol lowe d lby Major Tangen, a ·~orweg i:ari

lleaseito A loha Airlines of Hawaii

if. . 01,11S AIR-ORA :Fr~il

Arm y tes t ip:ara.chuti:st Th is 'f.eat

aTild a US Regist ration N801WA

1801:!IC 7'3'1-;211WCof

i.s·recorded as t he 'first jump fr·om a -commercial aincr.aft.

Ho w ever, this fir-s:tjump wv.as

was p ainted on the aircraft.

sadly enough, onl y 8 people were ki lled . Both aircraft wer e

The aircraft never saw the Pacifi c

written off!

made w ithout re:d.u-cing:!:hre

sun as Alaska Wien got into financial tro uble " A local bro ker, Thor Tjoenvelt "too k care" of the

For the purists : Boeing 7372R4C ( in fact a mod ified 737-

,~¥ (1,J N

[8:.,~ le)

airc raft an:d at 1 o :o:GJDf.e.et. they frrst -drop:ped :a dummy . T his

This-p.artiq .1l $1r:i; l oein,g 737 :was

power on the r ight engime am:I

9r\ier.ed fr-9m 89ein_g -oy the then -c-9mmuni~t $o ut-Ii Yemen Airl ine ALYEMOA in 197~ The air-erilft was w-dered w ith

our Majo r was caught ,in 1J lne~et blas t . He survived the t urbulence and the heat "bo decla r e aft erwards : "It was a 'hot' j ump ".

r-einfw.cedfloor and a so -called "w.avel kit" ( in fact). vort-ex

Wiern, th at month , reportedly for

a very low -go aroun d , hit an llush in 86 of Aeroflot w h ich was parked at the passenger terminal. By a miracle , but

200), serial number 2176 3/ 571 , manufactured 1979 . Maximum

aircr aft which illegally depa rted fro m Stavanger on 13th Ma y 1991 with a US registration

take-off weight 54 tons . End

wh ich, in fact, was never put on

8.3 .94 .

the US register . The aircraft

~ner;?t{)r ,:;bel9wt he e ng ines

The aim· aft w as 'cert ified ' for

disappeared and M r Tjoen ve lt is

IL-86 registration

,11nd .a',iki bel9w •the n9se landing

Paratrn opi ng and was a'b1eto

reported to be wanted by the

Busy Bee never replaced t he

f¥.ar). The .air.craft was <eady 1n

carry up t o 80 parachutists or

Norwegi an police . It reappeared

737, and concent rated on its

Sept 197-9, p.ainted in full

100 tro op s. The aircraft was

in 1992, still under a false

Fokker27s , befo re sadly. ceasing

ALYEMOA colour s whi lst

known to have ope rated on

reg istration , parked in Dothan,

operations a few years ago .

8

RA-86119 .

>IF CONTROLLER

"N ew ideas

ost likelv

ram ex eritnced mi nds'' Egil Alvi er Sen ior Pro j e ct Mana ge r GA REX

Creativity is al l ab o ut solving a prob le m i n a new and bette r w ay, and obviously one needs t o see a problem from all angles t o produce better so l ut io n s for the futu r e. Th is kind o f insight can onl y be gain e d from lots of ex pe ri e n ce , according to sc ie nt ifi c stud ies of creat ivity .

Navia Av iat io n' s GA REX voice commu nicati o n co nt r o l systems have bee n ins t all ed at leading airp o rt s ar o u nd the wo r ld fo r m o r e t han 30 year s, co ntinu o usly carryin g new deve lop m ent s. Th e r e 's no need fo r a r evo lut io n wh en yo u 've go t it ri g ht in t he first p lace . But t her e ' s alway s r oo m f o r im pro vem ent - mos t lik e ly cr eat ed by som eone with a lo t o f exp e ri e n ce in that part ic ula r fi e ld. Yo u kno w w her e t o loo k fo r ex pe rienc e , do n't yo u?

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New 0 eretional lJnits swisscontrol commissions two new operationa PatrickSchelling,Contributing Editor

The new Tower and administrative building const itutes a (new) landma rk at Berne Airport.

Controllers at Berne enj oy a good view of the traffic and the llernese Alps!

he Year 199 8 w ill be remembered by a major ity of swisscontrol staff, as a year of transition and transfers. As part of an organisationa l strategy , the company's headquarters were recent ly moved from Bern (the country's Capital) to Geneva . Prior to th is move , the Area Control Centre (ACC) was transfer red to a new building, dubbed NAG (Navigation Aerienne Geneve) .

The move made room to accommodate the administrat ive off ices, such as the perso nn el and the f inan cial departments .

purpo se-built at Bern Internationa l A irport . Originating from the S0's, th e old Tower no longer met the requir ements for optimum v isibility du e to the steady incre ase and nature of traffic at the capital's airport .

Ind eed, t he mix of IFR and VFR tr aff ic is comparatively high Regional airlines use Bern to carry passengers to and from major hubs . In addition, business flight s, helicopter and convent iona l pilot training, gove rnm ental fligh ts, SAR opera t ions, including gliders , make up the variety that never leave the co nt rol lers w ith a du ll moment, specially during nice weat her conditio ns.

T

Inaugurated in ear ly October, t he NAG now houses the seven sector s of Geneva ACC. Mili t ary Co-ordinat ion positions and Flight Informat io n.

Provisions are made for a later int egrat ion of Geneva Ar rival and Departure Sectors, now located in t he Tower . Th e Aeronautical Data Man agem ent unit fo r Switzerla nd (Fligh t Plan, AFTN , AT IS/V OLMET , etc) as we ll as high level Manag ement , Operat ion s.

10

Engineering and Support pe rsonn el, are also located in the NAG. Part of a longer term strategy, it is planned eventua lly to manage the entire (civi l) traff ic of the Swiss Upper Airspace out of Geneva ACC. In terms of ava ilab le floor size, th is can be done, since on ly half of t he spa ce is cur rent ly ut ili sed by the Geneva sectors I Dur ing tra nsition, th e Exec utive Co nt rol ler ( EC) was using the round , monochrome

screens,

pending the f ull commiss io nin g of the A DAPT system, w hil e t he Planning Co ntroller (PLC) already operated on co lour 2k x 2k d isp lays (See Photog raph) Additionally , the ECs pos it ions are also equipped w it h "squ are" screens , in clu ding t he Short Term Conflict A lert (STCA) function , a feature speci fical ly required by the Geneva contro !!ers

New Berrn Towe ir Less spe ct acula r, but long awaite d wa s the transfer int o the new Towe r and office s,

Standin g 22 metres (75ft) tall, t he towe r cab is equ ipp ed w it h two w orking positions, th e to wer and A rrival/ Departures (ARR/DEP) functions respective ly The layout is des igne d to enable operation by one contrn ller du ring low traffic sit uations . For several years now , Bern Towe r has also hand led t he IFR arrivals and departu res for near-by Grenchen regio nal airport . IFR traff ic is depicted on

Mod ern touch -screen com munication systems supplied by Schmid .

Bright di splays w ith information supp lied from the main -frame computer located at Zu rich . Th e picture is compo sed of radar inform ation from seve ral sources (ant ennas) in and arou nd t he country. Controllers seem pleased w ith their new faci lit ies as their work ing cond iti ons have improved - and so has safetyl One contr ibutin g factor to rising traffi c numb ers at Bern can, w it hout any doubt , be attr ib uted to passenger comfort , as th is A irp o1i is a "dream" fo r those arriving and departing Distance s from ground to airside are so short - that one can almost distinguish t he brand of coffee that wi ll be served on board the a1rcraft1

CONTROLLER

Toronto Tower

I units at Geneva and Bern

Old and new: The new area Control Centre located at Geneva Airport. The square building to its left became swisscontrol's headquarters administrative building. Geneva Tower can be seen to the right, in the distance.

~

Lester B. Pearson International A irport in Toronto.

The Voice Commun icat ion system has been supp lied , recently tested and acce pt ed from Freq uent is. The wh o le Frequ ent is project invol v ed the installation at 10 air tr affic control positions , th e radio interfaces , 37 t elephone interf aces and a t echnical monitoring and control sy st em .

Intense activity shown on two sectors. Note that the Executive Controller (EC) still uses the round screens. pending the full commissioning of the new system.

Europe's pre mier airtraffic controlevent 23rd- 25thFebruary 1999 Maastricht Exhibition andCongress Centre

ATC Maastricht is Europe'spremier event. bringingtogetherleading suppliers and buyers of Air TrafficControlequipment.productsand services With over 100 leading exhibitors , new product seminars and Jane's annual conference , a visit to ATC Maastricht will enableyou to keepup with the latest products solutions. developments and technologies emergingin the Air Traffic Control Industry.

So make a datein your diary now 23 - 25 February 1 9991 Foryour free ticket call the ATC hotline on + 44 (0) 1203 426 441 or complete and return the coupon below to ATC 99. CTS. Data House. Curriers Close. Coventry. CV4 SAW UK or fax on +44 (0) 1203 426 438 or alternativelyyou may registeron the website: http/ /www atcmaast cht com

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D Yespleasesend me detailsaboutexhibiting at ATC Maastricht99 (tick box) D Yesplease send me free tickets to the ATC¡99 Exhibition Name Address

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M:E

11

The Martin JRM-3 Built in 1946 - as big as a B747

still flying today!

Philippe Domagala, Contributing Editor cockpit of the aircraft is also inte restin g (see photo) . It is the size of a small apartment with the two pilo ts in front and 10m or so behind, the flight engineer s. Sometime s, crew co-ordination invo lves som e shouting but it works .

The four milit ary aircr aft were ret ired from the navy in 195 6 and sold for scrap fo r $23,000 to a scrap metal merchant called Forrester. During that period some very large forest fires destro yed part of Canada and three of the largest timber companies decided to combine th eir efforts t o create a "Fire Protect ion Committee" .

The cor por ate pilot of one of

The Martin Mars while in US Navy service in 1948

W

hilst I was attending an IFALPA ATS

Th e maintenance crew was ver y friendl y and allowed me

machine to satisfy the US Navy requirement. They came up w ith the "Mars" and built a

Committee meeting in Victoria, British Columb ia, I had a spare day w aiting for a seat on a fl ight. A pilot friend of

to get close t o the plane . They explained t hat t hese two aircraft are t he only two rema inin g Martin JRM-3

protot y pe in 1945. The navy initiall y ordered 20 but. w ith the end of the hostiliti es in the

mine suggested I visited a remote lake in the midd le of Victoria Island whe re some "Mars" flying boats could be

"Mars" from the five built in

w int er of 1945, reduced its

1946 for the US Navy. Since 1959 , th ey have been operated by the Forest

initial order to on ly 6 machines . They were built and

seen. His enthusiasm about t hem raised my curiosity, so I rented a car and dro ve the 150 Km or so to Sproat Lake. Th e place is beaut iful, surro unded by spruce trees as high as 100 meters, and yes, in the midd le

Indust ries Fly ing Tankers Ltd, to extinguish forest fires Th e aircraft are unique in many aspect s and th e sto ry associ ated wi th these aircraft is really unusual .

of the lake an old looking 4

A ft er t he di sast er of Pearl

engine red and white fly ing boat was moored , noth ing very special so far. The surpr ise came from the second one,

Harbour , t he US Navy wa s

given names after Pacific island s (Hawaii, Philippin es,

t he companies , called Captain Mc ivor , came up wi th the idea of using aircraft to spot and drop water on the fires . The idea was init ially we lcomed but no suitab le aircraft co uld be found . Th e idea was dropped but, later during a conversation in one of t he local pub s, M civor heard about the fo ur Mars in California abou t to be

Carolines, Marianas and Marshall) and were known

scrapp ed for met al. Dan ta lked to Forrester, and on ly a few

thereafter by th ese names.

days before the y were du e to be scrappe d, the latte r agreed to sell them back for $100, 000

A few month s after th e de live ry of the f irst aircraft (The Hawaii 1) it crashed off the coast of California, a fire destroyed the Marshall M ars in 1950, but the fo ur other s cont inu ed their service with

The deal was comp leted, but it excluded any spares.

Mc ivor tracked do w n every metal scrap yard in th e US to locate the spares and bought

hauled ashore for maintenance .

look ing fo r a fl y ing boat large enough t o carry 10 tons of cargo in o ne go from California to Hawaii During WW II, the

the US Navy until 1956 . They

all of them back in small lots

Its size! It has a 60 met res w ing-

Mart in Co mpany (yes, t he

we re able to carry over 20 ton s

thirt y-four engine s at $600

span (200 feet) and Is 15 m (48 feet) high, roughly t he size of a

same one tha t now is part of Lockhee d -Martin ) had

of cargo and could carry up to 300 passengers (A record

each here , 5,000 spark s plug s at 5 cent s ther e. He fin ally hit

Boeing 747 SP w ith 4 prope ller

ex pe rience wi t h fl y ing boat s

fligh t w ith 301 sailors plu s

engines

and de cided to bu ild a big

crew took place in 1949 ) The

the Jackpot w hen he secured the w hole US Navy st ock of

12

1 ''

CONTROLLER

P 14 lks..,

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Telecommunicat ion connects

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controllers with pilots and other ATC cente rs with a revolutionary standard of quality. Rapidly, simp ly and as reliably as a Swiss watch.

A wealth of know-how as a leader in the communications ._field coupled with state -of-the-art

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The user interface , for example , is based

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a touchscreen , which not only makes life a lot easier for users but also cuts expense

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and

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The Martin JRM~3 small spares and the original documentation of Martin, including the blueprints of the aircraft, for $3000. They now had enough spares to operate the four aircraft well into the 21st Century.

The four aircraft were converted to be able to scoop water wh ilst doing a 'touch and go' on sea, lakes or even large rivers. The first two aircraft were ready in 1960 but unfortunately the

MarianasMarshit sometree topswhen bombingits first fire and crashedkilling its crew of four. Two yea rs later, in the w inte r of 1962, Hurricane Frieda hit the West

The Martin Mars in the Forest lndustries Flying Tankers Ltd service in J 998

Coast and completely destroyed the Caroline Mars moored on the shore. The two remaining Mars, Hawaii 2 and Philippines, continued the service and are still flying in 1998, more than 50 years after they were first built. The Mars can drop 27 tons of wate r mixed with a gel to produce foam that sticks to trees and land. The Mars are so effic ient in extingu ishing t he forest fires that in t he 1960's Canada decided to build its own fire -fighting aircraft based on the Mars the Canadair CL-215 . It was so successfu l that many countries (France, Spain , Ita ly etc) bought them for fire fighting operations .

Although the Canadair load is only 5 tons of water, it is also easier and cheaper to operate t han the Mars. Neverthe less, t he orig inal idea to use water bombers in such a way orig inates from the M civor era and the Mars , with more t han five times the capacity of t he Canadair CL215 , sti ll has its ow n unique advantages As recent ly as A ugu st 1998 , a

14

The cockpit of the Mars - enough for 20 jump seats or so. [A controller's dream) massive f ire burned part of the Salmon Arm in British Columbia . After the

aircraft, roughly the size of a B747, at 15m above the flames and dropping 27 tons

parts using the blue prints as a guide) One of the three forest companies that had

evacuation of 15,000 people and after some sma ll cities

of water on them.

supported the large costs has decided to pull out of the

were threatened

The two remaining Mars still

the Mars were ca lled in and

by the fire,

fl y ing today can be seen at

group. Whether the two remaining companies wi ll

successfu lly controlled the fire. Thou sand s of residents greeted the water bombers

Sproat Lake near Port Alberni, roughly a two hour

agree to pay more to continue the operation of the

drive from Victoria, itself a 12

Mars is an open que stio n

and cheered the m at every

minutes flight from

Nevertheless, I hope that

pa ssage . The pilots of those

Vancouver . But hurr y if you

after 50 years of wo rk , they

machine s are see n as heroes

wa nt to see them, becau se

will be allowed to retire in

by the loca l popula t ion and

operating them has become

sty le and avoid the scrap

they deserve it ; imagine the

very expensive (they have to

metal merchant .

risk of o pe rat ing a large

manufacture some spare

11

CONTROLLER

BREITLING SA 路 PO . Bo, 1132 25-tll l -;REt\iCHEN

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Communication

New and envisioned communication techno lo1 how well can they support future air traff ic Nadine B. Sarter: Aviation Research Laboratory - Institute of Aviation - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Communications are a part of the ATC control process that we rely upon complete ly in operational life. This paper, presented at the US Human Factors and Ergomics Society 41 st annual meeting (in 1997), provides a useful insight into changes to the telephone systems, and considers the properties of ATC communications in the context of datalink. The authors of the paper have carried out considerable work into cockpit automation.

INTRODUCTION n the future air traffic management (ATM) system, flight crews wi ll most likely have the option to dynamica lly adjust their flight path with out prior approval from th e ground.

As a result, knowledg e of intent may no longer be shared by pilots and control lers, and the potential for unforeseen confli cts as well as the need for immediate yet co-ordinated interventions can be expected to increase. To support such a short-term reactive approach to traffic management and separation, highly effective means of communication wi ll be required t hat allow for a rapid creation and update of shared frames of reference. It is not clear that recently developed and envisioned communication media and technolog ies are designed with these goals in mind. A recent line of research explored the ability of two communicatio n systems - Data Link and the Voice Control and Switching System (VSCS) - to handle communication not on ly in the current air traffic contro l system but to also support the highly flexib le operations and new co-ordination and knowledge demands that are likely going to be part of the future ATM system. System reviews, conceptual simulations, and a pilot survey served to gather information on current and potential future exper iences with these systems. The results of our research suggest that neither system is tailo red to future ATM operations , and that they create new challenge s

I

16

eve n in t he context of the curren t system.

Thi s paper presents results from a recent line of research th at was designed to develop and test a predictive approach to system evaluation. Th e pred ictive evaluation of modern tech nol ogy is critical to ensure that prob lems w it h a new system are detected before the system is introd uced to the field, in order to avo id potentially unsafe operations and the need for costly late fixes of a design .

Potential problems with a new system can be predicted and prevented, based on ou r current understanding of the success or failure of joint human-machine syst ems in var ious domains . In th is case, tw o ATC communication systems - Data Link and the Vo ice Control and Switching System (VSCS) - were exam ined to determ ine the ir ability to support future ATM operations and to exp lore their potential for creating difficulties and new demands fo r operators.

Data Link, t he env ision ed digital communication mediu m for future air traffic operations, is still under development whi le VSCS is currently being int roduced to en-route faci lities across the U.S. PREDICTED AND ACTUAL EXPERIENCES WITH THE VSCS SYSTEM Recently, the Vo ice Commun ication and Switching System (VSCS) has been deve loped and is current ly being introduced to en-route centers across the U 5. The VSCS

system allows for th e selection, interconnection, activation and reconfiguration of communication paths between ATC positions, ground-ground communicat ion resources, and radio equipment at local and remote communic ation resources. The system supports almost all voice communication functions that were available w ith its predecessor. In addition, it allows for a number of addit ional operations in the interest of increasing the flexibility and eff iciency of ope rations. These functio ns includ e call forwarding, hold functions, conference calls, and recorded position briefings.

A nother important difference between VSCS and the earlier commun ication equipment is that VSCS allows control lers to tailor the configuration of a sector to the ir needs and preferences. It also enables supervisors to change the communication configuration for individual sectors or for an entire air traffic control facility by remote contro l.

As part of a line of research to develop and test a predictive approach to system evaluation , the design and intended ope ration of the VSCS system was reviewed before the system was introduced to the field .

Based on exper iences w ith similar technologies in different domains, likely prob lems wit h t he system we re identified .

Approx imately 6 months after the introduction of the system to the first three en-route centers, a survey of controllers was

1

conducted to gather info rmation on the ir actu al experience s w ith and their att itude towards the new system . Contro llers w ere asked to describe positive and negative aspects of the system, to lay out their strategies of coping with system-induced difficulties, and to suggest imp rovements of the VSCS design.

Our initial VSCS review suggested that the system - like many similar system s before would create a number of new co-o rdination, know ledge, and interface management tasks that were inadequate ly supported by its design and intend ed operation. For example, the ability of control lers and supervisors to reconfigure an individual sector or an ent ire facility certainly increases th e flexibility of the system . Yet, in t he absence of clearly defined co-ordination procedures and w ithout effect ive system feedback, this option is likely to lead to breakdowns in controllers' awareness of the ir sector configuration. Also, as a result of this new feature, controll ers need to check and possibly re-adjust the config uration of a sector every time they take over from anothe r controller - a new interface management task is created .

Finally, contro llers need to know w here, w hen , and how to access infor matio n on the comm unication status and activities that is distributed across multiple pages of t he VSCS interface - a new knowledge requirement is introduced.

To compare our prediction s with controll ers' actual exper iences w ith the system, a survey was distr ibuted to three en-route facilit ies approximately six months after VSCS had been

, It CONTROLLER

....

_

• ~1es: management operations? >avid D. Woods: Cognitive Systems Engineering Laboratory- Institute for Ergonomics - The Ohio State University introduced. Only 58 controllers responded to the survey. Still, their detailed reports of surprising events and breakdowns in co-ordination with the VSCS system appear to support our predictions. For example, 28 controllers report that they have been surprised by the system at least one~ when they found their sector in an unexpected and sometimes undesirable configuration due to input by another controller or supervisor. In most of those cases,frequencies were added to or removed from a sector without explicit co-ordination and without the knowledge of the affected controller. In other words, controllers sometimes lost contact with aircraft under their control without being aware of this problem. These breakdowns in co-ordination can be explained, in part, by the lack of mandated procedures for communication between controllers and superviso~s. In addition, while feedback is provided on the previous and the new status of the system, no alient indications of the event ~tself,i.e., of the reconfiguration, is presented to ca_pturethe controller's attention and to indicate the need to re-assess the system set-up. A . contributing factor to this problem is the fact that, due t_oa Jackof integration of VSCS with traditional ATC equipment, the relevant information is presented on a screen in an overhead location.

Seventeen situations were described where changes in the mapping of the VSCS interface by a previous controller went unnoticed for some time until they created surprising and distracting events. In some cases, for example, calls were broadcast over the speaker instead of the headphones; in

· 1

if CONTROLLER

other cases, brightness or volume settings were inadequate (e.g., volume settings were reported to be too low after midshifts); or the location of frequency buttons on the screen had been changed, inviting mis-entries and making it difficult for controllers to locate the appropriate channels. These incidents can be considered minor nuisances in the context of the current voice communication environment.

However, they involve the potential for creating more serious difficulties in the future ATM system where controllers will interact with aircraft less frequently and thus, have fewer opportunities to notice unwanted changes in the system set-up. Also, communication in the future will occur primarily in the context of high-tempo and high-risk operations where the focus should be on the task at hand (the separation of aircraft) rather than the management of the communication interface.

Even for the current ATC system, 34 controllers in this survey said they would like to have the option to create and store a preferred communication set-up that can be called up every time they start working a new sector.

These are some of the observed and potential problems with the VSCS system for current and future air traffic operations.

Overall, the system appears to create few serious difficulties in the current ATC environment.

Still, the reported incidents and problems may be not be tolerable in the future ATM environment and could have been foreseen and avoided, based on the existing knowledge of human-human and human machine coordination.

DATALINK: ANTICIPATED MISMATCHES WITH FUTURE ATM OPERATIONS Data Link, the envisioned digital communication medium for future ATM operations, was originally developed to address existing problems with voice communication such as frequency congestion, call sign confusions, or poor transmission quality (Kerns, 1994).

Consequently, its design was driven primarily by the demands and properties of the current air traffic control system. It is not clear that the system will also be adequate for handling the communication and coordination demands of the widely distributed network of problem-solvers and decisionmakers involved in future ATM operations. To explore this question, proposed protocols and interfaces for the Data Link system were reviewed, and a number of conceptual simulations of possible future ATM scenarios were conducted in co-operation with air traffic controllers, pilots, and dispatchers who were playing out their likely roles and interactions.

A number of potential difficulties with the system were identified based on a review of findings from simulation studies of twoway Data Link communication (for an overview see Kerns 1994). For example, a number of studies looked at the amount of time or the number of transmissions required to complete a communication when using Data Link versus voice communication. It was shown that total transaction time (i.e., the entire time span when a controller would be concerned with a given communication) was twice as long for Data Link as for voice. This can be

explained by various factors such as the possibility of delayed responses to Data Link messages or by more time being required to assemble Data Link messages. While the option of delayed responses was introduced with good intentions, namely to support crews in their task management (for example, to allow them to delay responding to a less critical message if they are engaged in another more critical task), it can create problems with respect to the timeliness and relevance of information (Grice, 1975).

Temporal gaps in the communication between two parties may require that once the conversation is picked up again, it may be necessary to first establish what has been and is now being talked about.

Delays can also have detrimental effects on pilot-controller coordination and the establishment of mutual commitments in the interest of avoiding a diffusion of responsibility. For example, there is evidence that controllers take feedback on the successful transmission of a message as evidence of the pilots' intention to comply with its content although the pilot may not even have looked at the message yet (see Talotta et al., 1990). The omission of establishing mutual agreement about commitments before an action is taken is also seen in the case of pilots who initiate a requested manoeuvre before dispatching a response to the corresponding ATC clearance (Waller and Lohr, 1989) In summary, whatever the reason, the existing potential for delays in the flow of communication suggests that current Data Link implementations may not be well-suited for handling the

17

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Europe Airspace Structure Changes in Europe and the Air Traffic Control Professional Mr J Lambert,Head of Section, OED 4 EUROCONTROLBrussels Introduction This contribution has been triggered by a sente nce in t he article "To Be or Not t o Be Human in a Comp ut erised Environment" in Volu me 37, 1/ 98 of" The Cont roller", w here it was stated in reference t o the possible contri bution of technology to a soluti on to t he ATM capacity prob lem in Europe, that: "People and airspace st ructure developments will have a higher impact" . I would like to info rm wo rking contro llers about wh at is goi ng on in regard to airspace reorganisation in Europ e, to highlight some issues, and to ask for involvement by the professional cont roller fr aternity in the airspace impr ovement process, in order to realise some of the potential benefits of recent developments such as t he requirement for the mandatory carriage of RNAV equip ment in the major part of Europe an airspace.

Background & Cur rent Situation It may be useful to prov ide some background information on the current process for airspace structure development in Europe. The European A ir Navigation Planning Grou p (EANPG), set up by th e Cou ncil of ICAO in 1972, is t he senior planning body in the Europ ean Region Spurred on by the unprecedented growth in air traff ic movements in Europe in the period 1986 to 1990, the EANPG arranged a series of six Air Traffic Services (ATS) Route Network (ARN) plannin g meetings in the period 1988 to 1992. The ARN Planni ng meeting developed an ATS Trunk Route Netwo rk for Europe, the first phase of which became operational in November 1993. Arisi ng from the experience gained in developing the Trunk Route Network, it was realised that a more systematic and continuou s approach to air·space structure development in Europe cou ld

20

provide im portant capacity and eff icienc y gains . Such an approach required contin uous support faci lities, and appropriate institution al arrangement s.

In 1994, t he 36th meet ing of the EA NPG concluded that EUROCON T ROL a) be inv ited to organise and carry out the necessary coordinat ion of plann ing and implem entation activities for optim ising the ATS route network in the ECAC area of th e European Region . b) inv ite all European provider Stat es concerned to active ly part icipate in this work. c) present the results of these act ivities t o t he EANPG and/ or the ICAO Secretariat for further proces sing in accordanc e w ith established procedure s.

The requ est from ICAO coincided wit h an ECAC initiati ve through the European ATC Harmonis ation and Int egration Prog ramme (EATCH IP) w hich was based on t he pr emise t hat: "Efficien t airspace management is fun damenta l to incre asing the capacity of the air traff ic services system" [ECA C Strat egy for t he 1990s".]

In t he EATCH IP prog ramme the A irspace and Navigat ion Team (A NT ) has been given the responsibi lity of co-ordin ating the planning for airspace and navigat ion in t he ECA C area. To supp ort t his w ork the ANT has set up a nu mber of sub-groups , one of which , th e Route Network Devel opmen t Subgro up (RNDSG ), has been g iven the task of co-o rdin ating and developing improve ments t o t he ECAC airspace structu re and enroute network .

The RNDSG has been in existence since M ay 1993 . It has held 29 meet ings and has expanded its member ship fr om an initial nine States (mainly

Western Europe) and thre e internationa l organisations to thirty-one States and t hree internationa l organisations.

The RN DSG is supported by Section 2 of the A irspace Division (DED4 of EUROCONTROL, initially compr ising two staff (1993/94), and since, increased to a fu ll time comp lement of six staff.

While these are "airspace experts", they almost all have an air traffic contro l background .

Since its inception the RNDSG has had th ree importan t goals: i) to develop a process and methodology to improve the ECAC airspace struct ure, ii) to develop the necessary too ls to assist in airspace structur e development, iii) to use (i) and (ii) to develop , in a pragmatic way, real improvements to the ECAC airspace structure .

Because of the large numbe r of States involved (36 ECAC States), and their often conflict ing civil and military requ irements , the achievement of consensus on Europe w ide impro vements is difficult, labour intensive and time consuming .

Therefor e, the successful achievement by the RNDSG of goal (i) above, i.e. a consensual and co-o perative process that actually w orks, can be regarded as an important success.

From an early stage in its work t he RNDSG recognised that it needed the support of analyt ical and assessment tools that w ould prov ide information speedi ly on the consequences of implementing a w ide variety of airspace opt ions. Such a to ol needed to cover the entire ECAC area, provide information on route segment and sector loads, and be capable of being quic kly reconfigu red to prov ide informati on on "w hat if ' scenarios. The RNDSG now has available in th e SAAM t ool

(System for Assignm ent and Analysis at a Macroscopic level) such an instru ment. A lth ough still only in prototype form at, it is capable of prov iding quite sophist icated information on route segment and sect or loadings to airspace planner s at national and regional level.

With the demand on t he ATM system increasing at rates of 45% per year in the core area and at rates of 7-10% per year in the Eastern part of Europe, it was quite clear that the RNDSG could not confine itself to developing a process and too ls, but had also to deve lop at the same time concre te proposals for improveme nt of the ECAC airspace structure. It has done this through a short term (annual) programme and a medium term (4-5 year) progr amme . In the short term program me, the RNDSG has deve loped and co-ordinated the implementation of improvement proposals as fol lows : • Nine proposals for Summer 1995 • Eleven prop osals for Summer 1996 • Twenty five proposa ls for Summer 1997 • Twent y one propos als fo r Summer 1998 Details are available for each year on t he content of the se proposals as EATCHIP deliverables.

The medium term work prog ramme of t he RNDSG covers a period of appro ximately . rovements fo ur to five years. 1m P d to the EUR-A NP are deveIope · tel y in a process of appro xima two years' duration, follo we d by implementation in the . succeeding tw o year period Proposals for impro vem ent are designated as Versions of th e ARN (Version 1, Version 2, etc) They are developed and coordin ated by t he RNDSG, agreed by th e A NT and t hen presented to \CAO as proposals for amendment of th e EUR-A NP

If CONTROLLER

Following agreement, implementation programmes are developed and co-ordinated by the RNDSG. Progress can be reported as follows: • Implementation of Version 1 of the ARN co-ordinated by the RNDSG in 1993.

• Version 2 of the ARN developed and agreed by the RNDSG in the period 1994 to 1996.

• EUR-ANP amended by ICAO in April 1997.

• Implementation of Version 2 co-ordinated by the RNDSG, Phase 1 (November 1996), Phase 2 (March 1997) and Phase 3 (December 1997).

• Version 3 of the ARN agreed at RNDSG/26 (March 1998), and endorsed at a special meeting of the ANT (7 July · 1998).

Due to the lack of tools and shortage of staff, the objectives of earlier versions of the ARN (Version 1 and Version 2) were rather modest. As in excess of 60% of traffic in Europe flies less than 400 nautical miles ,Version 1 (the Trunk Route Network) could not, in any case, have had a significant impact on airspace capacity. A major element in Version 2, the project concerning development of the France/Italy /Switzerland Interface, was not implemented for reasons which were not technical in nature. Version 3, however, is more ambitious as it includes: a comprehensive re-organisation of the airspace in the Nordic States and Germany, utilising the flexibility of RNAV; improvements in the 5-States interface airspace; comprehensive improvements in Central Europe including the dualisation of routes on the north-south axis; interim arrangements in the France/Switzerland/Italy interface which will allow work to continue towards a more permanent solution; improved alignments at the interface France/Spain; improved routes in the Black Sea area and with the interface with Eastern Europe; incremental improvements in the alignment of routes in the rest of Europe;

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improved transition routes throughout Europe; improved sectorisation (Germany, Nordic States, Austria, Hungary, Benelux, N.E. France, France-Spain interface) resulting in significant capacity increases.

Version 3 will be implemented in phases, with the first phase starting in October 1998. The exact content and timing of each subsequent phase is still to be agreed, but a major element which will be implemented in October 1998 is the segment of Version 3 in the Nordic Airspace.

In regard to this area it can be stated that the changes proposed are very comprehensive, are based on . aircraft RNAV capability and will lead to enhanced capacity in the ATM system and increased efficiency for the users through substantial reductions in route length extension.

Airspace Structure Development in Europe and the Operational Air Traffic Controller Airspace is a controller's medium and metier, working responsibility and resource. One can hardly overemphasise the impact of airspace, and changes to its structure, on the operational air tra~ c co_ntroller.

As it was said that war 1stoo important to be left to_the .

Generals", similarly, "airspace is too important to controller~. to be left to airspace planners · It behoves controllers to get involved, to ensure that airspace is structured as efficiently as possible. Airspace planners should welcome such involvement to secure understanding and acceptance of proposed changes.

For historic reasons, airspace planning sections in Civil Aviation Authorities are an under-resourced area. The larger states have one or two persons involved in the process.

Smaller states combine the function with other duties. It is hardly surprising that these overworked staff are not in a position to involve operational controllers as much as is desirable, nor to be as proactive as one would like in airspace structure improvement This is where controllers can show their

professionalism by getting involved, both at the local unit level and through their professional bodies at the international level.

Operational controllers at individual units are in many cases in the best position to indicate where airspace structure changes can improve the operational efficiency and capacity of their units. They must adopt, of course, a balanced approach taking into account the overall requirements of ECAC airspace and the difficulty of finding technical solutions in the heavily congested bottlenecks in the core area. Information on overall ECAC airspace strategy and regional problems is available in the reports ofthe RNDSG and specifically in the report detailing the development of Version 3 of the ARN which is available from EUROCONTROL (dated 8/7 /98). Where proposals require assessment and evaluation, the System for Assignment and Analysis at a Macroscopic Level (SMM) tool !s_availableto provide very quick 1rnt1alassessment and to refine proposals where necessary.

Controllers have the reputation of being conservative and reluctant to accept change. This 1snot necessarily a bad thing in a profession which is based on the provision of a safe service.

However, the current heavy and increasing demands on the ATM system makes change imperative and it is up to all of us to ensure that change is focused to bring real eff1c1encyand capacity benefits. Controller involvement in the change process is both in their own interest and in the interest of achieving an optimum result.

A major opportunity now exists to improve the ECAC airspace structure based on the flexibility that RNAV provides The airlines have invested heavily at the behest of the airspace planners.

Version 3 of the ARN is based on RNAV and in some areas very comprehensive changes are proposed. However, a lot remains to be done.

Considerable potential for improvement still exists, especially at the interface between the en route and

terminal systems. Specialisation of routes, and reconfiguration of routes aimed at reducing complexity and conflicts are all possible. In effect, airspace structure and routes, especially transition routes, must be reviewed to see how they could be improved in an RNAV environment. This is a task that can only be successfully considered with the involvement and positive support of the air traffic control professionals.

Reduced Vertical Separation Minima (RVSM) Current planning envisages the implementation of RVSM in ECAC airspace in the early years of the next century. Quite clearly RVSM implementation will enhance capacity. Constructive controller participation in the discussions leading up to RVSM implementation will ensure that RVSM is implemented so that the flexibility provided by the extra available flight levels are used to increase ECAC ATM capacity through more efficient and effective use of controller skills.

Conclusion Improvement of airspace structure is one of the few effe~tive means of increasing the eff1c1encyand capacity of the European ATM System Improvements to the European airspace structure have been and are being developed by the RNDSG. These have started through a process that is dynamic and incremental and capable of yielding comprehensive benefits over time. The work is being supported by sophisticated tools which are still in the process of development, but which even in prototype form, are capable of providing considerable assistance to all who are involved in airspace structure development.

Airspace development in Europe has the potential for a high impact on the ATC capacity problem in Europe, but this potential will only be realised fully if the process of change is accepted wholeheartedly and supported through involvement at the professional level by controllers so that change is focused 1n an optimum manner.

21

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Oowntownclose to La MonedaGovermentHouse.

Location: Available Roome:,:350 RackRate: US$240 IFATCA Rate: SingleandTwinUS$120 Remarkc:,: This Hotel will be the venue for the conference.

Breakfac:,tincluded.

**** Location:

Oowntown ?n Alameda Bernardo O'Higginc:, Av.,Sant1agos main street, four blockc:,away fromvenuehotel.

Available Rooms: 220 SingleUS$100 TwinUS$120 RackRate: SingleUS$ 60 TwinUS$ 70 IFATC ARate: Breakfastincluded .

Remarkc:,:

HotelFundador Location : Available Room s: Rack Rate: IFATC ARate: Remarkc:,:

Oowntownclose to Santiago city's main street, fiveblocksawayfromvenuehotel.

150 SingleUS$l20 TwinUS$140 SingleUS$ 80 TwinUS$ 90 Breakfastincluded.

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Director US$ 100 Delegate Member US$ 120 CorporateMember US$ 150

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ARTURO MERINO BENITEZairpo rt, ic:,located 20 km. wec:,tfrom Sant iago cit y dow to wn.

At peak hours, car ride time to downtown can be as long as 40 minutes.

Every passenger arriving in Santiago by plane should come via Arturo Merino Benit ez airpo rt .

Airport - Hote l round tranc:,portation will be provided for acredit ed IFATCA Conference att endants .

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23

38 th ANNUAL CONFERENCE & EXHIBITIONOF INTERNATIONAL FEDERATIONOF AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS'ASSOCIATIONS

Secretariat Use Only

Reg. N° ... ... .......... . .

March 15 -19/ 1999 SANTIAGO - CHILE

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.. ....................

........ .............. .. .

FUNCTION AT CONFERENCE

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D D

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O

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Full Members of Member Associations Must Register as One of the Above

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ACCOMPANYINGPERSON

0

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REGISTRATION FEES IFATCA O ffi cers Conference O fi cers Corporates Members Accompa nyi ng Persons

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100 100 150 150

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SUB-TOTAL (A): US$

ACCOMPANYING PERSONS' PROGRAM

D D D

A PT- 1 APT-2 APT-3

TO U RS Valparaiso/Vina del Mar Cit y Tour Taste of Chilean Wine

DATE March 16 th March 17 th March 18 th

FEE US$ 60 US$ 15 To be determined

AMOUNT

.................................... ···································· ····································

*Chi ld ren bel ow 72 years old may have 50% discount to participate the accompanying persons ' program

SUB-TOTAL (8):

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METHO D O F PAYME NT Credit Card O Visa O Master Card O Other ............ ................... ......... .

Card N° : ........... ..... ............... ................ Expiry Date : ................ .............. ........... ..(Ml ................................................. (Y) Card Membe r (in b lock letter ) ......... ...... .... ..... ...... ........ ... ........ .... .......................... ....... .......................... .... ...... ... ...... .

Card Me mber Signature (Same as on your card ) ... ......... ...... ............... ................... ........................................ ........... ..

Please return this form to Clf-m ..E - IFAlfCA '99 befo re February 7t h 1999 .

Roman Diaz 1362 , Providencia . Casilla 125, Correo 22. Fono 22 5 7489, Fax 209 8 155. Santiago, Chile.

24

111CONTROLLER

CONFERENCE & EXHIBITION OF INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS' ASSOCIATIONS March 15 -19, 1999 SANTIAGO - CHILE

38'h ANNUAL

Secretariat Use Only Reg. N° ............... .. .

HOTELRESERVATION FORM * Please use bl ock letters or print to co mplete this fo rm.

PARTICIPANT Family Name : .... ........ ............. ...................... ........·..........

First Name: ............ ................. ......... ...... .... ... ...... .............. .

Postal Address : ......................... ..... .......... ....... ................ .................. .......... ................. ........ ............. .......... .... ..... ... ... ..... .

AFTN : ...... ..... .......... ................ .......... ........... ....... ........ ... .. .

Tel. : ........... ............ ................... .... ....... .............................

Association / Organization/Company

Fax : ........ ......... .......................

E-Mai l : ......... .......... ...... .. .

: ..... ............ ........ .......... ... .. ... ... ... ...... .... ..... .. .. .. ....... ... .. ..... .. ......... .. .... .. .... .. ... .. .

HOTELS 1.- Hot el Carrera ***** (Venue)

(US$ 120 per night / Single or Twi n) Breakfast is included

2.- Hotel Fundador **** 3.- Hot el Diego de Almagro ****

(US$ 80 Single/ US$ 90 Twi n, per nigth ) Breakfast is inc lud ed (US$ 60 Single/ US$ 70 Tw in, per nigth) Breakfast is inclu ded

• Please indic ate hotel preferences (hotel numbers only) :__________ • Roo m Type : ... .. . Single ......... Tw in - Sharing w ith ______________________

_ _

• Special Requirements : .......... ............ ....... ...... .......... .................... ............ ..... ................ ......... .... ........ .................... ...... .

ONE NIGHT DEPOSIT: US$ .... . ........ .. .. .. . X ...... ... ........ .. Room(s) = US$ .............. .... ....................... ...... ................ .

METHOD OF PAYMENT

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Cred it Card :

D Master Card

D Other ......... ............... ................

.

Card N ° : .. ...... .. ......... ..... ... ..... .......... .. .. . Expiry Date : ....... ..... ...................... .........(M) . .... .... .. . ........ . .... .. .. ... ... .. .. ... . ...... (Y) Card Memi;)er (in block letter) : .......... .......... ....................................... .................... ............ ............... ...... ...... .......... .. .

Card Member Signature (Same as o n yo ur card) : .................................. ....... ......... .............. ............ ....... ..... ......... .. ... .

PLEASENOTE: 1 .- In case of hote l cance llation, writte n notifi cation shou ld be sent d irect ly. Unt il February 7th 1999, the deposit for o ne night room charge wi ll be refund ed. There w ill be no refund thereafter.

TRANSPORTATIONFORM ARRIVAL A rri val From : .... .................................. ....... ..... ........ ... . Scheduled date of arr iva l : .............. ............. ........... ............. ... .

Flight Arr iva l : ................ ...................... ...... .............. . Time of arrival

DEPARTURE Depa rt date from Santiago ...... ....... .... .... ..... ................ . Tim e of departur e : ......... ........ .......................... ........... .... . .

Destin ation

: .. ... .................. ........ . ......... .... .

N° Flight : ....

Please return this form to CHILE - I FATCA'99 before February 7th 1999.

Roman Diaz 1362, Providencia. Casilla 125 , Correo 22. Fono 225 7489, Fax 209 8155. Santiago, Chile .

'f lf CONTROLLER

25

Airbus The Airbus ldustrie A3XX - Spaceliner Daniel Casanova

I I I I I I I I I I

uring the 37th IFATCA meeting in Toulouse, Philippe Jarry, the Airbus Vice President Marketi ng (Large Aircraft ) Division, introd uced the new A3XX aircraft. This project marks a new step in civil aviation with repercussions for ATC.

D

absorbing the increase in passengers. The provision of large aircraft is also a possible solution for reducing airport air traffic congestion. Airbus Indust ries estimate the market for the next 20 years is 1442 for aircraft with more than 400 seats.

The A3XX is a new aircraft offering a large capacity in response to the expectations of all partners. Some of these predicted expectations are as follows : • Passengers and the freight agents expect lower fares, ontime performance, comfort

t I I I I I I I I I I I

• •••••

and speed. Large capacity is the most efficient answer.

• Airlines expect productive tools and lowest cost of production. Each A3XX will replace two classic aircraft.

• Airports expect a tool to meet the demand, space efficiency and limitation on the ground

A irbus Industries has chosen to produce a large aircraft in line with different economic requirements. The first point is the increasing passenger and traff ic levels. There is a consensus amongst analysts world-w ide that air tra ffic growth will average 5% per year for the foreseeable fut ure Wor ld traff ic is expected to double in 15 years and tri ple in 22 years . This successis a challenge for t he whole industry, airlines. airport s and ATC. Manufac t urer s have to answer th is challenge and t he Airbus's answer is t he A3XX .

Large aircraft have t he ability to maintain the same numbe1· of aircraft in airline s wh ilst

26

fHf

CONTROLLER

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SUBSCRIPTION FORM Please return to the Subscription Manager , 'D unadry ' , M inshull Lane, Wettenhall , Winsford, Cheshire CW7 4DU, Un ited Kingdom (BLOCK LETIERS PLEASE)

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and around the local area. The A3XX runway requir ements are about the same as th e B747 - so no runway or taxiway extensions are neede d . The A3XX, w ith a w ing surface of 800 square met res requir es similar space limitations as existing 'Jumbo' jets. The w ing span w ill be 240 feet and the tail height wi ll be 72 feet (9 feet hig her tha n a B747) The A3XX is predicted to be less noisy t han B747 â&#x20AC;˘ The pub lic expect environment al protection Fuel burn for the A3XX 650 seat aircraft is predict ed as 12 ton s per hour against a standard 300 seat ai1uaft fuel burn of 8 to ns per hour. Thi s is a most importa nt cont ributi on to t he enviro nment The A3XX w ill prov ide less aircraft movements over importan t routes such as the North At lantic and Pacific Oceans.

The range of the A3XX is

, 1[

CONTROLLER

expected to be appro ximately 2000 miles longer than the B747, at 10000 miles) The A3XX is expected to enter service in 2004. It is planned to cruise up to FL450 at Mach o 85, carryi ng up to 650 passengers. It is expected that the aircraft w ill pr odu ce s1mrlar wake vortex as the existing B747 Of course, airport s w ill have to adapt its passenger capacity for these new aircraft Durin g the Seventies , airports managed to adapt to Jumbos. The contro ller await ing details of the performances for radar regulations and A irbus eng ineers are work ing on this prob lem The A3XX Spaceliner is the fi rst aircraft of a new generat ion The next cent ury w ill see these large ai1uaft and also new supersonic aircraft . As ever, ATC w ill be required to provide safety for all.

Millennium "Bug" Advantageou~ Followi ng criticism of it s lack of foresight in prepar ing fo r th e effect of the year 2000 on its vital computer operations, backing up the air traffic contro l service, a spokespe rson for t he CAA said that the crit icism was unfair as it igno red t he clear advantages of allowing the bug to operate .

The re-appearance of January 1st 1900 would mean that the NATS Area Control Centre at West Drayton, near Heathrow , first operat ional in 1971, wo uld become instantaneously ahead of its time, by a considerable margin , th us easing pressure on the even more advanced Centre being prep ared at Swanw ick The spokesperson said that the London control staff were eagerly looki ng forward to provi din g the ir usual high qualit y service to M . Lou is

Bleriot in his re newed attempt to fly the Engl ish Channel in the new 1909 , and with the reputation of NATS for continuous upda t ing of its equ ipment the Centre would be we ll placed to support the Britis h Expedit ionar y Force and the Royal Flying Corps . upon their despatch to France and Flanders du ring the new 1914 The re-appearan ce of 1900 would give the CAA JUSt ove r 100 years to mak e good its planned opening of the Swanw ick Centre in 200 2. rev ised from 1996 . The spokesperson admit t ed t hat t h e new schedu le wa s ve ry tigh t bu t was conf id ent that It could b e met. It was pointed o ut t hat t h e new bu ilding had bee n buil t with a planned life of 40 yea I¡5 and migh t need to be re pla ced before t he new ce ntre cou ld become opera t io nal 1

27

Africa ATC infrastructure

in Africa - The need

for safety oversight inspection Albert Taylor he furore that surrounded t he designation of a larger portion of African airspace as being critically deficient has subsided with the passage of time and it is now appropriate for objective analy sis of the substantive issues.

FACTSAPIRG (A FI Planning and Implementation Regional Group) of ICAO has, over the past decade, continued to monitor shortcomings and deficiencies in the African air traffic services delivery. The list of deficiencies APIRG has compiled is endless, but the maJorones include Navigation, Commun ication , Surveillance and Air Traffic Control proficiency This approach by A PIRG has helped some few States to overcome some of the deficiencies in their air traffi c services infrastructure. Many Stat es, however, still have frightening levels of deficiencies in th eir air traffic services.

Experien ces

give n themse lves th e responsibility of providing air t raffic control serv ice on high frequency radios.

The only serviceable facility was an NDB. The entire country was experie ncing main power rationing and the Civil Av iation Authority had no standby generator to keep the NDB working for 24 hours.

Between one outbound and one inbound aircraft on reciproca l tracks , the air traffic controller had to request t he inbound traffic to d ivert its track by 45 degrees before descending t hroug h the leve l of the outbo und traffic. Th e captain wi nked at me and said, "cannot blame the poor contro ller, he has not got the basic tools to expedite his traffic. It is go ing to take us a century to establi sh on that track. It w ill cost us a delay and cons iderable waste of fuel" . The airline wil l pay the same navigation facil ity user charges and landing fees as it did whe n the rad ar, VOR/DME and ILS w ere serv iceab le. The capta in reluctantly commenced the turn to alter his track by 45 degrees but short ly afterwards the air traffic control ler expert ly issued an exce llent visual geographical separation, wh ich ended wha t seemed like etern ity to establish on the assigned track.

I have travelled in the aircraft cockpit over many routes in Afr ica and w itn essed pilots making desperate but unsuccessf ul attempts to contact t he designated air traffic contro l units. I have also sent count less A FTN messages which never reached the ir destinations I am aware of much essential ATC equipment , w hich has developed t he cultur e of being unserviceable rather th an operational.

Wh ilst I was ful l of pra ise for the professionalism of the air traff ic controller, I wondered what the contro ller would have done if he had had five such situat ions to resolve at the same time.

LastOctober, I tr avelled in th e cockpit to a familiar airport in Africa and had the privilege to witness how pilots feel about ATC inadequacies in t he regio n . The ATC units serving t he airport concerned had all their major ATC equipment unserviceable . The VOR/ DME had been com pletely shut down for month s for being out of to lerance; the ILS, the radar and some r¡adios were off ; wors t of all some radio communicator s had

Monitoring Mechanism No State in t he reg ion vo luntari ly repo rts th e shortcom ings and deficiencies in its air tra ffic serv ices to the ICAO Regional Secreta riat.

Much as ICAO is w illi ng, it lacks t he mechan ism and the resource s to effectively monitor the ATS system in ord er to provide compreh ensive credible evidence on the perform ance levels of the va1¡iousairspaces in the reg ion The sit uation Is unde rstandab le

28

because ICAO is neither a policeman nor empowered to enforce standards. It keeps States informed of all reported deficiencies and pro vides very good recommendations to overcome such shortcomings.

However, some States have had cause to challenge some of the inadequacie s in their air traffic services reported by the ICAO regional secretariat.

Confusion ICAO currently has in place a safety oversight inspection programme, w hich can be conveniently classified as "security in aircraft operations" and is conducted only at the invitation of the State concerned.

The United States FAA und ertakes similar programmes at specific airports before grantin g traffic and land ing rights to airlines w hich operate from such airports to the United States. Essentially, these programmes cover th e provisions in Annexes 1, 6, 8 and 18. It neither puts any searchlight on the pro vision s in Annexes 11 and 2, nor does it check comp liance w ith Do c. 4444 or t he Air Traffic Services Planning Manual Doc. 9426, which are the pillars of ATS. It has become the practice of some States that have comp leted the ICAO and FAA 'security' overs ight inspect ion to proclaim that safety is guara nteed in their ATS infr astructure.

We need to differentiate clearly between safety as a security tool in aircraft operat ion and safety in the context of air traff ic services delivery In fact some of the States with alarming levels of unsafe practices w ithi n the ir ATC operations are among those which ICAO and FAA have categorised to be safe have ns in the region .

SafetyOversightinATS The dec ision by ICAO to extend the safety oversight programme to cover aerodrome installations and

air traffic services is laudable and we lcom e. It is my fervent hope that unlike other ICAO resolutions w hich still remain on paper, the safety oversight inspection in air tr affic service, wi ll be a ve hicle to expose the inher ent chronic deficiencies in the air traffic services systems in Africa.

One wo uld like to know the number of States w hich have who le-heartedl y embraced the present ICAO safety oversight programme . More importantly, I would like to know the percentage of ICAO member States which have invited ICAO to conduct safety oversight inspect ion in their States.

The qu estio n is, what happen s to those States w hich do not invite ICAO to conduct safety ove rsight inspect ion in the case of air traffic services.

It can be deduced from the above th at th e good intenti ons of ICAO in extend ing the safety oversight programme to Air Traffic Services cannot be realised unless certain internal controls are established.

Way Forward The f irst step towards th e improve ment of air traffic services infrastructure is the establishment of autonomous ATS organisations w it h the necessary legal fin ancial and managemen t autonomy. Many a time , civi l aviation adm inistrat ions do not have any dispensation in the use of revenue accruing from its operations . In fact some civil aviation organ isations are being requested by national revenue institutions to pay fantastic taxes at a time when they are embark ing upon major rehabilitation projects .

Secondly, African States must learn to poo l resources. There is too much dup lication of effort, uncoord inated imp lementation of facilities , leading to incompatible interfaces and unnecessaIy rivalry More effort shou ld be made to

' if CONTROLLER

establish sub-regional air traffic control centres to manage the upp er airspace.

Thirdl y, the establishment of ind ependent regulator y bodies at the national level is crucial to achieving and maintaining positive supervision over air tr affic control operations .

Currentl y, many States have tasked th e airp ort auth ority and/ or air traffic services with the regulatory functions .

and legal authorit y to enforce regulation s.

The UK CAA and US FM provides more effective supervision in the UK and USA respectivel y than ICAO does in any particular State.

The regulat ory authorities in most Afric an States have proven t hemselves to be critically impotent in discharging their functions of ensuring safe air traffic cont rol practices.

Last but not least, it behoves stakeholders , including IATA, IFATCA and IFA LPA to ensure that the methods fo r conducting safety oversight inspections in air traffic services and the mechanism for monitoring shortcomings , are thorough and far reaching enough to ensure confidence in the ATS system and also provide timel y and accurate info rmation on deficiencies.

It w ould be extremel y difficult to expect ICA O to provide effective supervision without first ensuring that States establish national bodies w ith managerial autonomy

Note: The photographs accompanying th is article come from a State that has been subje ct to an ICAO and FAA safety oversight inspection!

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-H F CONTROLLER

Controller"s chair

29

Cor ora e membership Getting 1 Hooked' H WCole Refl ection s on Corporate

M embership

Our Corporate members are vital to the progr ess and strengt h of the Federation . They are a major sourc e of our te chn ical knowledge and with out th eir financial support and sponsorshi p, every Conference would be the poorer.

This article, by Harry Cole , a one-tim e Cor porate M ember 's Representative, gives a personal account of wha t th e Federati on means from a Corporate Member 's v iewp oint.

Harry is well known to many in IFATCA, both persona lly and from numerous articles and papers, published in T he Contro ller'. It w as those, he said, that first st imulated him to wr ite his boo k, 'Understanding Radar· - mainly fo r radar users and particu larly, ATCOs. Its second edition w as publ ished in 1992, his ret irement year.

Here, calling on his long experien ce as Corpo rate Members Representative for Mar coni Radar, he expresses a personal view of the Federation, shared by many other Corpo rate Membe r's. uring my early years of w orking on radar syste ms, 1 soon became aware of th e enormous usefulness of radar in the business of air traffic control - particularly du ring the time I spent with the research and development team, at Cossor, working on the ACR V I. This was an early 10cm Surveillance and Approach Radar w ith coherent MTl, a revolutionary design of the late forties and early fifties.

During its flight tria ls, 1 became familiar with the discipl ines and problems of ATC They fascinated me, and I became 'hooked' on the ATC game . Subsequent ly, d uring the time spent in commiss ion ing these radar systems for both civ il and military ATC author ities, came the realisation that an ATC system is much more than JUStits radar Thus, I became a Systems Engineer, concerned w ith the fu ll and harmonious integration of all the various aids and facilitie s contro llers requ ired

D

About this time (1960) I Joined Marconi Radar, or rather Marconi's W ireless Telegraph Company, as it then was A lmost ~mmediately, I was taken to my nrst IFATCA Conferen ce w ith instructions to "Keep yo ur· eyes and ears open and your mouth shut" this last was always a difficult th ing for met The collective enthusiasm

30

profess iona lism, know ledge and camaraderie I fo un d t here was enormously impressive. Thi s is the one to be wit h, 1 told myself .

Th e fo llowing year, 1 w as allowed to present a paper to the UK Guild's Confer ence and thenceforth, w ent to many lFATCA Con ferences, usually as back-u p to Sales Staff and to man the Compan y's Exh ibit ion stand .

Came t he g reat day whe n the Compan y appointed me to be their Corporate Member 's repre sentat ive, in 1972 . 1 soon learned the benefits of corpor ate membership

Corporate

membership

-

Why? Although Co rpor ate Memb ers now number some forty plus compa nies, there are still a large number of ATC-re lated companies who don't know the value of lFATCA me mber ship . 1 hope that , if t hey read th is, they w ill seek to Join At its incep t ion , lFATCA realised th at co-operation and partner ship w ith indu stry wou ld be cruc ial.

They , t herefore , inv ited compan ies work ing 111the ATC business to take Co rporate Membe rship My own compan y was among a handful of others who were foun di ng members and all were qu ick to realise that there

was mutu al benefits in such cooperatio n. IFATCA knew t hat the y, as users, had a need to 'tell' and to 'be told' : to 'tell' what their tasks were and the problems they faced; to 'be told' w hat present and fut ure technolog y could do to help them . This realisation alone should be enough to encourage Corporate Membership, but there are ot her beneficial by-products to bot h lFATCA and its Corp orate M embers, once they engage in the dynam ic of wor king toget her.

Benefits For the Corporate Members, th e first benefit flows from the fol low ing Representatives from lFATCA Member Associations are among the ATC wo rld's 'Move rs and Shakers'. They are the ones w ho are prepared to dedicate much of their prec ious spare time to lFATCA business Thu s, they are not afraid of hard wo rk and are usually amb itious to progre ss in the ir profe ssion; many rise to high office. Many find it hard to attend Confer ences and, at a personal level, w ill remember attentions , generosit ies, and, above all, the recog nition of thei r wo rth, bestowed upon them by Corpora te Members as th ey progre ss in their careers. This has obvious long-te rm advantages.

Another benef it. at a more immed iate level, accrues from th e fact that the Federation has over 110 Member Associations from all ove r th e wo rld; it is, tru ly, a global organ isation . Thu s, whe n a new ATC requirement emerges in a country w ith IFATCA links, and a Corporate Member rep resentative visits the pot ential custom er, familiar and friendly faces w ill be found - and visitors w ill be seen as such them selves.

Thi s fo sters mutual understanding and trust, established by sharing lFATCA member ship and having met at its proc eed ings. So, a two fo ld benefit results, for t here is no substitute fo r good personal relationships in commerce.

Anot her valuable by-product for Cor porate M embers is the opp ort unity to participate in the proceeding s of the Conference itself by present ing papers w hich give examp les of their ow n company's under standing of ATC

problems and soluti ons; and wh ich boosts compa ny images wit hin the contro ller Communit y.

True, contro llers are t he world 's easiest folk to 'sell' to - I've never yet been to an lFATCA Conference Exhibi tion wit hout finding a great enthusiasm on their part to ow n and use the equipment on show - t hey all wa nt one I Too bad, they don't have cheque books in their pockets. Nevertheless, the y take the w ord back hom e, together wit h yo ur literatu re, copies of the papers you have presented and the memory of what you 've had to say A related benefit comes from listening to, and participating in, the many debates on ATC matters in Confe rence committ ee sessions. You hear the voices and op inions of the wo rlds most authoritative ATC operator s across the spect rum, from the we ll endowed to th e poorl y served. This can be of great value in making ju dgeme nts about the way yo ur own compa ny shou ld aim its marketin g thrusts .

Over and above all t his, t here was to me, a special by- product - that of belonging to a uniqu e club .

For, no matter w here in th e wor ld one we nt , the ATC commu nity wou ld give the same wa rm we lcome; t heir problem s wo uld all be of the same nature, th eir enthusiasm for their solution, of the same intensity

H igh Spots Al l lFATCA Confere nces are memor able. However, 1 recall two, w hich had a particular signific ance fo r me. Th e fir st was w hen the Corpo rate Members elected me to be the ir Coordinator, i.e. their spok esman to the Executive Board and to act as a liaison betwe en th e ind iv idu al Corporate M embers and lFATCA This was in Split, in the form er Yugoslavia, in 1983 .

W hen bein g int rod uced to the de legates at th e final Plenary Session, 1 was able to ex press my sincere feelings regard ing lFATCA The sense of them is as fo llows : • That interna t ional civil aviation is amo ng the wo rld 's most civi lised and civ ilising of all

,f CONTROLLER

Agenda 1998

1999

OCTOBER 9 -11 tFATCA Executive Board

JANUARY 14-16 IFATCA Executive Board Meeting, Montreal Contact: IFATCA Off ice Manager, Maura Estrada Phone: + 1514866 7040 Fax: +15 14866 7612 Email: ifatca@sympatico.ca

Meeting, Toronto Contact: IFATCA Office Manager, Maura Estrada Phone: + 1 514 866 7040 Fax: +1 51486676 12 Email: ifatca@sy mpatico.ca

.

--

19 - 21 Asia Pacific Regional Meeting, Macau Contact: EVP Asia Pacific Phone: +852 26244047 Fax: +852 26244021

-=:;:;.".- 1· ::---

----

Corporate membership gives opportuniti es to meet inOuential people in the ATC world. At the start of IFATCA Conrerences. ministers or other high ranking orflcials open the exhibition and visit each stand.

27 - 29 Inter Airport '98 Atlanta Contact: Mack Brooks Exhib itions Ltd Phone: +44 1707 275641 Fax: +44 1707 275544 29 - 30 Africa M idd le East Regional Meeting, Kampala Contact: EVP Afr ica/Middle East Phone: +263 4 575187 Fax: +263 4 575163 NOVEMBER 4-7

Civil Air Biennial Convention 98, Melbourne, Carlton Crest Hotel Contact: Suzie Goldman, Civil Air Office Manager Phone: +61 3 9348 1899 Fax: +61 3 9348 1846 5 -6 Americas Regional Meeting, Miami Contact: tFATCA Office Manager, Maura Estrada Phone: +1 514 866 7040 Fax: +1514866 7612 Email: ifatca@sympatico.ca

As Marconi Radars representative. the author {lcrt) proudly received his Company·s award rornmc-mor;i ling its 25th year as c111 IFATCACorporatc-Member. rromthe 1hen Prcs1dcn1 of

14-15 Contact: Phone Fax:

MARCH 12 -13 IFATCA Executive Board Meeting, Santiago Cont act: IFATCA Office Manager , Maura Estrada Phone: + 1 514 866 7040 Fax: +1514866 7612 Email: ifatca@sympatico.ca 15 - 19

IFATCA An nual Conference , Santiago Contact: IFATCA Office Manager, Maura Estrada Phone: +151 4866 7040 Fax: + 1 514 866 7612 Email: ifatca@sympatico.ca 20

IFATCA Executive Board Meeting, Santiago Contact: IFATCA Office Manager, Maura Estrada Phone: + 1 514 866 7040 Fax: +1514866 7612 Email: ifatca@sympatico.ca APRIL 14 - 16 Inter Airport 99 Asia , Singapore Expo Centre Contact: Nadine Smith Phone: +44 1707 275641 Fax: +44 1707 275554

European Regional Meeting, Oslo EVP Europe +41 21 825 46 02 +41 21 825 46 02

IF/\TCA. J-larri H. Henschlrr.

human activ ities, allow ing the barriers of our preju dices to be broke n down by first-h and expe rienc e.

• That contro llers don't wor k simply fo r th e mon ey - given th eir intelligence, dedicat ion and know ledge, they could easily f ind mor e lucrative ways to earn their livelihoo d • That worki ng as they do, for th e common wea l and the safety of the public, they are among the wo rld 's best peop le.

• That I was proud to be associated w ith th em and , thu s, a mem ber of the Best Club in the World I Sentime ntal words? - No, but , to me, full of true and proper sentiments that, all too often are left unexpresse d for fear of embarrassment. I am now too old to be wo rr ied by such things and gladly declare this pride in

' Ii CONTROLLER

my association, over the years, w ith IFATCA. This pride grew to great size w hen, at Costa Rica, I was asked w ith oth ers of the few founding Corp orate M embers , to accept the award of a commemorative shield marking the 25t h A nniversary of the Federation from Harri Henschler, the the n-President. A photograp h of the occasion still adorns my study wa ll.

The second event came as a complete surprise. At the 1992 IFATCA Conference, I attended the tr aditional evening 'gettogether' betwee n the Corporate Members and the Executive Board . July of that year saw my retirement , at 65 , after nearly fifty years in the indust ry Comp letely out of the blue, Charles Stuart , the then President (and now Corporate Members ' representative - Ed), asked me to step forwar d . He

t hen proceeded to pay me an embarrassing number of comp liments and thanked me fo r my wo rk for IFATCA - quite ignoring t he fact that, to me, it wasn't work, I got paid for enjoying myself t I was so taken aback that I was unable to do jUStice to t he occasion, beyond thanking the Federation for the ir kind regards and the gift of a set of crystal glasses engraved with the IFATCA logo - since, much used I But, inwardl y I w as very touched - and grateful that I had so many and such kind friends .

This gratitude was deepened further when, in Octobe r of that year, the UK Guild of ATCOs granted me Honourary Life Membership of GATCO and paid me more fulsome and undeserved compl iments Although now, trul y, in retirement , I still keep up with what goes on in the ATC world -

after all , who after so many long and happ y yea rs of work ing in It can cut themse lves off from it?

For example , I am luc ky to be among the privileged few t hat get to see Th e Controller ' befo re it's published , by act ing as one of its Copy Editors.

How ever, th oug h sti ll reta ining an abid ing inte rest in matte rs such as the reduction of separation standards , the only separation that I seek to reduce , w ith any seriousnes s, Is that between the nex t pin t and met And so, in celebrat ion of the approaching 40t h A n nive1·sary of the foun dat ion of the Federation , may I w ish It cont inued success and many more fru itfu l and happ y years to come , and once more thank It for making my life so fu ll of int erest , excitement and enjoyment

31

Charlie's Column LUCKIEST PILOT ( AND PASSENGERS) 1998 CONTEST: On 12 May 1998, a Boeing 767 of Ethiopi an Airlines started its take off roll from runway OSLin Cairo (Egypt).

During the roll, an Ai rbus A320 of Egyptair entered the runway, and started to backtrack. The A320 was just about to vacate the runway as the 767 was gett ing airborne .

However, the 767 sliced off th e to p of the A320's ve rtical fin with its right wing.

The B767 returned to land safely whi le the A320 contin ued to taxi. V isibilit y was reported to be over 10 Km at night. There were 140 passengers in the B767 and 54 in the A320.

I still have difficulty in understanding w hy this sort of backt racking procedure, on active runways , stil l ex ists 20 years after t he Tenerife accident!

FREE FLIGHT IN THE USA ( $$$)

David Hinson, former FAA Administrato r, recently stated t hat more contro llers' w ill be required for t he Free Flight environment.

If one knows t hat controllers salaries make up roug hly 70% of the total ATC costs, one can see that it is going to be expens ive ... and certa inly not "Free".

In another report, the A irl ine Transport A ssociation (ATA) in the USA indicated that the costs of t he avionics needed for Free Flight could cost "we ll over" one M illi on US d ollars per airframe .

Well, to me an appropr iate name for t he f uture US system should probab ly be "GOLDEN FLIGHT", instead of Free Flight, and all the avionics needed for Free Flight should be painted Go ld instead of t he usual Black or Grey Indeed t he w o rd 'Golden ' wi ll

32

mean it costs more than the average. Therefore, if it does not work, people will be able to say. 'Yes, it does not work, but you have to admit it looks good!"

ATC IN CANADA TODAY I simply love Canada . Wide open spaces, nature at its best, (very) friendly people. I would not mind living there, but working there? In the last year we have heard all these beautiful comments coming from there, such as, 'pri vatisation is the way to go, to get away from tho se old bureaucratic -c ivi l-servants mentality' and 'Let's enter the new Millennium with modern management techniques'.

Well, last May, all the controllers in the Toronto Centre received a nice letter from their (new) manager t ry ing to use one of these new management techniques.

Amo ngst other things, the letter said "Please be aw are that any refu sal ... to make y ourself available for overtime , .... refusal to clear aircraft on direct routes ... w ithout legitimate and v erifiab le excuse wi ll be considered as unlawful. .. and yo u w ill be held in contempt of the Federal Court order resu lting in legal sanctions against yo u per sonally ... etc. etc ."

Heyi Is this the way to moti v ate control lers to accept more traffic in the 1990s?

ENGINEERS TALK (3) W hen an engineer says 'The resu lts are ext remely grat ifyi ng" , he means "It works and w e are all surprised I" In the meantime our old fr iend H . Co le (How's retirement Harry?) sent us one of the dialogues he remembers from t he UK televis ion series "Yes Min ister" , wh ich cou ld perfect ly f it ATC

Management: A young newcomer was being instructed by his widely experienced mentor and given the following advice: When you say: "The matter is under consideration," it means, "We have lost the file ."

When you say: "The matter is under active consideration," it actual ly means "We are looking for the file ."

OVERHEARD ON THE FREQUENCY: This time a few ground control stories: From the Internet (AVWeb): In some airports it is indeed difficult to finds your way on the tarmac among all those taxiways. In San Jose California, a United DC10 landed and came to a full stop just before a taxiway intersection . After a moment the ground controller said: "UAL 1234, Turn right at the tax i-way" No response .

The controller repeated the clearance again: "UAL 1234, It is a right turn at this taxi way. " Again no response . So the controller tried a different approach : "UAL 1234, turn towards the co-pilot!"

At which point the DC10 made an immediate 90 degrees turn to the right .... !

From "Der Flugleiter " Aft er two aircraft found themselves opposite one another on the same tax i-way at an un-named German Airport: Ground : "Lauda 6212 please perform a 360 to the left."

Pilot: "Sir, I guess if we perform a 360 we wil l' have the same problem as before!" .

Ground: "In that case, make a 180 and proceed a few meters forward"

AROUND THE WORLD IN AN UNMANNED WEATHER BALLON You heard about the scientific balloon, launched in Canada last August, to measure ozone levels. It was supposed to come down after completing its task but it decided to stay up and try its own solo trip around the world.

In some areas it caused havoc because the balloon, roughly 100 meters wide and 70 meters high, descended to 34,000 feet and drifted into the middle of the North Atlantic Track system. Beside the (large) problems caused to ATC, what is funny is that special squadrons of F18 fighters/ interceptors, the top brass of the Canadian Air Force, tried in vain to shoot it down. It is reported that they shot in excess of 1OOOrounds of ammunitions at the balloon, but missed it . The US Air Force apparently also tried with incendiary missiles, but also failed to bring it down.

As one of the pilots is reported to have said, "With something like this, which is almost stationary in the air, and our fighter being very , very fast, it is very difficult to shoot it down ." Yeah, Yeah, nice excuses boys ...

I also read here that Steve Fossett (who tried 3 time s to go around the world in his balloon, but failed each time)! is, going to team with Richard Branson. (Who , also tr i'ed twice and did not manage ta complet e th e joumey) 1â&#x20AC;˘ They now are both goifflg to t ry togethe r now in a new ball'oon, next winter.

May I sugge-;t t hat t hey contact the Canadian wmJPa,ny that built the scientifi c wea'fher balloon? If they ju-st dimlD in it and do ,riot touch anyth ing, they mi,ght have a g~0dl chance, and at least if t hey overf ly wnfrierrdly t err it0ry th ey d0 Mt have to w orry a!Dou,t bei ng shot ctown 1

0

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CONTROLL !ER

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33

Communicat· on majority of tra nsmissions in the future ATM environment w here most communication can be expected t o be time-crit ical to support the planned t actical approach to traffic management

determined by the sender alone.

It is the result of an interaction bet wee n t he intentions, actions, and limitations of both sender and recei ver. Thus, currently proposed schemes may not be appropriate for future ATM operations, as they suggest that pilots and controllers do not have to immediately attend to messages unless they are urgent w hen, in fact, every message has to be checked by the receiver to determine its urgenc y, based on conte xt .

Also, as a result of the envisioned wide ly dist ributed network of decision-makers and actors in future ATM operations, the number of potent ial communication partners w ill increase. Conseq uentl y, there is an increased need t o address the issue of priorities and the coordination of transm issions. For the controller who is supposed to interf ere only whe n safety requir es him/her to do so, it is of utmost importan ce to have t he highest priority at any time. One way of dealing with this problem woul d be to tag messages according to the ir urgency - an option t hat has been proposed in the context of current Data Link designs. Whi le it is technologically feasib le to introdu ce such a fu nct ion and while agreement on the associated procedure may be possible , it is important to keep in mind that this function involves a number of potential problems First, it will create a new task for the sender and receiver of a message and create an addit ional step in t he creat ion and screening of a message while, in the current voice communication environment, the urgency of a message is often inferred from implicit voice cues. A lso, as pointed out earlier, urgent messages may represent the maJority of transmissions in the f uture tactical air traff ic env ironment.

As a result, t heir relative frequency may increase dramatically and w ith that, the informativeness of the label "urgent" can be quest ioned .

Finally, the urge ncy of a message in a wide ly distrib uted network of decision-makers can not be /..(KNOWLEDC,Mtf-JT~ Ti·•· 'c\e,uc:h pre\enicd ,n TI:~ pJpt_•, .·,.I' -uppcnec r..·,.J!·c·

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Another reason why both systems involve potential problems may be the oftenobserved failure in the design stage to learn from other domains. The fact that modern technology is only now beginning to enter the ATC domain would have allowed designers to build on expe riences in areas such as modern flight decks or proces s control. In those domains, it is we ll known, for example, that flexibility comes at a price (Woods, 1993) - i e , it introduces new know led ge, attentional, and co-ordination demands that need to be considered early on in the design of a system . It appear s that thi s knowledge was not sufficiently considered and applied in recent designs . Still, as mentioned earlier , the advantage of conducting predictive system evaluation s is that they provide an opportunity to reconsider and modify designs before t hey can create problem s in the context of actua l op erati ons

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This can be explained, in part, by the fact that system designers have not been provided with a clearly defined goal or system context. Several visions for future ATM operations co-exist, many of which are under specified and involve conflicting goals. In the absence of a well-defined target, designers have no choice but to speculate about or ignore future demands.

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CONCLUSION In contrast to other branch es of the aviation domain, the field of air traffic control is only now beginning to introduce modern automation technology. There are several reasons why new systems are finally being developed - observed problems with current ATC technology, th e need to replace ageing ATC equipment, and the anticipated growth in air travel which calls for more efficient and fle x ible operations (for a more detailed discussion, see Billings, 1996). Those future operations are expected to invo lve a widely di stributed net wo rk of airborne and grc°und-based problem-solvers and decisi on-maker s w ho are no longer req uired to share know ledge of each other's intentions and planned actions.

As a conseq uenc e, there is an increased likelihood of sud den, unpredictable changes in traffic configurations and an increas ed need for timely and coordinated int erve ntion s To support such a tactical reactive app roach to traffic management, the availability of highly eff ect ive communication technologies and procedures wi ll be critical. However, as laid out in this paper, it is que stionable whet her recentl y deve lop ed and env isioned com muni catio n systems, such as Data Link and VSCS w ill be capab le of handling futur e

A concern vo iced by controllers in our conc eptual ATM simulations is related to transitions along the continuum from unrestricted to highly controlled flight operations. For example, if a controller sends a broadcast message to a large number of aircraft to inform them of a termination of their Free Flight stat us, he/she will need to ensure acknow ledgement of this message by all affecte d parties.

At the same ti me, however, the contro ller needs to continue mo nitor ing and po ssibly begin to intervene w ith the evolving tr affic sit uation . Controllers, in our stud y, point out th at, in order to be able to cope w ith t hese competing attentiona l dem ands, it wi ll be necessary to provide them w ith an at -a-gl ance d isplay of the communication status of aircraft in th eir sector that is integrated w ith their radar sco pe. Env isioned desig ns curr ent ly do not support pattern recog nit ion ; instead t hey require focused attent ion on a separate Data Link message .

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operations in an effective manner. Their designs seem to be dri ven largel y by the characteristics and requirements of the current air traffic control environment instead of being tailored towards likely new demands associated with the future ATM system.

airborne and ground-based machine agents. In developing such an option, designers will have to provide significant improvements in the design of system feedback. This is important to avoid breakdowns in pilots' and controllers' awareness of the status and beha viour of their machine counterparts, breakdowns that have been already observed in other contexts.

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