{"id":205,"date":"2014-08-25T16:13:07","date_gmt":"2014-08-25T14:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/?p=205"},"modified":"2019-07-23T11:50:03","modified_gmt":"2019-07-23T09:50:03","slug":"towers-watch-this-space-or-some-other-remote-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/?p=205","title":{"rendered":"Towers &#8211; Watch this space, or some other remote one&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"The European Space Agency\u2019s Rosetta space probe is now in close orbit with comet 67P, perhaps better known as the Churyumov\u2013Gerasimenko comet.\u00a0 Other probes have done fly-pasts.\u00a0 Rosetta has taken that one step closer \u2013 it is now moving at the same speed as the comet itself and all going well, it will land on the comet.\u00a0 That is a remarkable piece of space engineering, more than likely involving rocket scientists, but it raises one very simple question:\u00a0 If we can land a probe on a comet in deep space, what about aircraft on runways?\r\n\r\nThe answer, of course, is that we can, and we are starting to do so.\u00a0 By definition, en-route ATM is remote from the area being controlled so it was only natural that we can do it for remote airports too.\r\n\r\nPerhaps the real question is why do we continue to think that we need towers at all?<!--more-->\r\n\r\nANSPs, airport owners and airline operators focus on costs and efficiency at all times, so finding safe, efficient and lower cost options is always of interest. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0High definition images, state of the art video density, object tracking and alerting, night vision and operative control under low visibility conditions are set to reinvent ATM at airports.\r\n\r\nThat might be just as well, because the airports have shown that they are more than happy to reinvent ATM at airports too.\u00a0 And, make it more competitive.\u00a0 Aviation Advocacy supports increased competition in air transport, so this is a Good Thing.\r\n\r\nThe UK CAA published an opinion last year that said that the Commission\u2019s SES-driven requirement to put towers above a certain size out to tender was back-to-front.\u00a0 The risk involved in changing the operation of the towers at larger airports was too great, it decided.\u00a0 Only the smaller towers were suitable.\u00a0 The <em>Aviation Intelligence Reporter<\/em> covered this at the time.\r\n\r\nGatwick did not get the memo.\u00a0 It has announced that from October next year, DFS will operate the Gatwick Airport tower.\u00a0 Gatwick is legendary in ATM circles: a single runway that handles a world record 55 movements an hour.\u00a0 DFS is also legendary in ATM circles: the German ANSP that tried to purchase a share in NATS, only to be defeated by the superannuation fund of the UK\u2019s academics.\r\n\r\nThere was considerable angst at the time of the NATS sale about what is called \u2018the <em>Daily Mail<\/em> effect\u2019, or what the notoriously rabid UK tabloid newspapers would say about a German entity controlling any part of the UK sky.\u00a0 A more rational concern was the risk of an outcome that saw the most liberal, privatised ANSP in Europe sold into the hands of one of the least liberal.\u00a0 The German Constitution, apparently, prohibits the privatisation of DFS.\u00a0 Apparently it does not prohibit DFS acquiring privatised ANSPs.\r\n\r\nThe announcement of the transfer was pushed out of the papers, even the tabloids, by more newsworthy events.\u00a0 The day the announcement was made coincided with the shooting down of MH17.\u00a0 What hope did <em>faux<\/em> outrage and a chance for headline writers to show off their particular skills have over Russian perfidy?\u00a0\u00a0 The fact that it was a cost saving move from Gatwick \u2013 and the savings are reported to be considerable \u2013 with the promise of lower charges to airlines would have been beside the point on any other day.\r\n\r\nPicking up on the CAA point, the airlines that serve Gatwick are not exactly being overwhelming in their support.\u00a0 Publically, they are saying nothing.\u00a0 Privately, they are looking for risk mitigation and contingency plans.\u00a0 Or, to put that in terms that the <em>Daily Mail<\/em> would not understand, they are more worried about preserving their operations\u2019 reliability and resilience than refighting the Battle of Britain.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The European Space Agency\u2019s Rosetta space probe is now in close orbit with comet 67P, perhaps better known as the Churyumov\u2013Gerasimenko comet.\u00a0 Other probes have done fly-pasts.\u00a0 Rosetta has taken that one step closer \u2013 it is now moving at the same speed as the comet itself and all going well, it will land on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-airports","category-competition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=205"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":483,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions\/483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}