Heathrow’s New Tower

Everybody seems surprised by the smooth transition to the new “Visual Control Room” (VCR) at Heathrow (EGLL). Everybody but me, that is… I’ve been paying attention throughout the process, and even had a chance to stop by and take a look shortly after the tower cab made its trip across the airport and was hoisted aloft. In my estimation, the whole process went much more smoothly than one could expect, and that’s a credit to everyone involved.

A short Heathrow tower getting taller, February 2005. 
Copyright 2005 Aviation Policy Institute, Inc. All Rights Reserved

 I’ve been chuckling about one thing though… The FAA’s ATCSCC Advisories Database continues to carry one Heathrow entry every day, in addition to the normal Eurocontrol updates. Here’s the entry from 23 April:

ATCSCC ADVZY 032 DCC 04/23/07
ATCSCC/EUROCONTROL (CFMU) OUTLOOK_FYI FOR 231600 THRU 241559
EUROPEAN TERMINAL CONSTRAINTS:
EGLL-NEW ATCT
ENGM/EFHF-LOW VIS
EN ROUTE CONSTRAINTS: NONE 

Note the first European Terminal Constraint. Now THAT hardly seems fair to our friends, the boys and girls in NATS who make Heathrow work so smoothly! To my knowledge, the tower came alive at 0200 on 21 April 2007 with the arrival of BA026, a B747 from Hong Kong, and things have gone without anything requiring a “terminal constraint” since. We offer our congratulations to the controllers specifically (you know who you are), NATS generally, BAA, Rogers, Arup, Watson Steel, AK Heavy Engineering, and everyone else who had a hand in making this work. We’re proud of you.

 In fact, I’ve only got one bone to pick: I keep reading things like the following excerpt from one of NATS’ press releases for the launch of the new tower:

Heathrow is the most intensively used airport in the world, with up to 90 arrivals and departures an hour during the operating day, 365 days a year.

The press release then goes on to say that:

NATS Heathrow safely handled 477,000 flights in 2006. 

Sorry? Heathrow, is “the most intensively used airport in the world” with 477,000 movements in 2006? And lest you think calling Heathrow “the most intensively used airport in the world” means something other than “busiest,” I refer you to an earlier NATS press release concerning the shiny new VCR simulator for the new tower:

One of Europe’s most realistic air traffic control (ATC) simulators has gone live, preparing controllers at Heathrow for life in their new tower, 87 metres above the runways of the world’s busiest international airport.

Now, I’m a champion of the controllers at Heathrow (and throughout the UK, as a matter of fact). These folks work a lot of complex traffic and do it very, very well. I’m very pleased about the new VCR at Heathrow and I believe that, the sooner that the LTCC can get out of those antiquated facilities in West Drayton and down to Swanwick, the better. However, calling Heathrow the world’s busiest international airport when, in fact, it would rank number 13 in the United States, a couple thousand ops ahead of Minneapolis (KMSP) and a couple thousand behind Detroit (KDTW), is puzzling.   By my calculation (grabbing the FAA’s numbers and dumping them into Excel), 477,000 ops is less than half the number of movements at both Atlanta and O’Hare. Somebody correct me if I’m wrong…

 In any case, congratulations to our British brethren. Nice new digs. May they never see an operational error.

-Dave

Indonesia’s Plan for ATC Backup

I’m a little miffed. ABC Radio Australia carried this copyrighted story yesterday:

Last Updated 25/04/2007, 22:56:30

Under a new plan released today, Indonesia’s neighbours would take over control of its air traffic, if its aircraft tracking system fails.

The plan for Indonesia’s air traffic control system has been developed, after a series of recent plane disasters claimed more than 100 lives.

AFP reports that a senior transport ministry official has stated that two centres would assume control of air traffic in Indonesia under the proposal, in an effort to streamline the system.

Under the plan, if natural disasters or mechanical faults close down both centres in the capital Jakarta and Makassar in south Sulawesi, then Singapore, Malaysia and other neighbours would step in until the problems are resolved.

Full details, including technical arrangements between the countries and when it would take effect, are yet to be finalised.

Well, um, no.

First of all, this plan has been openly under development for quite some time. In fact, the draft version of the plan that I have is dated mid-2006. Second, this has nothing to do with “a series of recent plane disasters [that] claimed more than 100 lives,” and it’s insulting to imply that such is the case.

Here’s what the Forward from the first draft of the Plan says:

The Indonesian territory, which comprises an archipelago of some 17,500 islands extending about 5000 kms mainly in an east/west direction, is located in a major earthquake zone with many active volcanoes. A major earthquake could strike at any time causing serious damage to civil aviation and air navigation services, facilities and infrastructure. With two major ACCs located at Jakarta for the west region and Makassar for eastern region, it is considered highly unlikely that both [facilities] would be out of service simultaneously. However, in the event that one ACC becomes inoperable, and ATS became unavailable, it would take several days to relocate and operate ATS from the remaining ACC and restore a more normal level of service. During this interim period, flight operations in Indonesia would be severely restricted.

So what we’ve got here is a civil aviation authority in one of the most geologically active areas in the world doing contingency planning because they know that they’re eventually going to have a problem, and ABC Radio Australia thinks it’s important to make mention of recent aircraft accidents in the country. Yes, yes, the ABC Radio Australia story does get back on track in noting that failures due to “natural disasters or mechanical faults” are behind the Plan, but I maintain, that the “ [the] plan for Indonesia’s air traffic control system has been developed, after a series of recent plane disasters claimed more than 100 lives” line is a cheap shot, and it has an unnecessary comma as well—how’s THAT for a cheap shot? ?

Anyway, the countries and FIRs/ACCs surrounding Indonesia, as noted in the draft Plan, are:

a) Australia
–Melbourne FIR (ACC)
–Brisbane FIR (ACC)

b) India
–Chennai FIR (ACC)

c) Malaysia
–Kota Kinabalu FIR (ACC)
–Kuala Lumpur FIR (ACC)

d) Singapore
–Singapore FIR (ACC)

e) Sri Lanka
–Colombo FIR (ACC)

f) United States of America
–Oakland FIR (ACC)

Here’s a image extracted from the draft plan, showing airspace and routes. As always, don’t use this for navigation…

So if you happen to run into anybody from Indonesia’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation, or the Directorate General of Air Communications, tell them “well-done.” Aviation thrives on this sort of planning.

________________________________

Hey! This airspace won’t control itself! Click on the image to see an excerpt from DAFIF Enroute Chart PAA13. The vertical line in the center of the image (running N-S through Semarang) separates the Jakarta FIR on the left from the Ujung Pandang FIR on the right, and runs off the bottom of the image to the southeast. The busy airspace on the west side of the image is the Jakarta area, and on east side, Malang.

Dulles 1L Pavement Failure?

Came across this tidbit in the ATC System Command Center advisory database stream this afternoon…

ATCSCC ADVZY 071 IAD/ZDC 04/13/2007 CDM GROUND STOP MESSAGE:  CTL ELEMENT: IAD
ELEMENT TYPE: APTADL TIME: 1847Z
GROUND STOP PERIOD: 13/1832Z – 13/1945Z
DEP FACILITIES INCLUDED: (1STTIER) ZID ZJX ZOB ZBW ZTL ZNY ZDC  PREVIOUS TOTAL, MAXIMUM, AVERAGE DELAYS: 0/0/0.0 NEW TOTAL, MAXIMUM, AVERAGE DELAYS: 1635/62/41.9

PROBABILITY OF EXTENSION: MEDIUM
REASON: RUNWAY / PAVEMENT FAILURE
REMARKS:  EFFECTIVE TIME:  131848 – 132045

The ground stop continued for less than an hour, ending at 1917Z, and concerned Runway 1L. We’d be interested to know whether this had anything to do with the overnight replacement of pavement done at IAD over the years…