T8191

Thanks, Scott … interesting micro-insight. Shame about the patronising BBC drone, who might have read up a little bit about what a Supervisor does.

Good to see the wonderful computerised bag-handlig system still ending up with someone chucking the bag into the container!

shorthauldad

Lufthansa's head office is in the centre of Cologne (in this building), right by the river, with not an airport in sight (CGN is some distance away!). FRA or MUC or BER would appear to be more obvious choices...

MNManInKen

First, can I just say this thread is one of the nicest and most interesting ones to be found on this forum. ^ And generally more friendly and less confrontational than most others too

Tantalising, albeit too short, inside view of a most interesting operation.

We got a glimpse of those wooden or plastic "strips" or whatever they are called that you often see in ATC imagery. How exactly are they used and are they there as a backup in case the computers go t***up?

T8191

Flight Progress Strips are the bread and butter of ATC, both civil and military ... In theory, the radar is actually a backup to the FPS system.

And over to you, Scott and Heathrow Tower, for the details (including the colour of ink you are entitled to use to write on them). Oh, happy days!!!

MNManInKen

Such a tease you are

T8191

I feel it fair to give uptodate info ... I was probably writing flight strips at LHR/Southern Centre before they were born!

However, in the simplest terms, they provide call sign, type, routing, cleared altitude/flight level, estimate for next reporting point... And other stuff.

Example. Aircraft leaves LHR for Spain ... Every sector that will control that aircraft in UK airspace gets a strip with the basic data. In my day that meant writing dozens of them, and manually delivering them to the relevant sectors. Now they have printers that do that automatically at every relevant sector. Then, when the aircraft goes 'live', the data gets updated (using a quill pen) with the latest estimates, cleared levels etc etc. Telephone handovers to the next sector ensure the latest info is passed on. Every controller keeps the strip updated with clearances until the ac is handed off to the next sector.

That sort of thing.

Military controllers used to have slightly different systems, depending on where they worked (like an assistant kept the FS updated, while the controller wrote on the radar screen in chinagraph pencil). I used to be a military controller in the Joint Mil/Civ Ops Room at London Centre, West Drayton, so I speak both languages (especially having started off as a civil ATC Assistant).

MNManInKen

Cheers, that's great! ^

Now, I might be missing something, and I'm biased since my career is in technology innovation , but would that info not be easier and more reliably managed and handed over electronically?


And no, I'm not talking about "Windows for Air Traffic Control", which sounds only one notch less lethal than "Windows for Nuclear Power Plants"

T8191

Yes and ... no. Volts do fail, and even an Apple computer stalls occasionally. Although electronic handovers exist, and indeed have done for many years [LATCC (Military) had it in the 80s] you absolutely have to have a fail-safe system where the only things left are a radio, your wits and awareness, and a manual flight strip. That's why controllers used to have pockets full of pens, in case one suddenly runs out - and I'm not joking.

Scott Pilgrim

In Terminal Control the flight data processing is computerised but we still use paper flight progress strips. I think all other NATS units use computerised strips now, as will TC in the not tooooo distant future.

Speaking just about Heathrow Approach at TC...

There is one FPS for each arrival (or departure where departures are worked). The strip contains abbreviated flight plan information and on it will be recorded every instruction or relevant bits of information passed to the aircraft by ATC.

The colour of the strip holder indicates the wake turbulence category of that flight.

The different control positions SPT, INT and FIN use different coloured pens.

As control of a flight is passed between controllers the strip is also physically passed.

I'll see if I can dig out any pictures and post later, a picture is worth a thousand words!

T8191

Which begs the question … what are they?

In my Area days it think it was Black ink for Assistants, Red for Sector Controllers and Green for Sector Chiefs … and Military controllers wrote in black on pink 'crossing' strips

Scott Pilgrim

Support uses green, the intermediate directors blue/black and the final director red.

Our assistants also use red.

The strips are quite colourful by the time the aircraft has landed.

MNManInKen

Not a single Apple device in my home

Thanks to both of you for this interesting and actually quite clear explanations! I feel so much better now that I know something that I have been wondering about for quite a while!

Bobalong

Scott is correct the towers at the major airports that NATS operate at all use electronic flight progress strips. The display mimics what would have been seen in the days of paper strips, which as Scott said are used in Terminal control and certain NATS airfields. But we get frowned at if we use ink of any colour on the display screens.
In the towers strips in blue are used for departures and orange is used for arrivals. We get slightly different info on our "strips" such as a parking stand and we can add electronically any additional information such as amending departure routing or any important info (TC controller on board, please put to front of departure queue )

There is a short article here about Gatwick and you can see the electronic displays that we use. FF to 5 mins in to get to the short ATC section http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AplmFDA7Hcs

Hope that is understandable and of interest. I am sure HT will be along shortly to explain things in a much finer fashion than I.

Scott Pilgrim

Going back a few years to West Drayton (look top right)...

T8191

Cute!!

The set-up looks a bit modern, though. You need proper radar with real blips [T82 "Orange Yeoman"]
I have a radar display screen-shot somewhere … this will have to do for now.