The virtual tower by DFS

I promised I'd be back after ATC Global to report on the DFS (Germany's air traffic management provider) "Distant Aerodrome Control Service", or virtual control tower visual control room.

DFS plans to install this facility in its Munich tower to enable controllers to manage traffic using the new third runway if it goes ahead. The new runway, 26R/08L, is planned to the north of the two existing parallel runways, and its distance from the tower would be such that, if DFS were to rely on visual control, it would have to build a supplementary visual control room closer to it. DFS has chosen the cheaper alternative, providing artificial visual control in the existing tower, using high resolution video cameras to watch the traffic activity.

So this is an example of what the DACS can do, but DFS's brochure on the subject claims that the solution allows "location-independent control for aerodromes of all sizes".

If that claim is true, and customers decide to take up the option, everything I said in the previous blog item ("What do you need reality for?") stands.