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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 1405.PDF
FLlGr-T, 19 August 1960 SYSTEM SURVEY A COMBINED map of the approach, overshoot and take-offpaths from the thirty or so airfields in East Anglia looksonly a little tidier than a handful of well cooked spaghettithrown on a table. The annual number of movements into and out of them is almost twice that handled by the complex of civilairfields at Chicago—and the military movements in East Anglia are not, for obvious reasons, tidily channelled down airways andadvisory routes. To a lesser extent, the same conditions apply over Lincolnshire, the South Midlands and the area between Portlandand Bristol. All these heavy concentrations of random traffic at almost every altitude are divided one from the other by the trunkroutes of the major civil airways extending up to 25,000ft. 275 Service aircraft near and through civil airways. Close liaison hasbeen maintained between the RAF and USAF on these matters and civil centres have also co-operated where appropriate. The coverage will logically be extended; but, in describing theobjects and methods of this control by the military of its own traffic, it is appropriate to trace the history of the present organiza-tion in order to show how and why it has reached its present status. The RAF has for many years maintained, in conjunction withthe civil authorities, five military air traffic centres, respectively at Prestwick, Preston, Watnall (near Nottingham), Gloucester andUxbridge, under the control of Fighter Command. The functions of Gloucester are being transferred to Uxbridge. The purpose ofthe centres has been to operate a military flight information service equivalent to that provided from the centres in civil flight-information regions. Each centre has a fully equipped meteoro- logical station and can provide weather forecasts and alsoimmediate information on the status of airfields—and hence a diversion service to aircraft in the air. The centres also handlemilitary flight-plans and liaison is maintained with the relevant civil centres. From the centres the RAF provide the very effective nationalemergency service, for which they operate an automatic CRDF VHF triangulation service on 121.5Mc/s and can alert the ancil-lary ground and air rescue services. Now being added to the VHF fixer network is an equivalent UHF network on 243Mc/s. Military Air Traffic over Britain This situation has developed gradually, but for some time boththe RAF and the USAF in Britain have found it necessary to provide supervision—not necessarily direct control—to ensurethat military aircraft do not conflict with one another and, even more important, that they do not dangerously interfere with civiltraffic on or above airways. The USAF Airways and Air Com- munications Service, which is responsible for traffic controlthroughout the USAF, has for the past two years provided control with direct radar surveillance for American military combat andtransport aircraft operating into the East Anglian and Oxford complexes of USAF airfields. The RAF has, of course, also hada similar system for individual airfields and, more recently, for the more congested airfield areas in eastern England. In addition,the RAF has, over the last two years, progressively brought into operation four radar centres which provide surveillance to guide DEVELOPMENT OF AIRWAYS CONTROL Approach control at airfields is the responsibility of the Com-mands by which they are operated. Prior to the introduction of Heathrow radar and the three other RAF radar centres, almostthe only positive control of military aircraft was provided by defence radars when aircraft, particularly fighters, were engagedon practice interceptions; but, otherwise, military aircraft crossed airways on a procedural basis with agreed prior warning or byusing quadrantal height separations. With the traffic densities and the very small numbers of civilaircraft operating above 20,000ft a few years ago, this organization worked quite adequately, but the introduction of military jetsnormally operating above 20,000ft meant that the let-down and approach patterns to Service airfields had to be very considerablyextended. Subsequently, turboprop and then turbojet civil air- liners were introduced and the height of most airways wasincreased to 25,000ft, making them formidable barriers to Service aircraft. The majority of the early military jet flying was untilthen carried out comfortably above airways. Through the years the tendency has inevitably been for civil controllers to becomeincreasingly worried about the necessarily random military traffic and therefore to make ever greater demands for positive isolationand control. The military authorities, for their part, found that their own traffic required more and more cautious organizationand the USAF AACS actually set up surveillance radars and control centres in their two main complexes of airfields, to beresponsible on the one hand for the control of USAF transport aircraft leaving and entering civil airways (about 300 movementsper month) and, on the other, for operational aircraft operating locally in IMC. About three years ago the RAF began to give serious considera-tion to the provision of some form of traffic control off airways; and in April 1958 a GCI station at Heathrow was brought into useto provide direct surveillance of military aicraft leaving and enter- ing the London control zone. Early in 1959 the GCI station atHack Green, near Nantwich (and in mid-1959 similar radars at Sopley near Bournemouth and Bishops Court in Northern Ireland)came into use to provide direct surveillance of the civil airways with a view to giving direct cover to military aircraft crossing oroperating in the vicinity. The fact that during the last twelve months no fewer than 25,000 crossings of airways by military air-craft have been directly controlled by these radar stations gives some idea of the task performed by them. No military aircraftnow cross major airways without this guidance and the crossings are achieved entirely on a plan-position separation without regardfor the height at which the various aircraft are flying. The radars actually used are of both centimetric long-range and metricmedium-range types and can cover a radius of 60 miles at 5,000ft, The areas of intensive military flying at low level are separated by the main airways, as shown in this map. Providing direct radar surveillance for military arcraft crossing airways are the four RAF radar stations, the circles round them indicating coverage at 5,000ft. The largest concentration is in East Anglia, where more than 30 military airfields serve bombers, fighters, transports and training aircraft
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