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Aviation History
1962
1962 - 0281.PDF
FLIGHT International, 22 February 1962 283 ATC Development THE BRITISH PLAN THE United Kingdom air traffic control system is now undergoing far-reaching changes. New methods, new equipment and new organization, cautiously planned during the past few years, are now about to be introduced. By the end of next year they should see the beginning of full radar coverage of the Flight Information Regions above 5,000ft, new traffic control centres to which the radar video will be fed, new flight-plan processing systems in the centres and new equipment to assist in interpreting the radar picture. While these innovations are taking effect in the operational system, the experimental work will also be moving into the computer field, with the object of determining the best methods for introducing a further stage in the automation of the control procedure. To the man in the street—or, rather, to the man on the airways— progress may seem slow, but the thoroughness of the experimental work should prove worthwhile; and the relatively small funds which have been available year by year will certainly have been well applied. A noteworthy fact is that, despite the tremendous disparity in the resources applied to ATC research in the USA and Britain, the developed systems recently proposed in the two countries have proved to be remarkably similar—particularly in the greatly increased dependence of both systems on direct observation and control by primary and secondary radar. Direct control of this type has until now been available in Britain only in terminal areas or on the Upper Airways, the traditional pro cedure of position reporting and "stepping-stone"control having been applied on most airways. Now, the radar is to be extended to cover all the airways and will provide very greatly increased capacity or accuracy of control. Many airports have had their own local traffic radar, but systematic control of a complete terminal area has been applied at London, Manchester and Prestwick. Particularly in the London area, this method has proved extremely successful in ex pediting the flow of traffic by avoiding the "stepping stone'* control at the reporting points close to the airfield. The effectiveness of the radar control is really appreciated when the radar breaks down and the system has to revert to the older methods, with considerable de lays all round. Even this degree of improvement was obtained with the relatively old military Type 14 radar and raw displays located in rooms separated from the main procedural control rooms them selves. A good deal of intercommunication was necessary. In Manchester, the radar is at Antrobus, a former Naval site near Stretton, while the centre is at Barton Hall. Radar operator and controller use the same radio frequency and have direct landline intercom, but they are physically completely separated. At Prest wick the Type 14 is at Gales, a former RAF site, and the centre is at Redbrae House, next to the airport. Last year the RAF and MoA jointly arranged for high-level coverage of the airspace above 25,000ft by establishing joint civil/ military control units at the RAF radar sites at Bishops Court, in Northern Ireland, Hack Green, in the Midlands, and Sopley, near Hum. The Type 80 radars were used to provide an advisory service to jet airliners flying in the Upper Airways and also to cover military aircraft flying near or through controlled airspace. RAF elements were already included in the civil control centres at London, Preston and Prestwick; and the emergency VHF triangulation ser vice is, of course, operated by the RAF on both VHF and UHF frequencies. The many other radars are not in the airways system. The important improvements now coming into effect are part of a five-year plan launched in 1958. The experimental phase has largely been completed and orders have now been placed for new equipment to provide the radar coverage illustrated in the accompanying map. The radars are sited, as can be seen, to provide almost complete air ways coverage from 5,000ft upwards, but the information will be transmitted, in most cases by broad-band microwave link, to the appropriate control centre, or centres. Most of the radars will be Marconi S.264A high-powered, 50cm units. Two of these have already been installed at a new radar site a short distance south-west of the western end of runway 28R at London Heathrow, and will come into full operation at Easter. Their outputs will be transmitted by land-line to the existing Southern Air Traffic Control Centre on the north side of the airport. SATCC has until now been using a Marconi S.264, mainly for out-bound clearance, and two Type 14s Radar network proposed for the end of 1963, giving coverage cf airways as shown, from 5,000ft to 25,000ft. The black spots mark the present locations of the upper-airway radars and an S.232. The outputs have been shared by the military radar control unit, Heathrow Radar, working at the same centre. All the new radars are intended to be combined with Cossor secondary radars, the first unit of which has been installed in London Heathrow for about a year. The planned new sites are at Ash in Northern Kent, Ventnor on the Isle of Wight, Clee Hill near Cheltenham, St Annes near Blackpool, Winkleigh in Devonshire, Lowther Hill north of Dumfries, and Islay, in the Western Isles. Except at Winkleigh, sites have been chosen or actually acquired— or were already owned—and in many cases the radars have been ordered. Because of siting difficulties at Midland (Clee Hill), a different type of radar will probably be ordered. Though there has been no official announcement, there is an obvious choice to be made in the range of Decca Radar products. St Annes should be operational by next spring, its signals being remoted to the Preston centre. Ash, Ventnor, Midland and probably others should be operational by the end of next year. Midland will initially be remo ted to SATCC, but will later be supplied also to Preston. Islay and Lowther Hill will serve the Scottish centre. New long-range, high-looking radars are to be installed at Bishops Court, Winkleigh and at two or three sites yet to be named along the east coast, to continue and improve the upper airspace coverage now provided. When the new radars are working, the stations at Sopley and Hack Green will close down. Primary and secondary radar will be used in the existing centres as soon as it is available; but experimental work done by the ATC Experimental Unit, located alongside SATCC, has already shown the range of synthetic displays to be added to the raw radar. These will include video mapping, inter-console marking, range and bear ing lines and active decoding of secondary radar signals from air craft. Transponders will also be extended in due course to provide height-coded responses, a feature on which both G.E.C. and Cossor
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