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Aviation History
1967
1967 - 0084.PDF
84 AIR TRANSPORT... RIGHT International, 19 January 1967 EUROCONTROL AT BRETIGNY A supervisor's console is provided so that simulation exercises can be monitored. On the console at far left is a synthetic radar display; m the middle a "pilot's" display; on the right a radar display. All are made by Plessey Radar. On the wall behind is a 6ft diameter picture projected from ropid-processed recording film EUROCONTROL'S first physical achievement, the experimentalcentre at Bretigny-sur-Orge, just south of Paris, wasbeing opened on January 17 by Mr Roy Mason, this year's president of the international organisation. Costing over £5 million to build and equip, the centre will be used for experiments of an essentially practical nature into ATC problems in the upper airspace with which the agency is primarily concerned. The conception of Eurocontrol was in December I960, when the International Convention relating to Co-operation for the Safety of Air Navigation was signed. The agency claims to be the world's first international public service, responsible for ATC services in the upper airspace over the seven countries which have signed the convention—the UK, France, West Germany, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg and Ireland. In practice, only the Brussels upper airspace control centre is directly under the agency's control at this time; three regional services—France, UK/Ireland and Benelux/West Germany- are technically responsible for upper airspace control centres in the member countries concerned, although the centres will be operated by the national authorities until Eurocontrol centres come into operation. Much of the work which will be done at Bretigny will be connected with the agency's next stride forward—the establish- ment of the first international ATC centre for upper airspace in the Belgium/Holland/northern Germany region. The founda- tion stone of this centre was laid on October 4 last year at Beek, near Maastricht, Holland. The multi-national staff at Bretigny, under the director, Mr D. D. Lipman (formerly head of the UK ATC evaluation unit), will test and evaluate new systems, equipment, methods, techniques and procedure for possible use in at Maastricht. The main tool for this work at Br6tigny is a dynamic air traffic simulator, built by a three-nation consortium, and claimed to be the most modern and powerful of its kind out- side the US. The three main elements of the simulator are a digital computer made by AEG-Telefunken of Germany; radar and synthetic information displays and consoles supplied by Plessey Radar of Britain; and the radar simulation and tele- communication sub-system provided by CSF (France), which also acted as project leader for the consortium. The Telefunken TR4 computer generates information on up to 300 aircraft tracks within a 600 n.m. radius together with information on six primary and secondary radars and the associated navigation aids positioned within the area. Informa- tion on simulated aircraft movements passes in digital form from the computer to a group of radar simulators which trans- form it into the type of signals normally available from ground radars. The signals are then distributed to radar consoles arranged as a realistic representation of an ATC centre where controllers can see the traffic situation in the form of moving radar targets on their radar screens just as in real life. The controllers can speak (via simulated R/T) to operators in another room who act the part of pilots responsible for specific "aircraft" displayed on the radar screen. In this way the controllers can ask for further information on a particular "flight" or issue instructions for changes in "aircraft" progress such as alteration to flight level, course, speed or any other normal ATC instruction. The "pilots" sit in front of electronic displays which show computer-generated information on the progress of the "aircraft" for which they are responsible in a form which allows them to respond easily and quickly to requests for information. They can make the simulated aircraft respond to controller's instructions by means of keyboards which modify the information in the computer. This type of simulation gives an environment in which the human factors of operation and the vital aspects of informa- tion display and interpretation, communications and decision- making can be studied in real time, or under speeded-up con- ditions to compress the problems and provide greater work- load on "pilots" and controllers and decrease the time available for their reactions. The computer records each exercise so that it can be stopped at any time and re-run automatically in such a way that both the " pilots'" and controllers' displays show the situation again exactly as it developed previously. The replay can be stopped at any time and the exercise started again from that point. Full recorded data is also available for analysis by the computer later. Flexibility is all-important at Bretigny and the building itseli has been designed to allow the greatest possible combination of equipment types and their physical location so that the layout of different ATC centres can be realistically re produced. The ground floor throughout is false, with easily removable panels so that cables can be changed easily when equipment has to be repositioned or new equipment installed. Similarly room sizes and shapes can be altered by using movable partitions. Besides ATC simulation, Bretigny is responsible for conduct- ing Eurocontrol evaluation and calibration of navigation aids and radar equipment. At the moment an operational assess- ment is being carried out in Germany of a new radar equip- ment; and phase two of the evaluation of HARCO and VORDAC, two rival area-coverage navaids is under way. VORDAC is being tested in Germany, while flight trials with HARCO are under way (under an MoA contract) in a Comet 4.B from Boscombe Down. Up to 50 hours of flight trials will be made in the Comet, calibrating HARCO with the aid of highly accurate missile-tracking radar equipment at Aberporth. In mid-February the programme will move to France for 100 hours' evaluation from the French flight test centre (CEV) based next door to the experimental centre at Bretigny. All this work demands the highest amount of collaboration at personal level of staff recruited from seven nations. Bedevilled by multi-national political problems, particularly where finance is concerned, Eurocontrol is striving to establish what must become an aviation norm in the next few decades- supra-national ATC. It is a tribute to the keenness and integrity of the agency's staff that the director-general, M Rene Bulin, could tell visitors to the opening of the experimental centre that in his five years' experience with Eurocontroi he had never come across any wide differences of opinion among his staff.
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