Remote air traffic control towers could improve aviation safety and the productivity of air traffic controllers, lower construction and maintenance costs, and help airports in small communities, according to a new report published by think tank Reason Foundation.
The study’s author, Stephen Van Beek, a former associate deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation during the Clinton administration and a former member of the FAA’s Management Advisory Council, examines how remote towers are being implemented in Europe and how those lessons can be applied in the U.S. to help air traffic controllers and airports, especially in smaller communities.
“If remote towers were approved for use in this country, they would enable more small airports to qualify for a contract towers,” writes Robert Poole, director of transportation at Reason Foundation.
Remote towers use high-definition cameras and sensors to provide air traffic controllers with 360° views of airspace and runways.
According to officials with the Reason Foundation, key points in the study, include:
- “Importantly, proponents of remote towers do not intend to replace staffed towers, but rather to increase the geographic and time-of-day coverage where air traffic control is not currently provided.”
- “For airports unable to afford a traditional or contract tower, remote towers potentially offer a less expensive alternative…For non-towered airports, adding new surveillance technologies can streamline access, reduce delays, increase safety margins, and create ‘order out of chaos.'”
- “For all airports, better imagery (especially important at night and in rain, snow, or fog) would enable increases in security and safety, since unauthorized surface movements or wildlife on an airfield could be more readily identified.”
- “On the capital side, remote towers offer significant savings, especially if multiple airports are connected to a remote tower center. Estimated capital costs for a single-station remote tower facility are between $1.5 million and $2.5 million, less than the recent capital costs of federal contract towers, which range between an estimated $3 million to $7 million.”
- “The remote tower concept decreases the up-front cost and lengthy construction schedule of building a tall physical structure, while also reducing environmental and air navigation impacts. It may also reduce annual operating and maintenance costs, especially in cases where one remote tower center serves several small airports. That means when the benefit/cost [B/C] ratio for a new contract tower is calculated, the benefits likely equal (or exceed) a conventional (physical) tower’s, and the costs are lower, thereby producing a higher B/C ratio.”
- “Remote towers also offer the FAA or ATC provider the ability to recruit controllers to more attractive assignments.”
- “Remote towers are rapidly becoming a reality in Europe. On the very large end of the scale, London Heathrow Airport implemented a remote contingency tower in 2009; it provides 70% of normal capacity using a ground surveillance display system, but does not include an “out-the-window” display.
- Sweden became the first to deploy tower services from a remote facility, when in April 2015 the nation’s ATC company, LFV, took over tower service operations at Örnsköldsvik Airport and switched control for them to Sundsvall, over 150 kilometers away. LFV is the ATC corporation responsible for air navigation services at 23 airports in Sweden.”
According to the report, two U.S. pilot projects are underway. One is at the busy general aviation airport of Leesburg, Virginia, and the other at the somewhat larger Northern Colorado Regional Airport in Loveland, 38 miles northwest of Denver. Neither airport currently has a conventional control tower.
The full report, Remote Air Traffic Control Towers: A Better Future for America’s Small Airports, is online.
“Remote towers” should ONLY be used or implemented to reduce existing operating hours at towers (e.g. KDCA at midnight to 0500), or to replace current low volume ATS manned towers. RCOs and CTAF are plenty adequate to address local GA operations,including IFR clearances.
Further, even the fundamental idea of a “tower” needs to be reconsidered, just as they do with a different concept, in places like Russia,using Start and Krug.
Further, at airports like KLAX and KSEA, “Visual” based towers are nearly useless anyway, when they’re far up in the fog, and the entire airport is experiencing Cat III WX conditions, and running on ASDE-X, which all could be located 100s of miles away in a bunker.
The technology is not new and is ready to go. The FAA of course moves slower than a 3rd world country. Over time there will be no human in a commercial cockpit and no humans directing air traffic at all.
If you fail to accept this obvious reality then you will be left in your antique Cessna 172 flying around a cornfield NORDO.
This guy probably works for or has some kind of economic interest in whomever wants to sell this crap. Only reason I can think of for why anyone who knows anything about aviation would support such a dumb idea.
This just absolutely redicilous. This is addressing a problem that does not exist. GA does not need airport traffic controllers were only a few dozen operations occur per day. GA is costly enough without adding unessary expense for something that is not needed.
I agree with most of the other posters. We don’t need any more towers, attended or not. This is a great example of technology just for technology’s sake. It does not address a real need, and is just a method for the octopus of government to grow another tentacle or two.
This sounds like a solution in search of a problem. We do not more regulation and excuses to increase general aviation costs. I do not see the need for small uncontrolled airports having a “tower”.
Great—more control, money and government intervention.
Smaller airports without control towers have operated just fine by pilots communicating with each other during approach and landing phases of flight. This activity costs $0.
We don’t need any additional traffic control at these locations mainly because it is unnecessary, and WILL cost money (which we the pilots will pay through hikes in fuel taxes or some other avenue)
The present method of establishing the number of traffic movements to justify the requirement of air traffic control works very well.
If it aint broke, don’t fix it.
Would this be the beginning of take off and landing fees. Government over each without a dought.
Automating ATC (replacing radar with GPS/ADS-B, local ffield sensors and equipment) is not just about picking up MORE small airports…it’s about replacing humans in ALL towers and ultimately in the TRACONs and ARTCCs.
I wonder if Mr. Van Beek has ever piloted a an aircraft into a tower controlled, or an uncontrolled airport? Before commenting on safety or efficiency, and making statements like, how these facilities would create “order out of chaos,” it would be a good experience to have. Most of us have had extensive landing and take off experience at uncontrolled airports. Personally I have never experienced chaos at these facilities, only order.
The camera and video screen arrangement he is talking about may have some benefit if they are truly effective and serve to eliminate personnel on fields with very little traffic. Then one could make an argument for combining workloads and automating a tower. That is what this is really about.
On the other hand if this were to be extended to fields that are uncontrolled now then we would experience the type of control exercised by NavCanada on little used airstrips north of the 48th parallel. These are airstrips where the main traffic is from starlings, and yet, when approaching or departing these airstrips pilots must radio every move to NavCanada and get clearance to move the aircraft even under VFR conditions. No wonder Canadian pilots have thrown in the towel on flying.
Mr. Van Beek is imprecise in defining how tower automation would be deployed and what criteria would be applied to determine which airfields would qualify for automation. Despite his glowing pitch for tower automation I have a concern that this could open the door for a tower at every strip and more over reach by the government. This could have a dampening effect on general aviation. As if we don’t have enough dampers in place now.
I imagine you are referring the whole of Canada when you state, ‘north of the 48th parallel’…? I’d have to disagree with your assumption that NavCanada controls all the small, non-towered airports. It is mandatory to review the specs and conditions before approaching any towered or non-towered fields of course which includes understanding the traffic patterns and radio frequencies. At non-towered airports we are required to call on the common frequency and report positions and intentions either to an FSS, UNICOM or traffic in the area. We’re pretty good at organizing ourselves and maintaining an orderly and safe sequence of approaches and departures without the aid of NavCanada.
We wonder if you have much experience at busy non-towered airports.
They are chaos and dangerous. These places have mixed traffic (training, local flying, distance flying), kites to fixed wing, helicopters to jets. And guys who do not know how to make a radio call. Worse? You can get guys with NO RADIO at all!
I avoid these places like the plague after more than a few near misses when I was hangared at one for two years once.