feathers
April 2nd, 2004, 05:35 PM
Hi gents... I know I've been a little spotty lately, both on the scopes and in the forums. I'll save the excuses for when I really need them. ^_^
Today, SATCA (the ATC club at Mt. SAC) went for a tower tour at Lindburgh field in San Diego. For those who are unfamiliar, it's a single runway (9/27) approximately 9000 feet long with a single full-length taxiway. Talk about your challenges! Just to make life even more fun, it's a LOC/DME apporach on 27 due to terrain (which includes the city of San D itself). The workers there said an unobstructed glidescope path would have to be over 4 degrees downslope... a little hairy in an aircraft! There is a rather lengthy displaced threshold on 27 as well due to 'terrain'.
The view from the cab was fantastic (although it was a bit hazy, we were told you can see clear into Mexico on a good day). It was downright cool to see approaching aircraft skimming over the buildings of downtown on their way in. Both ground and local have a BRITE and a ground surveilence radar set, complete with a runway occupation warning system. Crossing bars go up (on the display) when the runway is (or is about to be) occupied and if anyone puts a nose over the bar, a voice in the cab says 'Warning! Runway occupied! Go around!'
Pretty cool to watch the aircraft coming in on the BRITE, pick them up visually and then watch them 'tag up' on the ground radar (yes, the ground radar tags landings based on the BRITE). I was interested to see that the BRITE (at least the one at KSAN tower) is a relay of the ARTS information _only_: Just tags and target symbols, some dotted lines to show Class Bravo boundries and a list of inbounds at the lower right. It does not show the radar sweep or primary targets (I swear I've seen some that do).
Our cab tour group arrived just in time to hear clearance give one out and we were there when the strip printer spit out a new strip for him. They have the newer thermal strip printers, so they slide right out and get cut on the fly. Oddly enough, nobody uses strip-holders in the tower: They have felt pads that they lay the strips on to keep them from sliding around. There's also the 'Strip-O-Matic', a nice custom wood channel that allows DEL to shoot a strip over to GND with just a flick of the finger.
One thing I did notice is that the tower didn't have a new-style VSCS with touch screens, rather the old-school pushbutton system. I saw a call go out from the supervisor to confirm about a parachute jump, but none of the controllers made any calls to SoCal (KSAN has a 'silent release' agreement with SoCal). I would hazard the following, though: Perhaps override only works on the new VSCS equipment and between new VSCS systems (which most center and TRACON installs would have). At towers and FSSs, the old equipment may still use the interphone land-line system, requiring a call that needs to be answered on the other end. I will see if research on this idea leads anywhere. It may be the key to figuring out how tower and TRACON should interact on the G/G.
I would have asked someone in the know, but there was little time. Plus, it seems the mention of VATSIM still elicits ribbing and good-natured laughing from the SATCA members. I didn't want to step into that tarpit. At least, not yet. And yet, the guy from Van Nuys tower who came to speak to us on Monday was a VATSIMer and said it helped him quite a lot. In fact, he was trained on ZLA by a current class member (how's that for irony?).
Alas, our time up there was too short. I could have stayed all day and never gotten tired of it. The view, the aircraft... listening to the controllers, it was sweet. Luckily for me, I won't be away from the environment long. Next Friday, AIRT42 is taking a field-trip to KLAX tower. And I just found out today, that the Friday after next, SATCA is going to KONT tower, where the old radar equipment is still hooked up and active in the base of the tower. Rumor has it they're willing to open up the room and let us play with it... ^_^
Looks like my SATCA dues are finally starting to reap dividends. Reports forthcoming, if anyone is interested.
James
Today, SATCA (the ATC club at Mt. SAC) went for a tower tour at Lindburgh field in San Diego. For those who are unfamiliar, it's a single runway (9/27) approximately 9000 feet long with a single full-length taxiway. Talk about your challenges! Just to make life even more fun, it's a LOC/DME apporach on 27 due to terrain (which includes the city of San D itself). The workers there said an unobstructed glidescope path would have to be over 4 degrees downslope... a little hairy in an aircraft! There is a rather lengthy displaced threshold on 27 as well due to 'terrain'.
The view from the cab was fantastic (although it was a bit hazy, we were told you can see clear into Mexico on a good day). It was downright cool to see approaching aircraft skimming over the buildings of downtown on their way in. Both ground and local have a BRITE and a ground surveilence radar set, complete with a runway occupation warning system. Crossing bars go up (on the display) when the runway is (or is about to be) occupied and if anyone puts a nose over the bar, a voice in the cab says 'Warning! Runway occupied! Go around!'
Pretty cool to watch the aircraft coming in on the BRITE, pick them up visually and then watch them 'tag up' on the ground radar (yes, the ground radar tags landings based on the BRITE). I was interested to see that the BRITE (at least the one at KSAN tower) is a relay of the ARTS information _only_: Just tags and target symbols, some dotted lines to show Class Bravo boundries and a list of inbounds at the lower right. It does not show the radar sweep or primary targets (I swear I've seen some that do).
Our cab tour group arrived just in time to hear clearance give one out and we were there when the strip printer spit out a new strip for him. They have the newer thermal strip printers, so they slide right out and get cut on the fly. Oddly enough, nobody uses strip-holders in the tower: They have felt pads that they lay the strips on to keep them from sliding around. There's also the 'Strip-O-Matic', a nice custom wood channel that allows DEL to shoot a strip over to GND with just a flick of the finger.
One thing I did notice is that the tower didn't have a new-style VSCS with touch screens, rather the old-school pushbutton system. I saw a call go out from the supervisor to confirm about a parachute jump, but none of the controllers made any calls to SoCal (KSAN has a 'silent release' agreement with SoCal). I would hazard the following, though: Perhaps override only works on the new VSCS equipment and between new VSCS systems (which most center and TRACON installs would have). At towers and FSSs, the old equipment may still use the interphone land-line system, requiring a call that needs to be answered on the other end. I will see if research on this idea leads anywhere. It may be the key to figuring out how tower and TRACON should interact on the G/G.
I would have asked someone in the know, but there was little time. Plus, it seems the mention of VATSIM still elicits ribbing and good-natured laughing from the SATCA members. I didn't want to step into that tarpit. At least, not yet. And yet, the guy from Van Nuys tower who came to speak to us on Monday was a VATSIMer and said it helped him quite a lot. In fact, he was trained on ZLA by a current class member (how's that for irony?).
Alas, our time up there was too short. I could have stayed all day and never gotten tired of it. The view, the aircraft... listening to the controllers, it was sweet. Luckily for me, I won't be away from the environment long. Next Friday, AIRT42 is taking a field-trip to KLAX tower. And I just found out today, that the Friday after next, SATCA is going to KONT tower, where the old radar equipment is still hooked up and active in the base of the tower. Rumor has it they're willing to open up the room and let us play with it... ^_^
Looks like my SATCA dues are finally starting to reap dividends. Reports forthcoming, if anyone is interested.
James