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Computers and ATC

I just found a very nice computerphile-video about the basic history of computer useage in British ATC:



Last Edited by mh at 12 Oct 21:45
mh
Aufwind GmbH
EKPB, Germany

Really interesting – thanks for posting that mh.

I have visited both West Drayton and Swanwick centres. At WD we had a good look-around and a play on their ATC training simulator. At Swanwick security was tight and we saw nothing; just got a talk from a couple of guys, one of whom said categorically that if you set 7600 you will be shot down (he confirmed that when I asked him to). We saw some videos of big drama moments in the air; one was a 747 with all four engines apparently about to fail, and the USAF lady pilot did some great flying to get it down fast, but it turned out to be faulty instrument readings! They showed stats of CAS busts, etc.

Fun to hear about System/360 emulation mode. IBM were very clever to make that available. In the 1980s at my then firm we developed some IBM-plug-compatible coax and twinax boxes…

NATS’ present software is still poor however. For example when NATS receive a flight plan with multiple levels in it, they see only the first one. So if you file for FL100 and 2 hours later FL150 they see only the FL100. I have a presentation slide confirming this but can’t post it because it may not be public. So if you file for say FL040 out of EGKA increasing to FL100 at KONAN, they look at the FL040, decide it is in Class G, and toss it out, and when you depart you don’t have a flight plan in the system! Belgium will have their copy allright (sent to them by Eurocontrol, as happens all along the route) but you have to get there first… probably the best way would be to change your flight to a “VFR local east” and pop up at KONAN

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

one of whom said categorically that if you set 7600 you will be shot down (he confirmed that when I asked him to).

Fortunately this isn’t true, at least in Germany. I have squawked 7600 two times now due to old steam radio / headset malfunction just after contacting ATC / getting my clearance and other than the military calling my departure (for asking where I was going) and destination aerodrome (for giving them a head’s up) and asking for confirmation I had landed safe, nothing happened.

I am not too savvy on the computers, but some here are so I thought I’d share. The Channels of Brady Haran are all very interesting: http://www.bradyharan.com/

mh
Aufwind GmbH
EKPB, Germany

Peter wrote:

just got a talk from a couple of guys, one of whom said categorically that if you set 7600 you will be shot down (he confirmed that when I asked him to

He might have said that but I don’t believe him for a microsecond. Are they really going to shoot down a plane full of passengers, where the flaming wreckage could fall in a populated area, without discretion or second thought? Another Lockerbie when someone just accidentally entered a wrong code into a transponder?

They might send up a couple of Typhoons, but they aren’t going to pull the trigger unless they absolutely have to.

Last Edited by alioth at 13 Oct 08:53
Andreas IOM

Of course it is nonsense. I just posted it to illustrate what the level of the presentation was. I think it was a missed opportunity.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

A few months ago I saw some working documents on the ongoing software development for the French ATC. Plenty of automated functions like decluttering the radar view from irrelevant aircraft, detection of potential separation busts by track extrapolation, etc. The three biggest issues in the development are:

  • Handling a great many special cases, e.g. when an aircraft flying an ATC heading is instructed to resume own navigation and has already started a turn but the track has not yet stabilised, and all that while a handover to another ATC sector is in progress.
  • Integrating new pieces of software with 20-year-old ones without any changes to the old code (lots of kludges and workarounds).
  • Running a real-time distributed system over an asynchronous, anisochronous message-based network.
Last Edited by Ultranomad at 13 Oct 12:55
LKBU (near Prague), Czech Republic

Ultranomad wrote:

anisochronous message-based network

Lovely.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Here is a part two on that topic



mh
Aufwind GmbH
EKPB, Germany

Many thanks for pointing that, @mh

Very interesting. PDP11…

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

if you set 7600 you will be shot down

If I were insane, trigger-happy and in ATC, I would probably itch more in my trigger-finger at a 7500 squawk.7600 is an almost everyday occurrence and does not offer any obvious excuses to do anything but try to help.

Apart from that … what a very silly thing to say.

Last Edited by huv at 29 Oct 15:03
huv
EKRK, Denmark
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