We live in a consumer society and we make economic decisions everyday. You can buy the ice cream, the latte, or put $3 in the college fund, but you can only choose one – and they’re all economic decisions. Back when the internet bubble was hot, there was a lot of discussion about Clicks versus Bricks, about which things to do online and which things to do in real life.
There are some things that it’s OK to buy online (clicks).
There are some things you should only buy in person, in the store (the bricks).
Clicks are virtual transactions. Bricks are transactions in a store with a physical presence; you’ve got to be there.
It’s okay to buy ballgame or show tickets online. People buy books and computers and music online. You might buy canned good and cereals from an online grocer.
When you buy gloves, you go to the store to buy them. Shoes are something you buy in person. Vegetables and fruit are something you buy in person.
Let’s see if we can categorize these two non-intersecting sets.
Football tickets, show tickets, books, computers, canned goods, cereals: the things we buy online are commodities. A commodity is some good for which there is demand, which is supplied without qualitative differentiation across a market.
Wristwatches, gloves, shoes, vegetables, fruit: the things we buy in person are an individualized, customized, situational product. They’re not commodities; they’re qualitatively differentiated. These buying decisions are complex interactions among available options.
The people that want to relocate your approach control, and the people who want to replace your tower with a virtual tower, believe that air traffic control service is a commodity. Route the comm lines using VoIP, route the radar sensor data over T-1 lines, and you can get it done from anywhere – and if you dumb it down enough, you can get it done by anybody.
And here’s a truth- part of the time, in normal operations during daylight hours and nice weather, you might get by with remote control ATC. A lot of low volume, normal ops / daytime / nice weather operations could probably get done that way.
However, the nonstandard operations, the night-time flying in hazardous weather, or the airplane with a problem – that’s not a commodity transaction, that’s an individualized, customized, situational product. You want a local craftsman who’s an expert in the area doing that work.
I think that everybody who believes that offsite Air Traffic Control is a great idea should buy their spouse or significant other some dress shoes and some nice gloves online, or else make the purchase over the phone to an offshore catalog phone center. Their spouse should have to wear them for a year. Most people wouldn’t take the risk.
If you wouldn’t buy shoes or gloves that way, why are we considering doing air traffic control that way?
Essential Reading 2.0 to 3.0
I say bring on the virtual towers. Start by testing one at DCA. NO need to keep the FAA tower staffed 24/7 as a backup for the first month. See what happens. I bet the virtual tower won’t last more than a week before some equipment crashes, with no on site backup, resulting in massive delays, or an emergency inbound needs assistance that can’t be provided by the virtual tower. Then let Congress (who love to fly out of DCA) decide if virtual towers are a good idea.
The public needs to become aware of the virtual tower future. I expect they won’t like it at all. Natca should be all over this.
If we have virtual towers, why not also have virtual pilots? I’m sure if you ask Airbus or Boeing if they need pilots and cockpits in the next generation of airplanes, they would say no. Extra space for revenue generating seats, the airlines would love it.
Would the passengers buy off on this? I wouldn’t.
C90 CPC is correct, NATCA should be all over virtual towers.
NATCA claims to have a long term approach to this. They better pick up the pace because this thing is real, it is happening now, and they are losing the battle.
NATCA is misreading the public sentiment on this, just like the lead up to the imposed work rules. The average person doesn’t care what general aviation pilots think about approach control realignment. They think GA pilots are rich people playing with rich people’s toys.
Do you want to get their attention? Tell them a drone tower will be responsible for ensuring the safety of their family the next time they fly out of LAN, TOL, BOI, YNG, etc.. Who knows, if this works then maybe the airlines will try it in the cockpit. It’s working in Afghanistan.
Wake up NATCA!
Calling it a drone tower, I think you’re on to something- most drone aircraft have someone at the controls, but remotely, just like the remote tower… how about homogenizing the nomenclature across the board?
Unmanned Aircraft System- UAS
Unmanned Airport System- UAS
no, that won’t quite work.
Well, right in the midst of remote towers (Properly called Staffed Nextgen Towers, SNT) what do you think a regular Nextgen tower is?
You got it- Automated Nextgen Tower, ANT.
Federal Aviation Administration National Airspace System Capital Investment Plan
Appendix B
Fiscal Years 2010 – 2014
http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ato/service_units/operations/sysengsaf/cip/files/FY10-14/FY10-14%20CIP%20Appendix%20B.pdf
“Staffed NextGen Tower (Staffed and Autonomous) – The staffed NextGen tower (SNT) project is planned for medium and high density airports as these airports are likely to have most aircraft equipped with avionics that will support SNT operations. A companion vision is for an Automated NextGen Tower (ANT) concept for non-towered and low density airports. The development of both the SNT and ANT automated tower capability are planned as part of this project. The SNT and ANT concepts will require substantial concept engineering funding commencing in FY 2010 as advanced decision support tools will be needed for such events as conformance monitoring using aircraft movement tracking and advanced Data Communications to ensure safe operations at non-towered airports. New capabilities such as pre-departure clearance, coded taxi routes, and runway balancing will lead to increased airport capacity, enhanced safety and increased efficiency as well reducing the user’s operational costs.”
Many other goodies in there.
“Automated problem prediction and resolution will allow the controller to handle more aircraft (i.e., demand) because predicted problems will be resolved strategically, reducing the number of situations that require multiple time-critical actions.”
Dave