Menu Sign In Contact FAQ
Banner
Welcome to our forums

Remotely controlled airport towers

All contracts signed now, so in 2-3 years 15 airport towers in Norway will be remotely controlled (including the two on an R&D basis today).

http://www.kongsberg.com/en/kog/news/2015/august/avinor%20and%20kongsberg%20enters%20into%20agreement/

They will all be remotely controlled from a “tower central” in Bodø. For GA it means tower services 24/7 on all this airports. It’s very limited opening hours today due to limited traffic. That’s the theory, at least. How it actually becomes in practice remains to be seen. GA can use these airports outside opening hours today also, but only day VFR.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

This is great news. I hope other countries are watching.

Kongsberg was a big customer of mine in the 1980s

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I could program a remote German Flugleiter (AFIS). On every radio transmission it would respond with either “watch for traffic in the pattern” or “landing at own discretion”, chosen by random. I guess a lot of money could be made!

Article part

I don’t know how real this is.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

This is very real and will be implemented in many places in the very near future. DFS here in Germany have conducted their first successful tests about a year ago. Saarbrücken (EDDR) is scheduled to be fully remotely operated later this year. http://www.ihsairport360.com/article/8194/dfs-tests-first-remote-tower-services-successfully

Last Edited by what_next at 06 May 13:26
EDDS - Stuttgart

5 airports will get it this year in Norway. 15 more until 2020. Then I guess it will be everywhere sooner or later. They have worked with this for some years now, testing and stuff on one airport.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

If it allows more airports to have IR services and after hours capability in “are-you-crazy-we-can’t-allow-IFR-flight-without-a-tower” obsessed Europe, then I’m all for it.

Adam, we´re presently talking about airfields with less than 10.000 IFR-movements a year, less than 50 on the busiest day. No matter how you let controllers do their stuff on such a field, it will not be a profitable business.

EDFE, EDFZ, KMYF, Germany

The only way I can imagine this investment to be profitable (i.e. being cheaper to operate than an on-site TWR in the long run) is one controller working multiple airports simultaneously. Wonder if DFS or any other ANSP is planning on doing this?

Friedrichshafen EDNY
92 Posts
Sign in to add your message

Back to Top