Towers of Tomorrow

Despite the increasing importance in recent decades of en route, departures and approach control, the most commonly recognised symbol of air traffic control remains the control tower. Inside controllers scan the sky, taxiways and aprons spotting aircraft and facilitating their movement to, from, and around an aerodrome. For pilots, the tower represents order and control; rules, procedures and radio calls to point aircraft the right way on taxiways and runways, and away from each other, above the ground, everywhere else.

The first control tower in Australia was a wooden-frame building extension, built on top of the Australian Aero Club building at Mascot, now Sydney Airport. It had a little gable roof, windows on all four sides, an external stairway and a flagstaff, from which coloured cane balls indicated its status. “Clearances” were issued as green or red lights or flares from an Aldis lamp or Very pistol.

By the 1950s, radio had taken over as preferred means of communications and the first use of ATC radar had commenced. The concept of separate Area Approach Control Centres was adopted, staffed by controllers who used radar technology to track aircraft in real-time, without binoculars. There have been numerous incarnations of ATC technology since, and it needs to be accepted that the future will bring more. Probably more than any other industry, aviation is subject to relentless demands from customers