Public Transport Experience: It's Not Gnats It's NATS (1)

NATS is the National Air Traffic Service, a Limited Company with three directors, which looks after every passenger flight in England and Wales. There is another NATS control centre at Prestwick which covers Scotland and Northern Ireland.

But it us nowhere near as simple as that.

Let us first go to the contact address given for the three current NATS directors, one if whom is the boss, Martin Rolfe.

He can be contracted at ...

4000 Parkway, Whitley, Fareham; here in fact.

This is NOT where Air Traffic Control happens. On the same site, we find two other companies ...

... Aquila and Frequentis.

Here is what Aquika does,

Aquila Air Traffic Management (ATM) Services transforms military and air surveillance requirements into fully integrated air traffic management and air defence solutions. We know our customers do extraordinary things; they have extraordinary requirements. To support our customer activity in the UK and beyond, they need the latest technology to watch, communicate with, navigate, land and manoeuvre aircraft. We deliver, integrate and support end-to-end ATM services and associated surveillance, communication and navigation equipment for both military and civil partners.

With expertise in the next generation of radar and radio technology, our 24-hour services enable our customers to operate air stations 24/7 . Our services ensure that aircraft can manoeuvre safely on land, sea and air. Using the latest commercial off the shelf (COTS) equipment, we deliver the whole package to our customers - from ATM system design and technology integration with existing systems, to training system users on the latest equipment and to supporting our customer 24/7.

So, at a guess, Aquila has the sonic screwdrivers to keep all the clever stuff working.

Only last week it didn't.

Then we have Frequentis.

The Austrian company Frequentis, headquartered in Vienna, is a global supplier of communication and information systems for control centres with safety-critical tasks. Such 'control centre solutions' are developed and marketed by Frequentis in the business sectors Air Traffic Management (civil and military air traffic control, air defence) and Public Safety & Transport (police, fire brigade, ambulance services, coast guards, port authorities, railways).

Frequentis develops and optimises systems for customers in safety-critical areas of the global mega-markets for transport and safety infrastructure – wherever efficient and flexible high-performance solutions are required. Increasing mobility, digitalisation, and rising safety and security requirements are driving long-term growth. Modern technologies are used to optimise control centres for traffic and public safety.

So Frequentis gubbins is about telling people what is happening and where; some sort of extensive telephone system but using lots of "communication and information systems".

Both Aquila and Frequentis have offices and staff on the Whiteley site, so they can spring into action and sort things out very quickly.

Only last week they couldn't.

But it all really happens just off the M27, down the road a bit, at Swanwick.

There is the NATS control centre, lower left, and the office block is at Whiteley, on the right.

So what happens at Swanwick? In essence there is a very big shed ...

... now with solar panels on the roof ...

... and loads more offices and technical stuff.

In the shed are lots of people beavering away at huge numbers of computer terminals. The picture below shows just a smidgen of the vast amount of technology and huge number if people to prod a frightening number of keyboards,

The statistics are, frankly, scary.

So if something goes wrong, it will go very wrong, as we saw last week.

But it isn't as simple as that!

In that big shed, there are THREE control centres all working together. In theory!

London Area Control Centre (LACC), which provides air traffic control services to aircraft operating in upper airspace over England and Wales within the London FIR.

fbb struggled with "FIR", but the interwebnet came up with a plausible answer. It is a Flight Information Region. So the London FIR encompasses England and wales.

London Terminal Control Centre (LTCC), which controls aircraft flying below 24,500ft flying to and from London's airports.

There are lots of "London" airports. Can you name them? We will identify them in due course.

No. 78 Squadron of the RAF, which provides military air traffic control services and distress and diversion services to civilian aircraft.

It was part of Bomber Command ...

... but is now based at Swanwick; but with no planes, air crew or airfield. It does have a new badge.

Its motto, Nemo Non Paratus, translates roughly as " Nobody is Unprepared".

The squadron is based at the Swanwick control centre and, last week, was most definitely unprepared for what happened - or rather what didn't happen to 2000 scheduled flights.

78 Squadron, Swanwick forms one part of the Air Command and Control Force, within Global Enablement, No.2 Group. It is embedded within the London Area Control Centre run by NATS. The Squadron is made up of many critical Air Traffic, Airspace Management and Air Defence sections.

The area control team support military and civilian flights throughout the UK Flight Information Region (FIR), with Northolt Radar supporting the terminal Air Traffic Control (ATC) task of RAF Northolt.

Distress and Diversion Cell is an emergency centre ready to assist aircraft in distress around the whole of the UK FIR, while also providing vital other supporting functions.

The Military Airspace Management Cell manage the UK Low Flying System and the segregation of large areas of airspace for military training.

The boss of 78 Squadron is Wing Commander Alexa Smith ...

... who is very real, very alive and has no connection whatsoever with one of these.

So the centre at Swanwick does three jobs, one of them mainly military; it consists of three commercial companies and lots of clever technology. But, last week, it wasn't clever enough!

NATS has a natty web site which enables the user to see what NATS is doing in real time.

You can see activity all over the UK.

But can you identify these SIX "London" Airports?

Nos 1 (the biggest) and No 2 (lots of water) should be easy. No 6 appeirs the least active?

Answers tomorrow, when fbb asks "What Went Wrong?"

Making Light Less Bright

The trouble with LEDs is that they are very bright and, usually, they are too dim to dim! You can paint them with dilute enamel but it can cast blotchy shadows.

It turns out the modern drinking straws are not straw (they never were) and nowadays they are not paper. fbb's purchase was a white plastic tube with a thin brown covering, possibly paper.