Airliners-India

karatecatman · Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 1:44 pm Post subject: New ATC system at New Delhi

TIMES OF INDIA
New Hi-tech ATC system coming, to track movement of flights in real time
Saurabh Sinha
TNN
4 November 2009

Saurabh Sinha | tnn

New Delhi: India is all set to become the first developing nation to get an air traffic flow system, which only countries like US, Canada and Europe currently have. Somewhat similar in appearance to a satellite launch control room, the air traffic control (ATC) building in Delhi will get a central flow management system within two years. The new system will have giant screens which will display in real time everything over the Indian skies tracing movement of each aircraft over the country's airspace, weather conditions and any obstruction at an airport here. At present, radars show aircraft as a blip only till a range of 200 miles from airports.

"This system will help us minimize delays. If the system shows bad weather conditions developing in a certain area, we can direct the aircraft to avoid that stretch. If at any given time the number of aircraft approaching an airport is such that there may be congestion, we can ask other planes heading to that airport to slow down or even delay take-off from origins. It will take India into the league of most advanced nations as far as ATC is concerned,'' said V P Agarwal, chairman Airports Authority of India (AAI).

The AAI had paid about Rs 3 crore to the US Federal Aviation Administration to give consultation for this ambitious project and the latter have now chosen an American firm, Mitre Corp, for implementing this at a cost of nearly Rs 150 crore by end of 2011. "This is likely to be installed on the third floor of the ATC building in Delhi,'' said Agarawal.

Airlines will be able to get real time information from this system and arrange departures according to actual developments of the day. In case of sudden adverse weather, equipment outages, runway closures or any other emergency, the system will enable controllers to adjust traffic according to capacity.

The model for India is the famous US Air Traffic Control System Command Center in Washington which had become operational in 1994. This system enables traffic controllers to predict traffic surges and volume based on current and anticipated airborne aircraft. Automatic alerts, if any, are generated if the number of aircraft going to arrive at an airport is more than its capacity. Armed with this information, air traffic controller's provide routes and spacing to assist in controlling the traffic flow.
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