Have you noticed that at every airport you’ve been to, there’s a tower sticking out, covered with tinted glass? Ever wondered what an air traffic control tower is really like on the inside? Does the control room spin into craziness due to a hijacking or a mid-air collision, as Hollywood leads most to believe?
It’s really just spin-y chairs and coffee.
In aviation, ATC usually stands for air traffic control. In Canada, it is a sector privately operated by NAV Canada. The acronym of the Aerospace Technology Campus, ATC, tends to mislead people about the programs here–BCIT does not train air traffic controllers, at least not initially. But our campus does have two awesome air traffic control simulation laboratories. They are as real as we can get to the real thing! In one room five flatscreen monitors display a virtual 250-degree view of any airport (with available information already programmed into the system, that is) to mimic windows in a real ATC tower. There are radio head sets, flight progress strips, spin-y chairs; the whole shebang! The only thing missing is a coffee maker and numerous mugs.
BCIT’s air traffic control simulation lab. We’re cool like that.
The other sim room is the “feed” room where we act as pilots of inbound/outbound aircraft and feed information over the radio for students in the tower room to practice response with. The tower room has stations for three control roles: ground (takes care of aircraft taxiing, push-back and other ground maneuvers), tower (landing and take-off) and enroute (aircraft passing through airspace).
It’s such a sad, sad shame that only the Aviation Operations programs (that is, commercial pilot program and airport ops program) get to use this lab. Each student gets four hours of lab time in here only once in the program, and the lab remains empty for most of the year.
On my two workplace practicums, I got to see what air traffic control is really like. I went to the Canadian Rockies International Airport in Cranbrook, BC, for my first practicum this April. They have a flight service station (FSS) instead of a tower, which means that they give information but are not responsible for giving specific instructions for clearances or providing separation. Of course, things are naturally quieter at a smaller airport, but I did see spin-y chairs, a few coffee makers and numerous mugs.
At Vancouver International Airport (YVR), however, it’s often a tight show. I followed a tour of the tower there during my second practicum this summer, and it’s pretty big. Standing 19-storeys high, the top floor has real windows (le gasp!) that overlook all of Sea Island and beyond.
Here is a clip I took on the tour; sadly, there was no dramatic tension when we went, everything was nice and calm. No matter what, coffee and spin-y chairs are always there!