Air Traffic Services

Here is my short paper I wrote a while ago about my visit to the Department of Civil Aviation Air Traffic Control back in 2014.


Air Traffic Services

Air Traffic Services (ATS) are divided into three which are:
1)      Air Traffic Control service
2)      Flight Information services
3)      Alerting services

According to annex 11, the objectives of Air Traffic Services are:
a)      to prevent collisions between aircraft
b)      to prevent collisions between aircraft and vehicles and between aircraft and obstructions
c)      to expedite and maintain a safe and orderly flow of traffic
d)      to give advice and information useful for the sage and efficient conduct of flights
e)      to notify appropriate organisations regarding aircraft in need of search and rescue assistance and giving help to such organisations as required.

Malaysian Aviation Academy

Malaysian Aviation Academy (MAvA) is an academy set up by the Malaysian government to provide Air Traffic Management courses for aspiring individuals. It was established under the Malaysian Technical Cooperation Program that seeks to promote and facilitate technical cooperation amongst developing countries based on the concept of self reliance. Formal training for ATM courses has had a history dating back to the 1960s, but the current building as it exists today in Sepang was only completed in 2009.

It currently houses two radar simulators of 25 nodes, a number of non radar simulators, 3 units of 2-D aerodrome simulators and one unit of 360 degrees aerodrome simulator.

The following are the courses offered at MavA based on the Department of Civil Aviation website:
·         Primary ATC
·         Aerodrome Control Course
·         Approach Procedure Control Course
·         Approach Radar Control Course
·         Approach Radar Control Course (Conversion)
·         Area Procedure Control Course
·         Area Radar Control Course
·         Air Traffic Flow Management Course
·         Search and rescue Mission Coordinator (SAR MC)
·         Aeronautical Fixed Service
·         HF / Aeronautical Mobile Service
·         Automatic Message Switching System
·         Basic Instructional Techniques
·         RVSM / RNAV Routes training
·         ATC Automation
·         Aviation Technical English
·         Obstacle Clearance Limitation

The writer had a chance to visit the academy to witness himself the facilities that are being used. The first stop was to the area control, where the area was divided into two rooms, the first room was where the TWR officers were, and they will monitor the movements of the aircraft while the second room is where the “pilots” who are navigating the aircraft being monitored by TWR is placed. The students will get a chance to try both facilities. The students simulating the pilots, will get a chance to understand the type of commands to be used to reinforce their understanding of all the commands. Thus, when they work in the tower later on, they could relate more with the pilots' situation.

Those in the first room will give guidance like weather information, flight level advisory, traffic flow and others. In order to separate two or more flights from each other in terms of distance, they use the flight progress strip using what we call the procedural control.

Basically there are two main techniques controllers use to organize them, in order to maintain smooth flight operations. They are either grouped by altitude, or grouped together by route intersection points.

For altitude groupings, each of the aircraft's strip is placed in a labelled section of the strip rack called bay, depending on its altitude. Aircraft which are located on different altitudes, will have their strips on different bays, and thus will not collide. For the strips that do get placed in the same bay, they will need to be monitored. If aircraft that wishes to move to a different altitude, it will need to be checked with other aircraft based on the strips.

The second method, which the writer notices was used during the visit, was the fix posting area, or those based on the route intersection points. Aircraft on different routes will only possibly conflict at intersection points with other routes, or with aircraft on the same route. Each intersection point in the sector is made into a separate bay on the strip rack, and multiple strips are printed for each aircraft, one per bay. The controller will sort out the strips, once an aircraft passes on one point, the strip will be changed to another.

The position of the strip in the board is a significant part of the information of the strip board: approach and area controllers typically keep their strips in level or altitude order, whereas tower controllers use the bays to represent the ground, the runway and the air. Each bay may be sub-divided using 'designator strips' and metal bars to allow even more information to be portrayed by the position of a flight progress strip. Other special strips can be used to indicate special airspace statuses, or to represent the presence of physical obstructions or vehicles on the ground. They may even be used to provide a quick reminder to the controller of other pertinent information, e.g. the time when night begins or ends.

We then were brought to the approach classroom where they have a similar structure there, with two rooms provided. The safe separation distances are between 7-10 miles and the capacity which currently ATC in our country could handle is estimated to be 30 aircraft at a time.

Approach control classroom

Next we were brought to the aerodrome control room. Here it gets most interesting, with the classrooms now are provided either with 270 or 360 degree aerodrome simulator, which simulates the actual environment in an airport with controllers overlooking the aircraft movements.

The tower is responsible for handling of the aircraft that touch-down and take-off. The issuance of landing clearance is based upon the judgment made by the approach control radar (sequences) and upon approaching the landing entry point, the tower has to ensure that the movement of the airside especially at the runway are cleared from any ground activities.

The aerodrome control also needs to report any activities that is happening at the airside (such as construction near the runway, movement of ground handling and marshals vehicle at the airside, accident and incident that occur at the airside or within the terminal ground terminal building and so on) through means of communication (such as TELEX or radio communication) to avoid any confusion, misunderstanding, hazardous incidents, or any calamities that could cause unwanted occurrences to the flight and the safety of all those on board.

Conclusion

The visit has been an eye freshener to the wonderful and exciting world of working in the air traffic control. It is an interesting prospect and the job also pays quite well. The task done is very crucial to the safeness of the movements of aircraft and people on board. The facilities at the academy are  well-suited for the purpose and provides for an excellent mechanism for the dissemination of knowledge.