Airport.

[Roger Mexico]

22 minutes ago, 0bserver said:

We don't have our own CAA. We only have a CAA.

I'm not sure what you mean but there is certainly an Isle of Man Government Civil Aviation Authority (and has been since 2007) as part of the DfE.  It even has its own Wiki (though not till this year, which shows how important people think it is).  It has its own Facebook, which seems obsessed with stopping people using drones under any circumstances.

It has a staff of five: two Directors, two Managers and one other person.  So a fairly typical government office. 

[0bserver]

9 minutes ago, Roger Mexico said:

I'm not sure what you mean but there is certainly an Isle of Man Government Civil Aviation Authority (and has been since 2007) as part of the DfE.  It even has its own Wiki (though not till this year, which shows how important people think it is).  It has its own Facebook, which seems obsessed with stopping people using drones under any circumstances.

It has a staff of five: two Directors, two Managers and one other person.  So a fairly typical government office. 

We had an Administration. The UK has an Authority.

[madmanxpilot]

5 minutes ago, 0bserver said:

We had an Administration. The UK has an Authority.

Whatever the name, they have clout. It was they who instructed the ATC boss at Ronaldsway to close 21/03 until he came up with a procedure for using it, and they who grounded Manx2 due to safety issues.

[Derek Flint]

2 hours ago, Boo Gay'n said:

This is a genuine question, and I have no idea what the answer will be.  It seems that we have some aviation experts on the forum - hence asking it.

Is it an international requirement that an airfield has its own ATC?  In other words, could our control be from, say, Liverpool, without breaking any rules?

It might sound daft, but in a Ronaldsway context, what does the tower do?  The pilots seem to operate on visual parameters, so as long as someone told them that there was an aircraft about to taxi to the runway, would they not be safe with assistance from a distance?

 

2 hours ago, ellanvannin2010 said:

LPL were looking to do so for other airports back in 2014, No idea if it went ahead or not.

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/business/john-lennon-airport-looks-provide-7216977.

LCY use remote ATC of some sort I think too.

Liverpool were running Doncaster remotely. They could do the IOM airspace the same way. The key requirement if I recall correctly is you need a human in the tower - LCY however is a virtual tower.

it is probably tech- sortable, but they will be concerned about giving up ‘sovereignty’, rather than accepting the place is an isolated village with a lifeline airport.

 

[asitis]

15 minutes ago, Derek Flint said:

it is probably tech- sortable

....... as was the Italian Radar, no thanks I'd rather risk my neck with the good guys here thanks !

[0bserver]

1 hour ago, madmanxpilot said:

Whatever the name, they have clout. It was they who instructed the ATC boss at Ronaldsway to close 21/03 until he came up with a procedure for using it, and they who grounded Manx2 due to safety issues.

What sort of procedure do they need? 

 

And that's a positive if it grounded those cowboys.

[madmanxpilot]

2 minutes ago, 0bserver said:

What sort of procedure do they need? 

 

And that's a positive if it grounded those cowboys.

Agree x 2.

[Derek Flint]

2 hours ago, Boo Gay'n said:

This is a genuine question, and I have no idea what the answer will be.  It seems that we have some aviation experts on the forum - hence asking it.

Is it an international requirement that an airfield has its own ATC?  In other words, could our control be from, say, Liverpool, without breaking any rules?

It might sound daft, but in a Ronaldsway context, what does the tower do?  The pilots seem to operate on visual parameters, so as long as someone told them that there was an aircraft about to taxi to the runway, would they not be safe with assistance from a distance?

 

2 hours ago, ellanvannin2010 said:

LPL were looking to do so for other airports back in 2014, No idea if it went ahead or not.

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/business/john-lennon-airport-looks-provide-7216977.

LCY use remote ATC of some sort I think too.

Liverpool were running Doncaster remotely. They could do the IOM airspace the same way. The key requirement if I recall correctly is you need a human in the tower - LCY however is a virtual tower.

it is probably tech- sortable, but they will be concerned about giving up ‘sovereignty’, rather than accepting the place is an isolated village with a lifeline airport.

 

[Giggleberrys]

34 minutes ago, Derek Flint said:

 

Liverpool were running Doncaster remotely. They could do the IOM airspace the same way. The key requirement if I recall correctly is you need a human in the tower - LCY however is a virtual tower.

it is probably tech- sortable, but they will be concerned about giving up ‘sovereignty’, rather than accepting the place is an isolated village with a lifeline airport.

 

Anything is possible with a bottomless budget and plenty of time.......I don't think Ronaldsway currently has either.

 

If ATC was outsourced (for example to Peel Holdings who run Liverpool) it wouldn't be as a charitable gift, it would more likely cost more than it currently does being run "in house". You only have to look at the Baggage handling and Security which have both gone "out of house" in recent years and you wonder if either of those decisions were actually beneficial to the Airport users

[Ringy Rose]

3 hours ago, Derek Flint said:

Liverpool were running Doncaster remotely. They could do the IOM airspace the same way.

Liverpool were doing approach radar only, Doncaster did airfield control locally. Maybe it would work here, but approach radar isn't really the issue here.

I don't get the obsession with remote ATC. You still need the ATC operators, and they still cost money.

And when the data link goes down, you have no airport. Fine at City when NATS is 20 miles down the road and you can get ATC operators on site quickly, but a bit more of a bugger on an island.

There's a reason why they abandoned the plans in the Highlands and Islands.

[madmanxpilot]

24 minutes ago, Ringy Rose said:

.

And when the data link goes down, you have no airport.

Not quite. Approaches would be done ‘procedurally’, where pilots navigate via specific waypoints on to the instrument approach. Separation between aircraft is done by position reports and onward clearance given by the local controller - provided they are appropriately qualified. It happens now when the radar is off for whatever reason. It is however a time consuming process as typically only one aircraft can be on approach at any one time

Having said all that, having  local radar and tower controllers is by far the optimal situation. 

[dreamon]

Plenty of reading matter on line re the attempt at introducing remote ATC in the Highlands & Islands, as Gary Cobb will know - being as it took place and was shelved during his watch.

This is just one link:

https://www.whatsoninshetland.com/bill-for-remote-air-traffic-control-project-tops-6m-so-far/

 

 

[Roger Mexico]

1 hour ago, dreamon said:

Plenty of reading matter on line re the attempt at introducing remote ATC in the Highlands & Islands, as Gary Cobb will know - being as it took place and was shelved during his watch.

This is just one link:

https://www.whatsoninshetland.com/bill-for-remote-air-traffic-control-project-tops-6m-so-far/

To be fair Cobb only joined H&I in May 2020, so most of that spending will have been before.  Still it explains why even Ronaldsway looked like an attractive alternative after that.

[CallMeCurious]

5 hours ago, Ringy Rose said:

Liverpool were doing approach radar only, Doncaster did airfield control locally. Maybe it would work here, but approach radar isn't really the issue here.

I don't get the obsession with remote ATC. You still need the ATC operators, and they still cost money.

And when the data link goes down, you have no airport. Fine at City when NATS is 20 miles down the road and you can get ATC operators on site quickly, but a bit more of a bugger on an island.

There's a reason why they abandoned the plans in the Highlands and Islands.

"The airport will re-open once the ferry from Liverpool arrives. Unfoutunately due to the prevailing wind and tidal conditions the master is still trying to find a way out of the Irish Sea wind farm maze. If all else fails, we have a jet ski on standby in Heysham"...   

[Ringy Rose]

13 hours ago, madmanxpilot said:

It happens now when the radar is off for whatever reason

Apologies, I was referring to the City solution of having both approach radar and airfield control done remotely from NATS. 

Having approach radar from Liverpool wouldn't be so bad, but again not sure it would achieve anything.