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Air Traffic Controller are constantly in contact with aircraft in the sky.
They guide them using radar and radio via a network of air routes from take off to landing.
Anonymous and unknown to the passengers, they are, together with the pilots, responsible for the safety of people and machines.
Until recently, air traffic control in each country was handled by national control centres.
In the future, the European upper airspace - for long range and inter-continental flights - will be guarded by a new European organization: Eurocontrol.
The headquarters of this first European organization for the safety of air traffic is located in Brussels.
It currently has seven member-states: UK, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, France, Ireland, West Germany and Belgium.
Eurocontrol is a result of the desire for European cooperation.
This was mainly out of a technical necessity.
Today, jet aircraft are used for most flights. Because of their high speed, these overfly a state within a few minutes.
This results in quick transfers from one control centre to the next, which is difficult for both controllers and pilots.
This requires us to reduce the number of upper area centres as much as possible.
To date, Eurocontrol has established 3 automated control centres.
The first one is located in Maastricht in the Netherlands.
In March of this year (1972), it has taken over control in the upper airspace above Belgium and Luxembourg.
The second one is planned for Shannon, Ireland.
Finally, for the south of Germany, a centre is foreseen in Karlsruhe.
Our organization has also established a school in Luxembourg.
SInce 1970, this has catered for the training of air traffic control personnel.
The first international school for training air traffic controllers is located in Luxembourg.
Here, people from the seven member-states are being trained for the upper area centres.
Candidates for becoming a controller at Eurocontrol are mostly recruited from high school graduates.
They are at least 18 years and maximum 25 years old.
Eligibility is dependent on a selection test.
This selection test itself consists of interviews, a medical exam, an English test and most importantly, a psychological aptitude test.
The training lasts for about 2 years.
During this period, students receive a grant as well as a comprehensive social security package.
The training starts with a 5 month theoretical course.
Some of the subjects include: aerodynamics, meteorology, navigation, radiotelephony and phraseology.
This is followed by a 6 week familiarization in an actual air traffic control centre.
Then follows a 4 month course at the Institute, specifically on controlling aircraft with and without radar.
Over the last 12 months, students practice in different functions at a control centre.
They then finally obtain a license which allows them to control aircraft.
The lectures are given in English,
During this lecture, an airplane's altimeter is explained.
Part of the basic training are tower control procedures.
Take-off, landing and surface movements can all be accurately simulated. Listen to a take-off clearance...
Half of the school's students act as controllers, the other half play pilots.
As directed by the controller, small airplanes are moved along the runways.
Subject: Procedural Control In one room, the pilots. In the other, the controllers - here as planning controllers.
Flight progress strips contain the most important parameters for a flight as well as the routing with required reporting points.
Using these strips, controllers coordinate, plan and separate the air traffic assigned to them.
As in real life, pilots report their positions and estimates to the controllers via radio.
Coaches monitor the exchanges and can step in at any time to correct.
Subject: Radar Control
State of the art simulators with controller and pilot positions allow a lifelike practical training required by the demanding profession.
Pilots can simulate climbs, descends, straight flights and turns.
Next door, the flight progress is displayed on the screen of the controller.
The trainee first learns to control one aircraft, then several and eventually learns conflict situations.
Girls on control positions will no longer be an exception in the future. They have the same career opportunities.
Subject: Radar Control using synthetic display
Next training step: controlling aircraft using computer driven radar screens.
Scenarios created in the school's own data center are transferred to the simulation room.
On the radar screens, these appear as moving aircraft echo's called targets.
This synthetically generated image doesn't only show the targets, but also attaches the flight's identity and height.
LXLGA is a Luxair flight at flight level 120, which corresponds to 12,000 feet or 4000 meter.
Behind is Lufthansa 497 who is climbing.
Located about one hour flying from Luxembourg, in the Netherlands, lies the first Eurocontrol centre where the practical part of the training is conducted.
We're on the approach to Beek airport, where the Eurocontrol Agency has built the Maastricht Air Traffic Control Centre.
In the training of controllers and assistants, this centre plays an important role, as it is the first and for the foreseeable future, the only operational unit of the organization.
Currently, about 40% of our staff are in different stages of their practical training, controlling the upper airspace above Belgium and Luxembourg.
Next expansion steps are that by 1974, we will take over the upper airspace above northern Germany.
And by the end of 1975, we should be taking over the service in the Dutch upper airspace.
In order to be able to do this, we'll need at least 200 capable controllers and 100 equally capable assistants.
Since March this year (1972), controllers from 7 states are working in Maastricht Control.
They guide flights across a network of routes in the air.
Long range and intercontinental flights fly in all directions.
In high traffic, radar controllers are required to control a large number of aircraft at the same time.
A responsible job, which a trainee can only take on after a long practical training and several exams.
After two years of training, Frenchman Patrice BŽhier is taking his practical exam as planning controller today.
How will you solve this problem? Two aircraft at the same height with only 8 minutes separation...
I will solve this problem by requesting the Air France at a different level, for example flight level 280.
The examiners are from Germany and the UK.
The decisions of the examinee are discussed during a debriefing afterwards.
Do you believe, mr BŽhier, that you're solution to separate the two aircraft was the optimal one, or can you imagine a better solution?
In my opinion, changing level for the Air France was the safest and most efficient way to solve this.
We think you could have used your radar controller: 8 minutes correspond to 50 nautical miles. Using radar, only 5 nautical miles are needed and no level change was needed.
From today on then, mr. BŽhier, when the necessary entries are made in your license, you are allowed to work solo on the planning position in the West sector.
The Maastricht Head of Operations, mr. Watkins, hands Patrice BŽhier his license that allows him to control aircraft without radar.
Frankfurt-Main airport: every morning, LH030 takes off from here on the way to London.
By following this flight, which also flies through the Maastricht airspace, we can see the interaction between controllers and the cockpit.
Immediately after the start, the flight plan for LH030 arrives in Maastricht via teletype.
Assistant controllers transfer the flight data onto flight progress strips.
For every mandatory reporting point, one strips is made.
Today they are handwritten, but soon this will be done by computers.
This is also the first position Luxembourg students occupy. This phase lasts 6 weeks.
The written strips contain flight number, aircraft type, altitude, speed, departure and destination as well as the estimates for the reporting points.
They are distributed to the strip boards of the planning controllers.
This is also where the more advanced controller trainees work.
Planning controllers make a control plan in advance and integrate the flights according to the overflight times.
The telephone coordinations from adjacent control centres also arrive here.
A call from Frankfurt control centre: LH030, a Boeing 727 from Frankfurt to London Heathrow at flight level 240 will be overhead DELTA at 09:01.
DELTA is the first reporting point in the east sector of Maastricht Control.
After the planning controller has confirmed the transfer, he hands one strip to an assistant controller.
She types the callsign and a code to be assigned to the aircraft into the computer, who saves it for later.
In the mean time, LH030 has reached the border of the Maastricht airspace. He appears as a circle with a flight level on the screen of the east sector radar controller.
In the cockpit, the first officer is in charge of communications and calls in as required.
030, cleared to London via upper amber 24 and blue 29. Squawk 2565
The assigned 4-digit code immediately transposed by the computer into the callsign LH030 and shown on the radar screen.
The allows the controller to quickly and precisely identify all the aircraft he should be controlling.
This new system not only increases safety, but also reduces the controllers' workload.
Controllers are in constant contact with the aircraft and guide them across the airways from reporting point to reporting point.
In doing this, they need to maintain the prescribed vertical separation, as well as the prescribed minimum safe distances between the aircraft.
To become a radar controller requires another 2 years of practical training following the 2 years in Luxembourg.
LH030 has passed RUWER, climb to flight level 280.
We're leaving 240 to 280. Passed RUWER at 59, estimating NICKY at 14.
The controller can follow the climb of the Lufthansa on his radar screen.
The aircraft has climbed to flight level 280, 28.000 feet, and flies on upper amber 24 northerly towards the Channel.
The crew in the cockpit awaits new instructions.
LH030, contact Maastricht west sector, frequency 132.2
I just transferred the Lufthansa 030 to the west sector.
He took exactly 11 minutes to fly through my sector, thereby crossing through half of Belgium.
At the same time, I have 11 other aircraft under my control.
That doesn't leave a lot of time to think for each individual flight.
Very important traffic streams cross here.
From the west for example, traffic comes from the USA and UK and flies towards Germany, eastern Europe, Middle and Far East.
From Scandinavia and the Netherlands, we have a lot of traffic towards France, Spain and Africa.
It is my job to safely separate the aircraft and fluently guide the traffic, using radar.
LH030 has passed NICKY at 14, flight level 280, estimated time for COSTA 18.
Roger, maintain this altitude and report over COSTA.
After 18 minutes flying, the aircraft passes COSTA, the last reporting point for the Maastricht centre.
This is where the transfer to the English controllers, London Control, takes place.
LH030, passed COSTA at 18 flight level 280 estimating Landsend at 26.
Understood, maintain flight level 280 and contact London 129.60
Passing the Channel coast, about 35 minutes remain until landing in London.
On the controller's radar screen, the computer erases the flight identification of LH030
Eurocontrollers are one of seven nationalities. They live alone or with their families in the vicinity of the Maastricht Centre.
Peter Faesen, moments ago still at his west sector radar screen, is Dutch.
It's not far to his house in Beek, where a lot of his colleagues live as well.
Waiting for him are his wife and both his daughters, RenŽe and Nicole.
Peter Faesen is 32 years old and works since 1969 at Eurocontrol.
Before that, he worked for 10 years as air traffic controller in the Dutch Air Force.
What does this Eurocontroller have to say about his profession?
Air traffic controller is a very modern and dynamic occupation.
An occupation for young people, who are willing to take responsibility for hundreds of lives and equipment worth millions.
Even in our modern economic life, there's probably very few jobs in which the decisions of one person can have such an immediate effects on the safety and economy of a whole transport system.
Negative aspects are the constant strain of working under pressure and time constraint.
Stress and changing shift duties are very demanding, both physically and mentally.
This sometimes has negative effects on ones family life and in some circumstances, even on personal health.
All this applies generally to the job of air traffic controller.
What attracts me in particular in Eurocontrol are the international atmosphere, the good company climate and the technical and social advances of the centre.
Familiarization flights should further enhance the close cooperation between cockpit crews and controllers.
Many controllers who guide the aircraft have never flown before themselves.
Jan Reiss, planning controller for Eurocontrol, will fly today on a scheduled flight from Frankfurt to Lisbon.
Well, mr. Reiss, that is the observer seat. There you have a headset and there is a panel to select the audio channels.
In case we lose cabin pressure, we also have an oxygen mask for you here.
And you can find the control panel for that here.
The flight of LH200 to Lisbon will last 3 hours.
During this, the controller can see the impact of ATC from the cockpit side and by personal discussions with the pilots, exchange experiences with the crew.
So mr. Reiss, we have about 15 minutes to the next reporting point. Perhaps I should explain the most important flight instruments.
Right in front of me are the main instruments. Centrally is the artificial horizon, perhaps the most important one of all.
It shows us the attitude of the aircraft: the blue top half represents the sky, the bottom black half is the earth.
The thin white line is the horizon and we are the orange aircraft symbol, with the left wing, right wing and the gear.
The instruments shows us graphically whether and by how many degrees the aircraft is climbing, descending and/or turning.
I can demonstrate this by making a very slight right turn: when the aircraft is in a turn, the symbol is as well.
While the LH200 crosses the French Alps at 10.000 meter and lunch is served in the cabin, hardly any of the passengers wonders what the flight looks like from the cockpit.
There he is.
He passed us now. You see how important it is that you point of all aircraft in our vicinity using your radar screen.
At the speed we fly and having to monitor the instruments, we don't always have the time to look outside for uncontrolled aircraft.
We're always grateful if that is pointed out. Yes, I've see that now... We try to do that as much as possible.
But there are of course also military aircraft, which we don't know.
Yes, that is the problem with military traffic.
In 1969, 215 near misses were reported in West German airspace.
In 1970, this rose to 282 and in 1971 to 407.
Main cause are uncontrolled military flights, which today still show as unknown targets on the civil radar screens. How much longer?
Eurocontrol will help to solve this problem.
New computer driven air traffic control systems should make the European airspace safer in the future.
What is required from air traffic controllers in the future will certainly not be less than what it is today.
On top of that, the controller of the future will need to be able to understand and analyze complex technical operations, even substantially more so than today.
This is a condition for the effective use of modern systems such as automatic flight data processing and air traffic display systems.
Without such systems, which relieve the controller from routine tasks and give him more time for control decisions, it will soon be impossible to efficiently handle air traffic.
Because of this, Eurocontrol has developed the Maastricht Automatic Data Processing and Display System and created this centre.
Bright, well organized working positions, synthetic air situation displays with extensive possibilities for inserting symbols,...
Touch wire displays with programmable fields allow entering data into the computer and showing the results to the controllers.
It is unmatched in speed and user friendliness. It will assist the controller substantially during his coordinations.
Eurocontroller are trained today to use tomorrow's technology so they can cope with the ever increasing air traffic in western Europe.