Fundamentals of Air Traffic Control

1
Fundamentals of Air Traffic Control

• Control Tower Procedures

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Control Tower

• Operated by both FAA and non-federal agencies
• Primary responsibility of the control tower is to
  ensure that sufficient runway separation exists
  between aircraft landing and departing

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Control Tower

• Other responsibilities include relaying IFR
  clearances, providing taxi instructions and
  assisting airborne aircraft within the immediate
  vicinity of the airport.
• The tower is responsible for an area 5 miles from
  geographical center of the airport up to but not
  including 3000 feet.

4
Three General Categories of Control Towers

• VFR towers
• Nonradar-approach control towers
• Radar-approach control towers

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Control Tower Positions

• Flight Data Controller
• Clearance Delivery Controller
• Ground Controller
• Local Controller

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Flight Data Controller

• Assist other controllers in the tower
• Performs the clerical duties
• Usually first position assigned a new controller

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Flight Data Controller Duties

• Receiving and relaying IFR departure clearances
  to the clearance delivery controller
• Operating the flight data processing equipment
• Relaying weather and NOTAM information to other
  positions of operation

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Flight Data Controller Duties (Cont)

• Aiding other tower controllers by relaying any
  directed information
• Collecting, tabulating and storing daily records
• Preparing the Automatic Terminal Information
  Service (ATIS) recordings
• Processing field condition reports

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Clearance Delivery Controller Duties

• Responsible for obtaining and relaying departure
  clearances to pilots
• Clearances should include
• Aircraft ID
• Clearance Limit
• Departure procedure
• Route of flight
• Altitude
• Departure Frequency and transponder code

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Ground Controller Duties

• The ground controller is responsible for the
  safety of aircraft that are taxiing on taxiways
  or inactive runways
• The ground controller issues instructions to
  aircraft taxiing to or from runways, or to
  vehicles operating around the airport
• To avoid confusion, the ground controller should
  never use the word Cleared

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Ground Controller Duties (Cont)

• Preventing runway incursions
• Protecting critical areas (ILS, GLIDESLOPE ETC)

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Local Controller Duties

• It is the responsibility of the local controller
  to safely sequence arrivals and departures at the
  airport.
• The PRIMARY responsibility of the local
  controller is to ensure that proper runway
  separation exists between aircraft.

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Local Controller Duties (Cont)

• It is NOT the responsibility of the local
  controller to separate VFR aircraft inbound to
  the airport. That is the pilots responsibility
• Runway separation is based on aircraft category

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Aircraft Categories

• Category One
• Light weight, single engine, propeller-driven
  aircraft. This category includes the Cessna 152
  and 172, Piper Cherokee, and Bellanca Viking. IT
  does not include high-performance single-engine
  aircraft such as the T-28 Trojan

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Aircraft Categories

• Category Two
• Light-weight, twin-engine, propeller-driven
  aircraft weighing 12,500 pounds or less. This
  category includes aircraft such as the Twin
  Comanche, Piper Seneca, and Cessna 310 but does
  not include larger aircraft such as the Lockheed
  Lodestar or Douglas DC3

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Aircraft Categories

• Category Three
• All other aircraft not included in either
  Category One or Category Two. This category
  includes high-performance single-engine, large
  twin-engine, four-engine propeller-driven and
  turbojet aircraft. Category three includes
  aircraft such as the Douglas DC-3 and DC-6,
  Cessna Citation, Boeing 727 and McDonnell Douglas
  MD-80

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Other Considerations

• Separation
• Arriving Aircraft
• Intersecting Runway Separation
• Spacing Aircraft
• Runway Selection
• Wake Turbulence