Remote Tower Systems: A Domestic and International Conversation

摘要

Over the past several years, the conversation on remote towers has been making its way across the Atlantic to the United States. Several countries have been testing this technology for years and now Sweden is actually working an airport via their remote tower technology. The air traffic services at Ornskoldsvik Airport have been transferred to a remote tower center (RTC) at Sundsvall Airport, about 60 miles away. In the U.S., the interest in remote towers did not take off until the threat of closing federal contract towers became real. Many small communities were faced with the real possibility of having their federally funded contract towers closed due to sequestration. The communities that were still hoping for inclusion into the contract tower program have realized the possibility that may never happen. The construction costs associated with building a brick and mortar tower is approximately twice what a remote tower system would be. This makes the remote tower concept appealing to small communities with limited budgets and may also provide an opportunity for more than one community to locate their systems in a common location to reduce staffing challenges. The one unknown expense with the remote tower system is the cost of moving data in the different communities. Some smaller communities may be better suited to move the data at lower costs than others.