Avionics News July 2022 - 24

REMOTE TOWERS FOR GENERAL AVIATION AIRPORTS
Continued from page 23
like a new airplane; the more you know how things
work the better you become at operating the system. " He
thinks remote towers will benefit airports, pilots and the
national airspace system. For one thing, pilots operating
at uncontrolled airfields talking on a common frequency
have to avoid mishaps such as lining up for takeoff only
to discover an aircraft is already taking off on the same
runway in the opposite direction.
" The most expensive part of any air traffic control
tower is the controllers, " Payne said. If a tower is not
part of the federal contract tower program, or an FAA
tower, the local community has to pay for the controllers.
Liability is another big issue that has to be considered by
any general aviation airport considering trying to get a
sticks-and-bricks or a remote tower.
There is one interesting difference between the system
provided by Saab Inc. in Leesburg and the one provided
by Searidge Technologies of Canada at Fort Collins.
Leesburg is at about 390 feet of elevation and has a
5,500-foot runway, while the airport at Fort Collins is
nearly a mile high like Denver and it has an 8,500-foot
main runway. This is the longest runway in the world at
the moment with a remote tower being installed. At times,
the pressure altitude at the Fort Collins airport can be as
high as 10,000 feet, and aircraft need more runway to
safely take off than they do at Leesburg.
All of the 14 cameras providing a 360-degree panorama
and two pan-tilt zoom cameras for 30x closeups of
aircraft at Leesburg are on one mast, which can view all
that needs to be seen on a 5,500-foot runway. The highdefinition
cameras do a good job at night. Controllers at
Leesburg say the hours of dawn and dusk are extended by
an hour each as the camera lens opens up, and they have
to be reminded to turn on the airfield lights.
The Colorado remote tower system at Northern
Colorado Regional Airport employs a distributed camera
system. The airport has a central camera mast with
14 high-definition cameras providing a 360-degree
panoramic view. Then at the end of each runway, there is
a mast with seven HD panoramic cameras that provide a
220-degree view of the runway end plus two fixed zoom
cameras and one PTZ camera.
A controller in a remote location can train the PTZ
camera on an aircraft just as he trains binoculars on an
aircraft from the cab of a traditional tower. But then the
24 avionics news * july 2022
remote system automatically keeps the camera focused
on that aircraft along with relevant data about it. " A PTZ
camera really puts the eyeball right at the end of the
runway, " said David Ulane, director of the aeronautics
division at the Colorado Department of Transportation.
Searidge Technologies' stitching technology allows the
controller to pan to any view of any of the camera masts.
Radar data is ingested into the video automation to allow
tagging of radar targets on the video displays. Controllers
also have HD displays at their work positions.
Searidge Technologies' system uses artificial intelligence
to detect a variety of different types of non-cooperative
aircraft, including helicopters, from video data, according
to Rick Koller, vice president of sales for North America. A
target is then displayed with a box around it for controllers to
see that it is an aircraft. Koller noted that Fort Collins doesn't
need infrared cameras to improve imaging at night, because
the low-light, high-definition cameras on the masts perform
better than infrared at night and during low visibility.
Searidge has also installed a remote tower technology
laboratory in the traditional tower at Heathrow to see if it
could be used to control traffic on a new runway when it is
built there. That runway will be too far away for controllers
in the traditional tower to control traffic, and Heathrow wants
to avoid building a second tower near the new runway at a
cost of more than $60 million.
Leesburg and Fort Collins may not be the only two
airports with a remote tower in the United States for long.
A third airport in the Western United States is interested in
joining them. The Friedman Memorial Airport in Hailey,
Idaho, has an existing ATCT, which is in the FCT program.
The ATCT has reached the end of its useful life, does not
meet the FAA current siting requirements and has been
mandated by the FAA to be moved out of the runway
object-free area.
Airport Director Chris Pomeroy and the Friedman
Memorial Airport Authority Board have elected to pursue
a remote tower solution. The airport is being considered
by the FAA as the third remote tower pilot project site,
and the airport is currently in contract negotiations with
Raytheon-Frequentis on this project.
Ulane said pilots at Northern Colorado Regional
Airport have been receptive to the remote tower project.
" People who fly in and out of the airport have known for
years it is too busy to operate very efficiently or safely
as a non-towered airport, " Ulane said. He is a private
pilot with 32 years of aviation experience including as an
AOPA official and an airport director.
Avionics News July 2022

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