London Banter - View Single Post - Crossrail access to Heathrow still not settled

Graeme Wall · May 23rd 17, 09:30 AM posted to uk.railway,uk.transport.london

On 23/05/2017 09:51, d wrote:
On Mon, 22 May 2017 21:14:01 +0100
Graeme Wall wrote:
On 22/05/2017 16:51, d wrote:
of the many heathrow flight paths and there's enough air traffic already. God
knows what it'll be like with even more. Assuming NATs can handle it which
isn't a given as it seems from 2019 they'll be doing London Citys remote
control tower - no one at home, just video feeds down a presumably "secure"
link. What could possibly go wrong?

Actually three separate secure links.

And how do you know the current one in use hasn't been compromised and is
feeding duff data or video? Or failing that a contractor cuts through the
cables by mistake.

If the cable has been cut through then you won't get any picture. I
suspect even someone from the CAA might notice that.

Hence the triple redundancy so you can switch to one of the back-up
circuits, which is probably done automatically.

I utterly fail to see the logic behind this. It must be
costing a fortune to do and for what? They won't be saving on salaries since
they'll still need new people at NATs so what is the reason? Heating bill of
the control tower? Given the risks its an absurd decision.

What risks? Its a triple redundancy system as used by aircraft.
Whether the controllers re staring out of the windows or at screens
makes no odds. In fact the latter can be better as night vision cameras
can give you a better visual image after dark.

You also have the possibility of overlaying relevant information on the
screens such as tagging the image of each aircraft with its flight details.

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read.