The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has celebrated the service entry of the nation’s first digital towers at airports in Florida and Alaska.
These new towers are intended to aid air traffic controllers by providing them with improved tools that offer greater visibility of airport activity – which, in turn, could help to monitor overall traffic.
Digital towers utilise advanced cameras and digital displays to provide controllers with a continuous, 360-degree view of runways, taxiways and surrounding airspace, offering controllers additional information over more traditional systems.
The FAA has now operationalised digital towers at Bartow Executive Airport in Florida and Kenai Municipal Airport in Alaska, and has announced intentions to supply them to a further five non-towered airports in North America – Winter Haven Regional Airport in Florida, Venice Municipal Airport in Florida, Montgomery County Airpark in Maryland, Johnston Regional Airport in North Carolina, and Durango-La Plata County Airport in Colorado.
FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford, said:Our air traffic controllers continue to do the critical job of keeping aircraft safely separated, and we're giving them better technology to do that.
Digital towers provide controllers with greater visibility of airport activity and more information to make critical decisions. It's about putting better tools in the hands of our workforce so they can continue delivering the safe, reliable air traffic services the flying public depends on.
