Air traffic control - a view from the inside
As I wrote in the previous Habrapost, I got a job as a programmer in the field of air traffic control and would like to slightly dilute the dominance of mobile and desktop applications and familiarize habrovchan with the basics of air traffic control (not to confuse “air traffic control” with “interior management”), some features and solved problems, I hope it will be interesting.
This post will contain, basically, a theory that can be read on Wikipedia, nugglena or read in any book. However, I will try to summarize and clearly show what tasks people and computers have to solve on earth, while you are eating the contents of your lunch box at an altitude of 10,000 meters. If you still want to know why it is needed at all - welcome under cat.
To begin with, airplanes in the sky fly from point A to point B not in a straight line, which would be shorter, but using so-called “airways” in the horizontal plane and echelons in the vertical. The airway is a line connecting two navigation points. Navigation points are fixed points on the ground, represented by coordinates and having their own designation (example of symbols: NOVEN, DOBAK, GAGARIN, OKLIT), navigation points can be represented by a beacon (ideal), a guide to the terrain (also not bad), or just be selected so that the routes from it did not pass over a large city or a secret military object. Navigation points and corridors between them are determined by each particular country and are subject to change. In order for changes in the aeronautical situation to become known to airlines, air traffic controllers, pilots, aircraft autopilot (and simers), the so-called AIRAC information (Aeronautical Information Regulation And Control) is published every 28 days, containing a list of all navigation units (points, routes, airfields, lighthouses, input nodes, etc.). In addition, the navigation situation can change literally within a few minutes, an example: the closure of the airspace of Ukraine after the disaster MH17. The task of the airline is to reduce its costs due to the “straightening” of the route, but as practice shows, it is not always cheap in short. Plus, when submitting a flight plan, it is advisable to check whether it is superimposed on existing flights. A lot of aircraft and everyone wants to fly shorter ...
It would seem - what is simpler, filed a flyplan - drove it into the FMS (flight management system) of your plane, turned on the autopilot and relax the whole flight, but no! Time must be considered as another measurement. Moreover, the flight time is not the distance between points divided by the cruising speed of the aircraft, it is determined by many factors (the state of the atmosphere (first of all, wind and temperature), congestion of departure and arrival ports, congestion congestion and occupancy of echelons, aircraft loading, even the pilot's mood) .
')
Consider the simplest example. To do this, take a large airport, for example Amsterdam (EHAM navigation designation) and assume that Amsterdam wants to fly HabraAvia from Moscow, FogAirlines from Paris and PizzaAirlines from, for example, Rome . All airlines want to make their flight right for the departure of MacDakAirlines flight, departing at 16:00 to New York, providing convenient docking for transatlantic passengers, at the same time taking passengers who flew in the same board from overseas. Three aircraft of Amsterdam Airport, of course, can serve, and if there are 30 (0)? And that's not all, let's say the dispatchers turned out to be shot sparrows and, having phoned each other, were able to slightly delay the flight from Paris, straighten the route a bit from Rome (Moscow’s flight cannot change - another area of ​​responsibility), and everything would be happy. But it turns out that the flight from Rome took off with a delay of 25 minutes due to catching a passenger in DutyFree, Muscovites had a passing breeze, and they arrive 10 minutes earlier, and the flight from Paris takes off on schedule and again the danger that flights or come together at flight level or arrive at the Amsterdam approach scheme at the same time, creating a traffic jam (those who played AirControl on Android will understand), the Paris flight will be delayed and the French will not fly away to look at the Statue of Liberty.
Suppose that an experienced old airport dispatcher Amsterdam has coped with this task, the pilots were not fined for over-expenditure of fuel, and the flight to New York did not have time to fly because of the turmoil on the taxiways. But that's all, it suddenly turns out that the donor's heart of a person killed in a car accident flies from Warsaw by an airplane of a transport company, such planes have a special label “No Delay, No rerouting” and must arrive exactly on time or even earlier, in addition to this aircraft route - the heart of the locomotive intersects with the lettered side of the President of Lapland and according to the rules of escorting the lettered sides - it should be alone on the route, but at that time the German Air Force decided to arrange an exercise and closed some of the routes at heights “from the ground and to the cosmos” eskers front, and Paris neighbors arranged strike, causing Huge delays. Well, in order to dispel all doubts about the need to automate a MacAirlines plane carrying the French to New York on an airplane, a box of bees opens and it needs an urgent landing.
Sometimes cows run out to the take-off field, airplanes malfunction, controllers are ill, pilots have work time standards (sometimes even a minute flight delay can leave it on the ground for 8 hours - crew rest time), passengers goof off, passengers have heart attacks and many many others…
In general, it turns out something like this:
Imagine what this dispatcher will be after the end of the working day:
All the events described here are not the fruit of my sick imagination - these are real situations that air traffic control authorities have had to face in their daily work. And this is only a small part of what can happen, and what should be handled correctly. I will add to this that in a day a little more than 30 thousand flights pass through the depths of ETFMS and this figure is constantly growing, plus there is the task of emergency restoration in the event of a system failure.
In addition to the task of directly managing and responding to situations, ETFMS also solves the problems of “simulation” and “prediction”. However, the description of these tasks is beyond the scope of this post.
A bit of nirvana:
In the next post, we will look at the list of tools that have been selected to solve the problem and make sure that the tools and people working with them can ensure the smooth operation of the system over the years ...
All materials presented in this article are taken from open sources. I apologize if I misused foreign words, it is difficult to switch on the go, and for some translation terms I do not even know.
This post will contain, basically, a theory that can be read on Wikipedia, nugglena or read in any book. However, I will try to summarize and clearly show what tasks people and computers have to solve on earth, while you are eating the contents of your lunch box at an altitude of 10,000 meters. If you still want to know why it is needed at all - welcome under cat.
I want, and I fly
To begin with, airplanes in the sky fly from point A to point B not in a straight line, which would be shorter, but using so-called “airways” in the horizontal plane and echelons in the vertical. The airway is a line connecting two navigation points. Navigation points are fixed points on the ground, represented by coordinates and having their own designation (example of symbols: NOVEN, DOBAK, GAGARIN, OKLIT), navigation points can be represented by a beacon (ideal), a guide to the terrain (also not bad), or just be selected so that the routes from it did not pass over a large city or a secret military object. Navigation points and corridors between them are determined by each particular country and are subject to change. In order for changes in the aeronautical situation to become known to airlines, air traffic controllers, pilots, aircraft autopilot (and simers), the so-called AIRAC information (Aeronautical Information Regulation And Control) is published every 28 days, containing a list of all navigation units (points, routes, airfields, lighthouses, input nodes, etc.). In addition, the navigation situation can change literally within a few minutes, an example: the closure of the airspace of Ukraine after the disaster MH17. The task of the airline is to reduce its costs due to the “straightening” of the route, but as practice shows, it is not always cheap in short. Plus, when submitting a flight plan, it is advisable to check whether it is superimposed on existing flights. A lot of aircraft and everyone wants to fly shorter ...
When I want, then I fly
It would seem - what is simpler, filed a flyplan - drove it into the FMS (flight management system) of your plane, turned on the autopilot and relax the whole flight, but no! Time must be considered as another measurement. Moreover, the flight time is not the distance between points divided by the cruising speed of the aircraft, it is determined by many factors (the state of the atmosphere (first of all, wind and temperature), congestion of departure and arrival ports, congestion congestion and occupancy of echelons, aircraft loading, even the pilot's mood) .
')
Consider the simplest example. To do this, take a large airport, for example Amsterdam (EHAM navigation designation) and assume that Amsterdam wants to fly HabraAvia from Moscow, FogAirlines from Paris and PizzaAirlines from, for example, Rome . All airlines want to make their flight right for the departure of MacDakAirlines flight, departing at 16:00 to New York, providing convenient docking for transatlantic passengers, at the same time taking passengers who flew in the same board from overseas. Three aircraft of Amsterdam Airport, of course, can serve, and if there are 30 (0)? And that's not all, let's say the dispatchers turned out to be shot sparrows and, having phoned each other, were able to slightly delay the flight from Paris, straighten the route a bit from Rome (Moscow’s flight cannot change - another area of ​​responsibility), and everything would be happy. But it turns out that the flight from Rome took off with a delay of 25 minutes due to catching a passenger in DutyFree, Muscovites had a passing breeze, and they arrive 10 minutes earlier, and the flight from Paris takes off on schedule and again the danger that flights or come together at flight level or arrive at the Amsterdam approach scheme at the same time, creating a traffic jam (those who played AirControl on Android will understand), the Paris flight will be delayed and the French will not fly away to look at the Statue of Liberty.
Another chaos!
Suppose that an experienced old airport dispatcher Amsterdam has coped with this task, the pilots were not fined for over-expenditure of fuel, and the flight to New York did not have time to fly because of the turmoil on the taxiways. But that's all, it suddenly turns out that the donor's heart of a person killed in a car accident flies from Warsaw by an airplane of a transport company, such planes have a special label “No Delay, No rerouting” and must arrive exactly on time or even earlier, in addition to this aircraft route - the heart of the locomotive intersects with the lettered side of the President of Lapland and according to the rules of escorting the lettered sides - it should be alone on the route, but at that time the German Air Force decided to arrange an exercise and closed some of the routes at heights “from the ground and to the cosmos” eskers front, and Paris neighbors arranged strike, causing Huge delays. Well, in order to dispel all doubts about the need to automate a MacAirlines plane carrying the French to New York on an airplane, a box of bees opens and it needs an urgent landing.
Sometimes cows run out to the take-off field, airplanes malfunction, controllers are ill, pilots have work time standards (sometimes even a minute flight delay can leave it on the ground for 8 hours - crew rest time), passengers goof off, passengers have heart attacks and many many others…
In general, it turns out something like this:
Imagine what this dispatcher will be after the end of the working day:
All the events described here are not the fruit of my sick imagination - these are real situations that air traffic control authorities have had to face in their daily work. And this is only a small part of what can happen, and what should be handled correctly. I will add to this that in a day a little more than 30 thousand flights pass through the depths of ETFMS and this figure is constantly growing, plus there is the task of emergency restoration in the event of a system failure.
In addition to the task of directly managing and responding to situations, ETFMS also solves the problems of “simulation” and “prediction”. However, the description of these tasks is beyond the scope of this post.
A bit of nirvana:
In the next post, we will look at the list of tools that have been selected to solve the problem and make sure that the tools and people working with them can ensure the smooth operation of the system over the years ...
All materials presented in this article are taken from open sources. I apologize if I misused foreign words, it is difficult to switch on the go, and for some translation terms I do not even know.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/231145/
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