All Norwegian airports will be controlled remotely – E24

In October, the high-tech Remote Towers Center (RTC) will finally open in Bodø. Avinor’s prestigious project for the past eight years is scheduled to remotely control 15 different aircraft towers around Norway by 2022.

– It’s so weird going there, it’s great. I’ve been to the military operations centers and Statoil’s, and they are super advanced.

mens is there is no one who has, really no one who has something similar. It really is an impulse, says a clearly proud Dag Falk-Petersen.

The Avinor boss voluntarily displays the technology on a mosaic of curved flat screens several meters wide inside Avinor’s headquarters in Oslo.

From there, with a simple keystroke, you can sit in a virtual air tower in Hasvik, a few miles north of Alta in Finnmark.

The small airport has minimal traffic, often quite harsh weather, and an outdated physical air tower, making it perfect for the first phase of the project.

VHF radio and binoculars

Røst Airport has been ready since October last year, mentioned, among others, by Teknisk Ukeblad. Vardø arrives in October, before Hasvik and Berlevåg are ready in November.

– My first flight was in 1973. When I was in the tower at the time and saw what it looked like there, it was a VHF radio and binoculars, says Falk-Petersen.

– When you go up to the tower today … then you have a VHF radio and binoculars. It’s been many years since 1973. Now, rightly so, it has gotten more advanced in the bigger towers, they have radar and equipment. But this is an impulse, repeat.

On the screens behind Falk-Petersen in Hasvik in Finnmark, the cloud cover is low and a camera rotating five times a second captures a handful of seagulls approaching the very dense artificial grass pitch.

The chamber is located on top of a concrete mast, around a diameter manhole cover, which provides space for maintenance workers and shelter from the wind. At the top of the rotating camera is another, which can zoom into whatever the operator captures on their screens.

When winter darkness hits Finnmark, the operator can switch to an infrared image and see the gulls just as clearly. The technology can also detect movements at the airport and in the airspace, such as drones, humans and birds.

The Bodø hub, which will now open in October, will operate 15 of these small airports over the next two years. Investment in the project is currently just over NOK 1 billion.

– Probably the last tower is built

The technology was developed by Kongsberg Defense & Aerospace and Indra, and goes by the name of Ninox.

– I believe that we will have remote control towers in all airports, but that they are operated locally. Take Trondheim as an example, they sit there and do it, but remotely controlled, explains Falk-Petersen.

He is supported by CEO Anders Kirsebom at Avinor Flysikring.

– Probably the last tower is built. But we will use the facilities we have for a while. We start at the smallest airport and learn and gain experience, and then continually scale. Then we come across airports like Molde after a year and a half, and then bigger and bigger airports come, says Kirsebom.

The leaders of Avinor will not determine in time when such masts will be found in Sola, Værnes, Flesland or Gardermoen, but there is no doubt that they will come.

– They probably have good facilities for the most part. While many of the smaller airports have poor facilities. So instead of spending 40-70 million crowns to build new buildings, this technology is much cheaper, Kirsebom explains.

Challenging to engage people

When the first 15 masts are up and running, around 50-60 people will work in the Bodø center. They work in shifts at their respective stations, and from the beginning they will be responsible for one airport each.

From there, the plan is to gradually incorporate more airports for each operator.

– Then we can accommodate more airports without increasing the staff. It is not a reduction project, but in the end there will be fewer people operating there than there were. But people are retiring and stuff, and there is some movement. Some don’t want to participate either, says leader Jan Østby of the Remote Towers program at Avinor Flysikring.

It speaks of a comprehensive restructuring process that Avinor has spent a long time on.

However, it has not only been easy to get local air traffic controllers to choose Bodø as their new workplace.

– At first we tried to say that it was an advantage to go to Bodø because it was very good with cafes and restaurants and so on, but we realized that they had a lot of fun where they were. But I think we have come a long way with the restructuring process, says Østby.

Kirsebom adds that Avinor has offered a stimulus package for people to join the center.

– But it is a challenge if you have invested in a new house for up to 150,000 crowns in Hasvik and then have to buy a new one in Bodø for 3.5 million. It’s hard on people. So we understand that this is not necessarily very desirable for those who work locally. But still, many have chosen to join, Kirsebom says.

Delays

In addition, the project has been affected by a series of delays. Basically, the center should be ready in 2018.

– It has been the recognition that there are steps of innovation until the end. We have had to take it in and set aside a lot of time in the different phases, and we have been frustrated that it did not go faster, but when we summarize such a large project and see that we may be a year and a half late, and we stay within the frame and all, so it’s very good, says Kirsebom.

– We are very happy with that and proud when we can present it to the Avinor board and the Minister in October. We hope that.

Jan Østby records that the background of time use is that security must necessarily be 100 percent before using something like RTC.

– There have been some schedule changes, as we say. But the reason for this is that it is a critical system for security. And when we see that this is not good enough for safety, then we just have to put one foot on the ground. We have, he says.