Örnsköldsvik airport in the northeast of Sweden has ditched its control tower and is now landing planes via remote control from an airport sitting 100km away. And there are plans for a similar system to come to Australia.

Air traffic controllers for Örnsköldsvik now sit in a computer simulated room at the larger Sundsvall airport surrounded by giant television screens beaming footage to them of Örnsköldsvik’s incoming planes.

The only airport in the world to be managed by remote control, it is called the Remote Tower System (RTS) and is being trialled in Sweden as a way of improving accuracy and cutting costs.

It works by streaming high definition images of incoming planes at Örnsköldsvik to a Remote Tower Control room based in Sundsvall. Using high tech cameras, sensors and microphones — the RTS collects data about the plane to provide a simulated digital visual to the controllers as well as surround sound audio of the incoming plane.

The technology has been designed by Saab, the Swedish defence and security company, who says it provides “enhanced situational awareness” for air traffic controllers.

New features include object tracking and alerting, night vision, image enhancement, onscreen display of plane statistics, runway incursion warnings and options for zooming and switching to infra-red view in thick fog and darkness.

Mikael Henriksson, the project manager of the RTS in Sundsvall, told NPR it’s a “paradigm shift” for the industry. “For the air traffic controller, this is like airline pilots going from propeller to jet,” he said.

NPR spoke to Erik Backman who runs the RTS in Sundsvall, who says he was dubious when he first saw the mock-up technology in 2004. However a decade later he says they’ve been landing planes remotely for months without any major problems.

The use of remote control towers has been explored by the aviation industry as a way of cutting costs at airports too quiet to warrant full time air traffic controllers.

Later this year a US airport, Leesburg Executive Airport in Virginia, will be installing the RTC, making it the first remote-controlled operated airport in the country.

Australia is also considering installing the technology with plans to control planes at Adelaide airport by air traffic controllers sitting in Melbourne, 700km away.

Rob Walker, spokesman for Airservices Australia, told the Adelaide Advertiser that the increase in air traffic across Australia requires an upgraded and centralised air traffic system.

He said this system would allow controllers monitoring aircraft in Adelaide to be based in Melbourne and aircraft in Cairns to be monitored from Brisbane.

“There is no change in the number of controllers but only where the service is delivered from … and safety is not an issue,’’ he said. Changes will not be made until 2017.

SOURCE::::: http://www.news.com.au

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