Air Traffic Control

Historical Detail

WARTIME EXPANSION

BRITISH COMMONWEALTH AIR TRAINING PLAN (BCATP)

History repeats itself! With the UK crisis of war in 1939, the RAF expanded in a quantum leap. While more operational squadrons demanded available airports, training areas shrank enormously in the United Kingdom. Canada was the only logical place to turn. Now, the Trans-Canada Airway and the Government farsightedness paid dividends. The RCAF had, at the outbreak of war, only five aerodromes ready for use and another six under initial construction. Any service aerodrome was required for operations and not available for training. The total number of sites still undeveloped were 153. No project of more importance to National Defence had been undertaken since the cessation of WW I. Good airports at "100 mile intervals", with the emergency landing fields at closer spacing in unsettled and difficult country, hangar accommodation, weather and communication services, and radio aids to air navigation and lighting, were already in being from Coast to Coast. The Trans-Canada Airway airports had been built as transport bases with all-season hard-surface runways. Northern Ontario and the Rocky Mountains were not good locations for BCATP airports, nor was Nova Scotia acceptable as it was the scene of intensive active service operations. The Prairie Provinces were particularly acceptable for such a plan as the BCATP, however, all Canadian areas were examined.

DATES OF COMPLETION OF AIRPORTS

The average cost for aerodromes was as follows:

Elementary Flying Training School all-way Field with grass surface, acreage 20 hectares . . . . . . . . . . . . . $100,000

Air Navigation, Gunnery and Bombing and Air Observers School aerodromes, all-way fields with three hard surfaced runways 3000 x 150 and hard-surfaced taxiways 500 hectares plus . . . . . . . . . $350,000

Service Flying Training School .... 1 main field where all living quarters, hangars, shops etc., are concentrated, with double triangular hard surfaced triangular runways and one, sometimes two all-way turf Relief field . . $400,000

Total for all three aerodromes . . . . . . . . . . . . . $850,000

See Appendix D for a list of all BCATP aerodromes.

NAVIGATIONAL AIDS

One of the early radio navigational aids was the Low Frequency Radio Range Station. It was first operated in 1927 and for many years was the main navigation aid for Canada and the USA. Each radio range transmitted four radio beams, called courses or range legs, which were pointed in specific required directions. Aircraft, when equipped with radio range receivers, could identify a particular range leg and fly inbound toward the range or outbound away from the range.

This invention had two outcomes. Firstly, pilots could now navigate day or night in cloud or clear weather and travel from range station to range station without visual reference to the ground. Secondly, this also meant that pilots could fly along a narrow line and with airspace being more crowded, airline competition could increase and schedules had to be mt. These two outcomes meant that safety had to be increased and thus, some form of Flying Control became necessary.

EUROPEAN AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL TRAINING

There was no formal course of air traffic control in the European States prior to World War II. All states trained their personnel by contact training of medically-unfit aircrew in their control towers, direction finding offices and other aviation units. The first recorded Air Traffic Control Course in the world was established by the U.K. Air Ministry in 1938. The records state that "...the number of experienced control officers from which teachers can be selected is extremely limited. Moreover, the theoretical course must be followed by practical experience in a control tower and the existence of a limited number of Air Ministry Control Station (8) restricts the number of pupils who can be given practical training at any one time."

TRANSOCEANIC CONTROL

Transoceanic flights had been made infrequently before World War II. As time passed, more people wished to take such flights and in 1938, the governments concerned set up the Transatlantic Air Service Safety Association (TASSO). This service was to develop general procedures for aircraft, meteorological requirements and air-ground communications along specified oceanic routes. By 1943, there was considerable traffic over the oceans with military transports, maritime patrols, combat aircraft, mail runs and scheduled air carriers all vying for the airspace. The question of air traffic control was vexing. As General Curtis Lemay described the problem while a major on Trans-Atlantic transport service:

The lovely part about this career was the complete absence of traffic control. There just could not be any traffic control. It must be remembered that a great percentage of the traffic...consisted of brand new aeroplanes which were being ferried over to England...Sometimes there would be as many as thirty or forty planes ganged up on the ground back in Newfoundland waiting for half-way decent weather... Then...they would all takeoff at five minute intervals and head for Prestwick.

Because of the great instability of Atlantic weather and the length of the flight, pilots were allowed to alter their course when encountering unexpected conditions and, unlike regular airways, might fly above, below or around a weather front without knowing what action other pilots on that route might be taking.

By 1944, the Overseas Ferry Command had decided to take definite action and established Oceanic Air Traffic Control Centres in Prestwick and Gander to provide support to the vast numbers of aircraft transiting to and from Europe.