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Old 12th April 2008, 06:34 PM
Will T Will T is offline
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Default Sydney Surface Movement Radar Upgrade (A-SMGCS)

A 30m tall temporary Surface Movement Radar (SMR) mast will soon be erected in the controllers' 'barbeque area' adjacent to the Old Control Tower/TCU Building at the Beach. This will enable the SMR on top of the new control tower to be removed and replaced with a new system as part of a broader Advanced Surface Movement Guidance and Control System (A-SMGCS). The temporary SMR will be dismantled by March 2009. Melbourne regulars will have noticed similar installations down there recently.

Here's a bit more information (courtesy AsA)...

Quote:
A-SMGCS is an air traffic surveillance system that enables aircraft and vehicles on the airport surface to be accurately tracked in all visibility conditions by air traffic control. A-SMGCS will enhance runway safety and is expected to lead to fewer runway incursions, lower likelihood of collision on the surface and improved ATC situational awareness. The A-SMGCS installation at Sydney will replace the existing Tower Data Processing and Display System (TDPDS) and Surface Movement Radar (SMR) which is located on top of the ATC tower.

A-SMGCS utilises multiple surveillance sources; SMR, multilateration, ADS-B and the existing Terminal Area Radar (TAR) to provide a comprehensive surveillance picture of the airport surface as well as airspace up to 50 Nm surrounding the airport. The surveillance data is combined with information about aircraft and vehicles and then presented as labelled icons on a map of the airport to air traffic control in the ATC tower. Where aircraft and/or vehicles are likely to be in conflict, an alert is provided to the air traffic controller for resolution.

Once the A-SMGCS is commissioned using the temporary SMR, the existing SMR will be removed and a new SMR will be installed on top of the ATC tower. The new SMR on top of the ATC tower will be tested and integrated with the remaining A-SMGCS equipment prior to final commissioning of the Sydney ASMGCS. Once this work has been completed, the temporary SMR will be removed.

The site of the temporary SMR was selected based on the requirement for the SMR to have visibility of all runway and taxiways and for the 30m tower to remain below the Obstacle Limitation Surface.
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Old 12th April 2008, 07:07 PM
Nigel C Nigel C is offline
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G'day Will,

The tower is already erected, and as of yesterday, they had the radar part spinning. I believe it may be commissioned sometime this week.

Cheers
Nigel
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Old 12th April 2008, 07:30 PM
Will T Will T is offline
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Thanks, Nigel. I've been off work for a couple of weeks so haven't even seen the tower structure yet.

Are you aware of any plan to fit ground vehicles with some sort of transponder? Where advanced SMRs have been installed overseas (and at YMML), they're now directing us to select our transponders to 'auto' prior to pushback, which we do anyway. I believe this enables Mode S capabilites (where fitted), but our manuals really don't cover this too well.

I assume the surface movement controller manually 'tags' the SMR returns under the current system.
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Old 12th April 2008, 08:24 PM
Nigel C Nigel C is offline
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There has been some talk of fitting the vehicles with them, and indeed I believe some of the ARFF Tender are already fitted.
I understand discussions are ongoing between the relevant parties as to who will eventually be fitted and who won't, however the decision making process is happening on higher levels than the one I currently stand on!


I must say that I find it interesting that they (ASA) are saying
Quote:
A-SMGCS will enhance runway safety and is expected to lead to fewer runway incursions
.
I believe this will only really work if all vehicles are fitted with a VHF radio and the operator:
a) has the thing turned on
b) has the volume turned up
c) has the right frequency selected
d) actually listens to the sheer volume of radio traffic of which 99.9% of which won't be directed at him/her, and is then able to pick up and respond to the 5 second transmission that is concerning them (trust me, this is an acquired skill that isn't learnt overnight!)

What it doesn't seem to factor in is the catering vehicles, baggage tugs, engineering vehicles, Customs, AQIS, AFPPS and anyone else who doesn't have a VHF radio and shouldn't have a need to even get on the taxiway system, let alone the runway complex, who gets disorientated and accidentally ends up out there!
It can happen, and has happened in the past. No amount of screaming by the guys and gals in the tower will get their attention if they aren't listening in the first place!

If I remember about this thread when it's all resolved, I'll let you know the outcome!

Cheers
Nigel
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Old 13th April 2008, 05:33 PM
Will T Will T is offline
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Interesting Nige! I guess we'll hear more in due course.

Ground traffic remains a major problem everywhere, I think. Some of the near-misses I've seen taxiing around LAX, for example, have been nothing short of scary.

I remember reading a fairly enlightening ATSB report into the near-miss involving a departure from 34L and another aircraft crossing the same runway under tow. It listed a plethora of shortcomings in the system (at that time) - have many of the procedures for ground vehicle ops changed since then?
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Old 13th April 2008, 07:30 PM
Nigel C Nigel C is offline
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I know of the incident that you refer, but I don't know how long ago it was.

Some subtle changes which might be related though are the installation of Runway Guard lights (RGL's), and the changing of the tug callsigns to no longer reflect which to company they belong i.e. "Tug Blue Echo" instead of "Qantas Blue Echo".

I'm sure there are others...I just can't give you any more examples of the top of my head!

Cheers
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Old 13th April 2008, 10:53 PM
Adam P. Adam P. is offline
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Quote:
I don't know how long ago it was.
20 October 2005.

ATSB report here.

Interesting little incident - a little bit of 'expectation error', a little bit of overtransmission, and a lot of luck needed to prevent a nasty fireball at the northern end of 34L.

One factor raised was that the tug, waiting to cross from west to east, was on a different frequency than the aircraft (as procedures dictated... despite sitting on the WESTERN side of the runway he wanted to go to the EASTERN side so he was on the ground frequency for that side - and the 777 of course was on the TOWER freq so never heard anything relating to a possible confliction. The ATC tapes for this incident are quite telling!

One change suggested by the company operating the tug was for all ground vehicle crossings of active runways to be on the TOWER frequency for said runway but as far as I know no procedures have been changed to date.

Stop bars, as being trialled in MEL now, would have helped a great deal in preventing this sort of incident.

Last edited by Adam P.; 13th April 2008 at 10:58 PM. Reason: Add a bit I forgot
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Old 13th April 2008, 11:46 PM
Mick F Mick F is offline
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Only ever had one runway incursion, and it wasn't even my fault!

Wanted to taxi a C210 from the Southern GA at Darwin, over to the RAAF side nearest to the Aerodrome Reference Point for an altimeter check, then back to my parking area at the Air North apron.

Called ground, requested taxi clearance to the particular point, "India Delta Zulu, taxi to taxiway Alpha, CROSS runway 11". Just prior to me, a C206 had requested taxi clearance for a departure off runway 11, but because he was in the northern GA, I ended up in front of him (not what ground had thought would happen), unbeknown to Darwin Ground. So I taxi out, and at the time that I looked up the runway to check, the C206 was only just lining up, so was clear when I checked. Taxied across the runway, stopped where I needed to get to, to hear "Ahh, India Delta Zulu, is that you on taxiway Alpha?", "Affirm", "Roger, you just crossed the runway without a clearance", "Errrrr, you did say to CROSS runway 11". A quick check of the tapes and there was one very red faced Ground controller in the tower after that, .

Moral of the story, unless you get a cross runway clearance AT the holding point, might wanna just double check that clearance, .

Floody
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