The display at the National Museum of Computing has a controller workstation from the 1980’s alongside a state of the art simulation of systems from the Swanwick Centre and a busy airport tower. We’ve added some historical artefacts and a timeline of NATS linkages with Bletchley Park to celebrate our joint heritage. If you are interested in computers or air traffic control, the museum is an excellent day out and if you visit I hope you enjoy what we’ve put together.

For anyone who have seen the film ‘A Matter of Life and Death’, it’s easy to think that it is nothing more than a wartime love story (although it does have an interesting metaphysical theme). However, to aviators it is likely to mean just a little bit more.

Performing a Red Arrows display is physically and mentally demanding and requires absolute concentration from the 9 pilot team to ensure each others’ safety and the safety of the public.

“Mayday! Mayday!”

This is a term that has become indoctrinated in our society – even by those outside of the aviation industry.

A while back NATS tweeted an image of the electronic flight strip and a follower asked if we’d explain the information the strip contains.

In simple terms, an electronic flight strip is a way for an air traffic controller to see all the relevant information about a specific aircraft; what it’s doing and where it’s going. There are actually different types of strip and as a tower controller I’m going to walk you through what I use: Electronic Flight Progress System (EFPS).

Every year the International Air Transport Association (IATA) brings its members together for an Operations Conference. This year the conference was in Los Angeles and focused on the challenge and opportunity from introducing new technology to enhance safety, efficiency and capacity.

No two days are the same for the ATCOs and other staff at Heathrow tower. The main challenge is to make sure that all these flights arrive and depart safely and on time. It’s a demanding job, so much so that it can take up to three years to ‘go solo’ as a Heathrow controller.

We spend a lot of time talking about what air traffic control (ATC) is and explaining how it works, but what about the many myths that are out there about ATC?

Films such as Pushing Tin do nothing to help separate fact from fiction so we’ve attempted to do just that right here and tackle eight of the most common misconceptions about ATC, airspace and controllers. Let us know if you believed any of these falsities or have any others that aren’t included here.

On the 2nd April 2015, Glasgow Airport will be allocated a listening squawk of 2620. A listening squawk is a code that can be entered into a GA aircraft’s transponder when flying near controlled airspace around an airfield. This makes the aircraft show up on the Glasgow air traffic control team’s radar.

The average passenger on board any one of the 5000 plus flights through UK airspace every day is likely to be aware of Air Traffic Controllers (ATCOs) sat in the control tower at their airport, ensuring a safe and efficient arrival or departure.

However, many people simply aren’t aware of the controllers who make sure that aircraft get to their destination through the airspace in-between airports – either just in the UK or connecting a flight between different countries airspace – that’s the job of the area controller.