As most UK General Aviation (GA) pilots must have noticed, the world is going through a period of rapid change. Technologies that have been common place for decades will soon be superseded – and that includes a reduction in the number of ground based VOR beacons in the UK.

You might not think pirates are much of a problem for the world of aviation, so it may surprise you to know that at NATS we have a specialist undercover team whose job it is to track them down.

As the 68th Cannes Film Festival got under way last week, huge numbers of people took to the skies to ensure they were able to travel there in style.

GPS is widely used in the transport industry, most obviously by the sat-navs in our cars, but largely due to current levels of signal accuracy and integrity being too low, we’re yet to maximise its use in the aviation industry. This is starting to change, however, with the ongoing development of the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS).

Visiting pilots to the NATS simulator at a recent CAA/Department for Transport event in Duxford were encouraged to see what the world looks like through the eyes of a controller, especially when dealing with infringing traffic.

Sat at the simulator, pilots watched the busy radar and had to make quick-fire decisions to avoid the infringing aircraft as well as continuing to allow commercial traffic to land and take off.

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).