Tower tour

The sporty winds cut my circuit lesson shorter than expected and low cloud bases at the destinations put paid to RTH’s night cross country jaunt. Rather than write the entire evening off, Bob had another plan.

He very kindly phoned up the ATC tower to see if we could get a tour. And even more kindly, they agreed!

Now I totally appreciate how busy these guys are, this is above and beyond the call of duty. But oh so valuable.

I, of course, made my usual entrance, designed to impress those around me. By tripping up the top step and near launching myself into their workplace*. Still they didn’t hold it against me, introducing themselves and enquiring as to my flying experience.  I confirmed that I was, indeed, a student pilot here and that I’d just landed about 20 minutes ago.

At least one of them put two and two together because any example he showed me on the screen, he pulled up JPM as the sample aeroplane.

I watched as they put together the new ATIS on the hour. I got to see how they create all the electronic flight strips for each flight (the strips for the flight school’s planes seem to be pre populated with some info) and how the move them around on the screen depend on what the plane is actually doing ,before swapping them over from ground to tower and so on.

I asked tons of questions and got a great idea of what they actually see when I’m talking to them.  The radar is actually kind of underwhelming to be honest. Literally small dots on a big screen. 2D that needs picturing in 3D. I have no idea how they do it.

Even though they showed me how they can zoom the radar in and out, I honestly don’t see how they get good enough resolution to track us small aircraft in the circuit. They must do it mostly visually.

So maybe that explains how occasionally they misplace us, or get us to do something funky.

I got to see how the traffic flow from Pearson affects us in terms of tying up airspace. In seeing what they actually do, it helps me understand how I fit into the picture.

Hopefully it’ll work both ways. I’m fairly distinctive on the radio. Maybe they’ll see a face to the pilot in the plane next time I fly. One with a healthy curiosity as to what they do and an overwhelming respect for what they achieve.

Seriously guys, I really appreciated you taking the time to show a student around. You have the coolest workplace ever!

*Steps and I have an interesting history.I pretty much met RTH after falling down a set.