| Who is tracking your flight? Dec 18th 2012, 11:02 Consider this - there are over 50,000 take-offs and landings in the United States alone every day. Add on small, private aircraft as well and you get the idea that although it is not a traffic jam in the air, the skies can get pretty full. Airplanes are under the constant supervision of air traffic control (ATC). Having flown a tiny Cessna, it is not that ATC is constantly on the radio with you. However, having learned to fly at an airport that was within 20 miles of a major aerodrome, or airport, I did have to get clearance to take-off and land when flying anywhere close to restricted airspace and was also required to report my position (the altitude the aircraft was maintaining). Other than radio, ATC has other ways to stay engaged during the course of a flight. Here is a basic rundown of how air traffic control keeps track of your flight: - Flight plans are submitted. ATC can then look at the routing and space flights out, both time and distance wise.
A great example of this is the busy North Atlantic route where airlines take advantage of the jet stream, using fuel more efficiently. - Your flight is likely not being tracked by just one air traffic controller, but several.
It won't be the same air traffic controller watching over your Chicago-London flight. You may start with the flight being monitored by ATC in Chicago; getting passed along until you hit the most eastern ATC in North America with Gander, Newfoundland; and then from Shannon, Ireland onto the London area ATC. It's truly team work on a global scale! - The actual tracking of a flight is principally done by radar.
- Besides just radar, communications can also be established by data links or teletypes (essentially printouts which can be received in the cockpit).
- Regarding how airplanes appear on an air traffic controller's radar screen, each airplane is equipped with a transponder which sends out a code that identifies the flight - its location and altitude.
- Over vast open waters such as great parts of the Pacific Ocean, and much of the African continent, there is no ATC to monitor flights. This is where it is the pilots must maintain approximately fifteen minutes of flying time between aircraft for safety.
- When your flight is set to land, the timing is established between the pilots and ATC. Air traffic control looks at other inbound and outbound flights and determines when a flight is safe to land, and communicates to the pilots when the flight has been cleared for landing.
You may have witnessed your flight being put in a holding pattern, effectively circling the airport until it is your flight's turn to land. ATC is delaying landing until it's deemed safe to land. - For landings themselves, they are usually spaced out at intervals of between two to five minutes depending on the size of the aircraft, and sometimes more due to prevailing weather conditions in the area of the aerodrome.
- At busy airports, delays are sometimes given to ATC. There may be a ground delay program.
Some airports are pretty bad for this. In the summer, whenever I am at the airport it seems that Laguardia, O'Hare and Logan are seemingly always having some sort of ATC ground delay program.
These types of delays may be due to too many flights on approach and not enough runway space to go around, and also for the sake of safety.
Interestingly enough, airlines try to factor this in on flight times, so when they give you flight information when you buy your ticket, it is not just the flying time in the air that is estimated but also the time it gets to take you from gate to takeoff and landing to gate.
And so from the submission of the flight plan, to arrival at your destination, there will have been many eyes tracking your flight.  |  |
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