By Ian Brown, Assistant Curator of Aviation
In August 2011 National Air Traffic Services (NATS) very generously donated an air traffic control console to National Museums Scotland. This was used to control the Hebrides Sector, covering a large expanse of the far north west of Scotland, and came from the Scottish Area Control Centre (ScATCC), opeating from Atlantic House near Prestwick Airport. The console was introduced in 1978 and continued in use, with frequent equipment upgrades, until 2009 when ScATCC moved to the Prestwick Centre nearby.
National Museums Scotland already holds a number of items of air traffic control equipment. In particular, we have several control desks used in Oceanic Area Control in Atlantic House. These desks were in use between 1972 and 1978. They came to the National Museum of Flight back in 1991 and formed the centrepiece of a display about air traffic control, as shown here.
Prestwick Air Traffic Control Unit on display National Museum of Flight in 1991
The console acquired in August had to be stripped out for ease of transport and a team from NATS came to the National Museum of Flight for two days to put it all back together again. The photo below shows the equipment as it arrived at the museum.
Air Traffic Control unit arriving at National Museum of Flight.
After two days of fitting cables, screwing in components and connecting everything together, the console was completely transformed. With recording air traffic control radar displays fed to the screens and the backlit map displays all working, the equipment now looks exactly as the NATS team remembers it in use, barely two years ago. The images below show the guys working on the equipment, and then finished result.
Installing the Prestwick Air Traffic Control unit at National Museum of Flight.
Prestwick Air Traffic Control unit being installed at National Museum of Flight.
Air traffic control is an aspect of aviation that everyone knows about but very few ever get to see such equipment outside the movies. It is hoped to display our collection of air traffic control equipment in due course at the National Museum of Flight and give everyone a chance to experience this hidden side of aviation.
Completed installation of Prestwick Air Traffic Control unit at National Museum of Flight.
November 26, 2011 at 8:25 am
Great “little” piece Ian.
November 28, 2011 at 9:33 am
Glad you enjoyed it Gordon. It’s a lovely piece of kit which is in full working order and could be made to look live on display, but it’s certainly not as big as, for example, the Brooklands Concorde. Putting the ATC equipment back together didn’t take anything like as long as your team took to rebuild Concorde at Brooklands, but in its own way this console is almost as impressive!
November 28, 2011 at 11:41 am
Well done to everyone for doing such a great job in preserving this impressive ATC console – it does indeed look just as it did in operation – and many thanks to Ian for the blog entry sharing a little of the work that went into taking it to the Museum, would be nice to see it next to the current exhibit.
November 28, 2011 at 1:25 pm
Thanks for your comment Mike. I take it you were an ATCO in Atlantic House? The Hebrides console is only a very small part of the old ops room but it does give a good feel for what it was like. Sadly, the display shown in the first photo is all in storage at present, although we would like to put it back out, next to our new acquisition, when we have the opportunity to do so. We could tell an amazing story – the old display was mainly made from desks from Oceanic and we have large parts of the Ferranti Apollo computer – which would complement the Scottish Area side of things perfectly. Anyway, thanks again for your comment and for reading the blog.
December 9, 2011 at 1:23 pm
Great to see this has survived. I spent many (mostly happy) hours at this desk during my 20 -odd years at ScACC.
Shame you dumped the Type 14, though !
December 12, 2011 at 12:43 pm
Thanks for your comment, Ray. I don’t suppose anyone took any photos of you at work, ideally at the Hebrides sector?
It is a shame that the Type 14 was disposed of, but unfortunately it had sat outside since it was acquired and had deteriorated to the point that any restoration would have been largely new build. The cabin was also devoid of any equipment. The main challenge with the Type 14, and indeed the Type 7, was that we had no means of fixing these aerials in place without scheduled monument consent. We still have the transmitter from the Type 7 at Gailes and I would hope that the Gailes story will be included in a future exhibition.
December 10, 2011 at 3:47 pm
Hi, just wondering when the display will be available for public viewing?
December 12, 2011 at 12:48 pm
Gordon, Thanks for your message. At present, I can’t say definitely when the ATC equipment will go on display. It was acquired for planned future development as part of long-term redevelopment of the National Museum of Flight. This is likely to be several years away and will be a large-scale development which should give us the opportunity to display the commercial aviation collections together. It is hoped we might be able to display our ATC objects in a smaller exhibition before then, but this would still require resources which are not yet available. I’m sorry I can’t give a definite answer at this stage – all I can say is keep watching the museum website for annoucements!
December 11, 2011 at 8:33 pm
We at NATS are delighted to re-establish our relationship with East Fortune after a number of years. If the exhibit is approved, the intention is to have simulated radar images playing through both the Executive and Planner displays, accompanied by R/T exchanges with aircraft and complimented with a set of paper flight strips which relate to the traffic being ‘controlled’. Additionally, we plan to have Hebrides sector support information cycling through on the 19″ monitor above the controller.
Meanwhile, we are very grateful to Ian Brown and his team for the interest taken in preserving something of our ATC history, together with their considerable help in getting the exhibit to the Museum of Flight and its successful re-assembly.
December 15, 2011 at 9:27 am
Thanks for all the help from yourself, Chris, Hugh and Gerry and everyone else at NATS who has supported the acquisition as well as the ongoing research into our existing collections. It will be great to have these all on display and give our visitors an engaging look at the work of Air Traffic Control Officers and how this has changed over the years.
The support NMS has received from NATS has been crucial in all this and I look forward to continuing to work with the team as our plans develop.
May 30, 2012 at 7:30 pm
What’s the deal on getting in to see this up and running? I’m a controller at Edinburgh and would be keen for a look at this, the last time I was at East Fortune the radar room was shut.
June 1, 2012 at 8:35 am
Chris,
Thanks for your comment. Unfortunately, this equipment is not currently on display although we are working on plans to exhibit it in due course. It is separate from the Radar Room which is manned by volunteers and is open on Wednesdays and usually on special event days as well.
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