Photo by Monique Schoenfeld, Town Crier
Jim McClenahen, a 32-year air traffic controller who helped design the virtual San Francisco airport, talks about the benefits of the system. Behind him is the simulator at Moffett Field.
Town Crier Staff Writer
Long airport delays could become a nuisance of the past in the next few years. NASA opened the world's first full-scale virtual airport control tower Monday at Mountain View's Moffett Field to test ways to combat potential air and runway traffic problems at commercial airports.
FutureFlight Central is a two-story tower that is capable of simulating a three-dimensional visual model of any airport in the world from the 360-degree windows of the tower cab.
Project developers say they designed the flight center to provide personnel from any airport in the world the chance to come in and test new technologies and procedures and to fine-tune gate operations in a realistic and risk-free environment.
During a simulated testing last week, air traffic controllers monitored the takeoff and landing of planes on the seven concourses and 102 gates at the virtual San Francisco International Airport. With a touch of a button, the conditions changed from day to night, with some planes landing on overcast runways and others landing on a clear night. Ramp operators and pseudo-pilots with headsets in the lower level of the tower communicated with the controllers upstairs, as would happen during a real testing.
"This is as realistic as you can be," said Jim McClenahen, a 32-year air traffic controller veteran who helped design the virtual San Francisco airport. McClenahen said he knows all of the "little pitfalls" at San Francisco that make the virtual airport near real.
McClenahen said the Federal Aviation Administration tests live airplanes. "That's the beauty of this," he said. "Now they don't have to. They can create the scenario with software. This allows you to put in the human element and see the impact."
McClenahen said airports, such as San Francisco, could analyze how construction or runway maintenance could impact their existing operations.
"Anytime you (test) something, you increase efficiency," he said.
Developers say the tower is the wave of future.
NASA's Advanced Air Transportation Technologies Office and the Federal Aviation Administration jointly funded the $10 million facility.
Boeing will use the facility this spring to test its aircraft.