The Federal Aviation Administration has brought digital air traffic control towers into operation at Bartow Executive Airport in Florida and Kenai Municipal Airport in Alaska. Camera feeds and digital displays give controllers a continuous 360-degree view of runways, taxiways and nearby airspace. The technology adds visual information for controllers, who retain responsibility for managing traffic; Frequentis supplied the system.
The FAA’s deployment follows years of testing at its William J. Hughes Technical Center in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and other locations to assess safety, accuracy and reliability and develop system standards. The agency’s approval process includes evaluation of operational performance and equipment failures.
Five more non-towered airports are slated for installations: Winter Haven Regional and Venice Municipal in Florida, Montgomery County Airpark in Maryland, Johnston Regional in North Carolina, and Durango-La Plata County in Colorado. The FAA links funding for the planned systems to the Working Families Tax Cut Act. It has not provided operational start dates for those airports or published performance data for the two systems now in service.