The Impact of Automation on Air Traffic Control Systems

Abstract

When air traffic control began about fifty years ago, its main promptings were associated with the Second World War and the consequent need to fly at night or in poor visibility (Adair, 1985). Before then, aerial navigation relied on distance and time estimations, and on the judicious selection of distinctive features and landmarks along the intended route in order to verify position and progress. Ground support, mainly in the form of radio communications, did not constitute true control over air traffic, but was a service confined to regions around airports, as accounts by pioneer aviators make clear (e.g., Saint Exupery, 1939).