runway 03"
ATC : "Academy 123, cleared for take off"
Drebar : "Cleared for take off, Academy 123"
Hmmm, these are among the communication that you can hear day in and day out at the Air Traffic Control tower, virtually anywhere in the world.
The main purpose of ATC is to provide smooth running of the air traffic and the most important thing - to prevent mid-air collision of the aircraft. You don't want to fly in uncontrollable airspace do you? It's like driving in a city without any traffic lights =)
So, let's take a look at the job, of the men and women behind the scenes whose responsibility is to maintain the safety of the aircraft (apart from pilots and engineers) whenever you board one to travel from point A to point B.
In WMKM (location indicator for Malacca aerodrome), the ATC officers are to provide a safe environment for flight training especially to the MFA cadet pilots, not to mention other various flight operations.
Actually i've never been to any ATC tower before, so this is my first time to visit an air traffic control tower,hehehe =)
The newly-built ATC tower of WMKM.
The boys loitering around the control panel while disturbing the 'akak' ATC, hehehe.
Panel indicating the pressure setting (QNH). Too complex? Okay, basically it's meant for the pilots to have a correct altitude (height) meter setting =)
The slips used by the ATC officers to record the aircraft identification, location, height, destination and so on.
The runway lighting is controlled by this touch-screen monitor. Cool huh? (erkk..can i have one of these for my birthday?) =P
ATC : "Adik-adik, kalau nak belok ke kanan jangan lupa bagi signal"A29 : (Huh..Sejak bila kapal terbang ada lampu signal ni??)
Happened to see a twin-engine aircraft, the Piper Seneca III on touch down.
Me with my batchmate, Acad.
Visual Control Room
The boys then started to bombard the ATC guy with questions. You can hear so many types of questions, even which is not related to aviation. Trust me. =P
Me with the Chief Ground Instructor (CGI) Lt. Col. (rtd.) Lawrence. The coolest instructor around, hehehe =)
From left : Azman, me, Fahmy, Gary and Shad
We got bored since there's nothing else to do at this time, so we came up with the pose, hahaha
Well, we definitely couldn't miss our tea time =)
Fahmy and his chilli sauces, hahaha~
I'll post some other pics of our second visit to the ATC tower and also the Department of Meteorology later, see ya =)
