Air Traffic Control Entities

 

It is not very well known, but air traffic control towers are not the only facilities that help direct and control aircraft. Two different entities are Air Route Traffic Control Centers and Terminal Radar Approach Control facilities.

The Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) purpose is to communicate and give information to the aircraft as it is flying in the en route airspace at or above 17,000 feet (What, n.d.). Each center, which has control over more than 100,000 square miles of airspace, is broken up into many sectors, with each sector having its own radio frequency that the air traffic controller uses to communicate with the pilot when they are in that specific sector (How, n.d.).

The Terminal Radar Approach Control facilities (TRACON) control the airspace around high operational airports. Due to this airspace being so congested, the control of the aircraft is delegated to TRACON for them to handle when the aircraft are below 20,000 feet and within 30 to 50 miles of the airport. Like the ARTCCs, TRACONs are divided into sectors and each sector controls up to 15 aircraft (How, n.d.).

The difference between these two facilities are the separation requirements. ARTCC facilities dictate that aircraft must keep a separation of one another by 5 nautical miles laterally and 1000 feet vertically, while TRACON facilities must keep aircraft separated by 3 nautical miles laterally (How, n.d.). While ARTCC facilities must deal with a higher operations tempo and the crossing of many aircraft in a difficult environment, both the ARTCC and TRACON controllers focus on giving the proper headings and information to aircraft, all within a radar room.

 

(word count: 263)

 

References

How Air Traffic Control Works. (n.d.). NASA. Retrieved August 28, 2022, from

https://hsi.arc.nasa.gov/groups/AOL/downloads/HowATCworksToday.pdf

What is an Air Traffic Controller? (n.d.). NATCA. Retrieved August 28, 2022, from

https://www.natca.org/education/what-is-an-air-traffic-controller/