SESAR’s remote and virtual tower projects have been conducting a three week long operational validation trial campaign. Twelve Swedish air traffic controllers participated in these SESAR validations at the remote tower facility in Malmö by shadow mode monitoring all day-to-day live air and ground traffic at Ängelholm airport, 100km away, testing the latest updates to the concept and its technologies during day-light, dawn, darkness, CAVOK and LVP conditions.

The results of the trials are currently being evaluated, but initial feedback from the controllers on the virtual out-of-the-window view is that the “Image is now pretty impressive”.

The National Supervisory Authority of the Netherlands also participated in the exercise, and identified a certain number of areas of improvement including the need to mitigate big contrast differences between ground and sky or when facing the sun.