NATS Orders Micro Nav BEST 3D Tower Simulator

The U.K. National Air Traffic Services (NATS) is acquiring an ATC tower simulator from Micro Nav that will used to prepare controllers for planned changes at several NATS airports and the new control tower at London's Heathrow.

The BEST simulator, to be located at Heathrow, will incorporate a 360-degree, three-dimensional, 10-meter-in-diameter cylindrical display that will show the outputs of ten projectors, with matched and blended edges, to give a continuous field-of-view from both the existing and the new towers.

Evans & Sutherland's EP-10 image generators and 3D modeling will create views of the airport, aircraft and ground vehicles that will be shown on Barco-supplied screen and display infrastructure with its SIM6 projectors. Day or night conditions can be replicated, as well as dusk and dawn, along with fog, clouds, rain and wind.  All of the simulators effects and operating scenarios will be run by the BEST host system.

As the prime contractor, Micro Nav will supply the simulator's tower working positions, pseudo-pilot positions, data preparation and support workstations.

Micro Nav says the NATS simulator is being customized to cover Heathrow's new facilities and capabilities, including its new control tower building, its new Terminal 5, its MLS (microwave landing system), and its ASMGCS (advanced surface movement guidance and control system).

Initially the new simulator will be used by controllers and associated staff for familiarization, practice and conversion training for the new control tower.  In the future it will also be used by other NATS airports to support developments such as additional runways and other new projects.  07-30-2005.