21.10.2003
Cab mounted on new ATC tower

Sunday night at 00.45, Copenhagen Airports’ Traffic Manager Hans Christian Stigaard was able to announce ‘mission accomplished’. The cab had been mounted on the new ATC tower: not an easy task with a shaft more than 70 metres high. The ‘mission’ took 15 hours.

At the early hour of six in the morning, Naviair (the air traffic management service that is the developer and responsible for the project), contractors E. Pihl & Søn, consulting engineers Moe & Brødsgaard, and Copenhagen Airports were ready to go in the airport’s south area. Since 24 April 2001, the parties have been working on the large-scale project it is to build the airport’s new landmark: an ATC tower that will be one of the most advanced of its kind in the world.

Steel wires and a clever hoisting system were used to slowly raise the cab – which is what the top part of the tower is called – up into the air. Calculations said it could be done at a speed of ten metres per hour, but high winds and other whims of nature made things difficult, and at times the cab moved at the rate of only two to three metres an hour.

Mission accomplished

“At 10.30 p.m., the cab was in place; by 00.45 we were able to ascertain that the ILS (instrument landing system) on Runway 22L was still fully operational, and we could declare the mission completed.

description    Overall, everything went well, but it is, naturally, difficult to make allowances for possible future changes that could affect the ILS system. For that reason, we will continue to monitor the project closely,” says Hans Christian Stigaard.

 

Once completed, the tower will rise 70 metres above the ground, which will make it almost twice as high as the existing ATC tower, which has been used round the clock since 1971. The tower will be built by E. Pihl & Søn, and will cost about DKK 75 million. The new ATC tower will not be inaugurated until 2007.


The electronic system in the old tower will be replaced by new systems which must be installed and tested over and over again before the control of the 800 aircraft that take off and land at Copenhagen Airport per day can be handed over to air traffic controllers in the new ATC tower.