Introduction
I started working for
the UK Civil Aviation Authority in Air Traffic Control after leaving school
in 1973 and stayed in it until I retired. My first posting was to the London
Air Traffic Control Centre in West Drayton where I worked as an Air Traffic
Control Assistant. In 1976 I moved 'down the road' to the control Tower
at Heathrow Airport and it was from here that I was promoted to Air Traffic
Control Cadet and started training at the ATC college located at Bournemouth
Hurn Airport. During my cadetship I worked for periods of time at Cardiff
Wales Airport, the training section at Heathrow, Liverpool Airport, then
back to Heathrow in Aerodrome Control before finally being posted to Prestwick
Airport in Scotland where I worked until parting company with the CAA and
coming to the Isle of Man in 1990 to work for the IOM Government at Ronaldsway,
the island's airport. I retired from ATC at Ronaldsway in September 2014.
Heathrow - 1970s
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Liverpool Tower -
1980
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Last day working
in ATC at Ronaldsway, September 2014
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I first became interested
in the history of ATC at Ronaldsway when I discovered a set of official
photographs taken of the facilities at Ronaldsway in the 1960s. I produced
a set of web pages for my 'Island Images' website to show a little of the
history and current operations, but it was only when I realised that we
were going to be 75 years old in 2012 that I started to do more research
into the past. I've managed to discover a huge amount of information and
have attempted to share it via these pages. Sometimes I've had to do a
little 'reading between the lines' so any corrections to assumptions made
would be very welcome from readers.
From the official
set of pictures taken in 1963
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In July 2012, Civil
Air Traffic Control at Ronaldsway celebrated 75 years of continuous
service, from 1937 all through the war years until the present day. Starting
in a wooden building on the then grass airfield, to a temporary location
during the last few years of the war before moving into the 1944 built
Royal Navy control tower in 1946. In 2010 a new modern control tower came
into operation and the 1944 tower was vacated and later demolished.
ATC Watch Office
- 1930s
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Control Tower - 2010
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What I have attempted
to do here is to provide a history of Air Traffic Control operations at
Ronaldsway. In many ways this is a general history of Air Traffic Control
in the United Kingdom (although the isle of Man is in fact not part of
the UK) as by the time ATC was established at Ronaldsway in 1937, a standard
set of rules and procedures had been produced and applied throughout the
British Isles. During World War Two, almost all civil ATC was taken over
by the military, but despite the airfield being requisitioned and operated
first by the RAF and then the Royal Navy, the civil controllers continued
providing a service to the essential air link that operated between Liverpool,
the Isle of Man and Belfast.
M/F Direction Finding
- 1940s
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ATC Surveillance
Display - 2012
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The Ronaldsway
Air Traffic Control Pages
Information Sources
I couldn't have produced
these pages without the help of numerous books and publications, some that
deserve particular mention are:
The 'Flight
Global' on line magazine archive - A fantastic source of articles covering
the history of ATC in the UK.
Manx Aviation in War
and Peace by Gordon Kniveton - My original source of historical information
about Ronaldsway
Isle of Man 20th Century
Military Archaeology by Paul Francis - Full of fascinating information
from the wartime years
Cumbria Airfields in
the Second World War by Martyn Chorlton - includes lots of IOM aviation
history
Watching the Skies by
Jack Gough - the official history of British radar in Air Defence and ATC
Special thanks go to
Phil Pain, Ronaldsway Airport Director (retired) who sowed the seeds of
an idea. Also huge thanks to John Woodside, Air Traffic Control Assistant
(retired) for rescuing some of the old ATC log books that were being destroyed,
without them this history would have been so much thinner!
Disclaimer - Please
note that these pages are an entirely personal study of ATC at Ronaldsway.
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