Tower vs. Radar

 

Control towers at international airports are known in public. They are a landmark somehow and you could even identify the airport from it's control tower. Anyhow, tower controllers are the minority of ATCO's out there, since the airspace above and between airports is way larger than the control zones. Most controllers are based in Area Control Centers(ACC's) and work with the radar scope. Here is a little list of differences between tower and radar controllers:

TOWER

(control zones)

  • seperation of air traffic by the use of radar and visual seperation
  • responsible for all movements on the apron, taxiways, runways and the surrounding area of the airport
  • working both, VFR- and IFR-traffic at the same time
  • issue takeoff- and landing-clearences
  • responsible to comply with air traffic flow management messures (slots)

RADAR

(LOWER AIRSPACE)

  • seperation of air traffic by the use of radar only, e.g. 5NM / 1000ft
  • responsible for one or more (if combined) controlsectors with individual lateral and vertical dimensions
  • mainly working IFR-traffic, VFR-traffic only at night and if they require a clearence to cross busy airspace 
  • vector arriving aircraft into an approach sequence and issue approach clearence

Radar

(UPPER AIRSPACE)

  • seperation of air traffic by the use of radar only, e.g. 5NM / 1000ft
  • responsible for one or more (if combined) controlsectors with individual lateral and vertical dimensions
  • working IFR-traffic only
  • solve conflicts between aircraft which have crossing tracks enroute
  • deal with strong winds in the upper airspace and high speeds