The great escape and some unintended consequences
With the future of the tower work no longer being really promising, a lot of the younger guys “escaped”, some of them going all the way to Canada! When three of them left within weeks of each other, we had no other choice but to reorganize the shifts so that each still had the required complement of bodies. I had to move to another shift, the first such move which was followed by no fewer than ten shift changes in the following 25 years.
I spent three years in the original shift when the orders came to move. This meant saying good-bye to my friend Geza with whom we weathered the difficulties of the first few years. It also meant starting in a new group composed of people I had never met before. But I tried to look at the bright side of things: new group, new people, new customs, things that can actually make such a change exciting in everyday practice. And excitement there was aplenty. I saw the sour faces of the others who were also forced to change shifts and this made me even more determined not to make the same mistake. In the end I found myself settling in quite well into what was then Shift B. I was glad to see that there were also humans in that group and even while the days passed with a bit less merriment than before, it wasn’t so bad at all.
As it turned out, my settling in was even more successful than I realized… I met my future wife in Shift B. She was a Flight Data Assistant in the Approach Control Unit. I will not dwell too long on this part of the story, let me juts say that I experienced first-hand the wisdom of the saying: don’t ever hunt domestic rabbits. The only joyful outcome of that particular exercise is my daughter who is now 22 and with whom we continue to have a very close father-daughter relationship.
Everyone and no one in charge
In the meantime the tower sailed along without a boss. The shift leaders were authorized to make all the decisions. Poor souls they had scant hope for
achieving anything. If one of them called the maintenance technicians that a window would not close properly, it took a few days for the repair crew to show up and when they did, they were faced with a different team leader who had no idea where the hiccup was. The same problem was experienced again and again also in respect of the professional issues.
As I heard, shift leader meetings were also something of a cabaret performance. Shift leaders would recount their problems and the department head (or the section chief who would also put in an appearance on rare occasions) would only put on a penguin act… raising their arms in a hopeless gesture indicating there was nothing they could do. We should solve the problems ourselves. It would be nice to list the names here but what good would it do now, after so many years?
Progress does come… sort of
It took some 10 years to be allowed not only to watch but also actually use that Tower TV… the radar screen. This is how long we had to fight before finally we were granted a limited radar license so that we could control aircraft when needed taking the radar indicated position into account. This was a big improvement for the tower controllers who could now turn the training flights behind the arrivals with confidence, without having to do all kinds of mental arithmetics.
Then one day progress caught up with us in earnest and the first computers arrived in the tower. They were programmed to help in shifting data, for example we no longer had to telephone all over the place announcing the airborne time of departures. When an aircraft requested start-up, a single button push would inform all other ATC units of the merry fact so that they too could take this into account. Back then this was a major step forward.
We got used to the new system quickly. The only thing some colleagues needed special reminders of was to push the ENTER button only once at a time. Push the damn thing twice and the system would inform all who cared to listen that the bird was airborne… even when it was still only taxiing. Such a misstep raised hell from Approach control and the worst thing was… they were right for being upset.
The moment of truth – poor workmanship, poor materials
Racking my brains for other interesting news from the tower, I could only think of the internal renovation works we had to endure. Central Europe’s most modern tower slipped into a very sad state prematurely… As it turned out, not all the materials used in its construction were top quality. The problems with the water and sewage pipes persist to this day. Some corridors are filled with an evil aroma with nobody apparently able to solve the problem. I have told you about the air conditioning already… It took 10 years to get a system that neither fries or freezes us.
A threshold with two taxiways
In the meantime the refurbished “old” runway was back in service again and Terminal 2 opened (later this would become Terminal 2A). Once in operation, Terminal 2 became home to Malev while all other airlines stayed in Terminal 1 (the old terminal). This was a good occasion for Malev pilots to start complaining about all kinds of silly things quite inappropriate in their privileged status as the only users of the new terminal.
The threshold of Runway 31L had now two taxiways leading to it, one from the old apron (Terminal 1) and one from the new apron (Terminal 2). With foreign airplanes on A1 and Malev planes on A2 facing down each other before line up, it was up to the tower controller to decide who should go first. Of course the decision was not dependent purely on how daring the chap on duty was. Aircraft type, speed, requested level and of course the slot time all played a role.
Oh those early days with slot times! Back then aircraft had to hit a point en-route at a specified time… To us the old system seemed preferable… after all it was the responsibility of the pilot to get where he had to be on time. In to-day’s system they nag the controller if somebody takes-off prematurely.
Firing off departures with aircraft lining up alternating between the two facing taxiways was pure fun. Fun which did not last long as complaints about noise started flooding in…