A Predator drone takes off into the harsh sunlight against a backdrop of dusty mountains on the outskirts of Kandahar city in southern Afghanistan.
Drones are just one of the 60 types of aircraft that Alex Marsha has to deal with as air traffic manager at Kandahar Airfield, overseeing what must be the most diverse air traffic control operation in the world.
“The biggest challenge obviously is operating in a combat zone, we’re handling a vast number of military and civilian aircraft here,” he said, looking out from the new control tower which went into operation just days earlier, replacing the old makeshift tower perched on top of a couple of shipping containers.
“The different types of aircraft that we have, ensuring the safety for each and every one of them, trying to expedite the fighter aircraft that are supporting the guys on the ground, that’s a big challenge when you’ve got the volume of traffic that we work here,” he said.
With 5,300 flights a week, Kandahar is busier than London’s Gatwick Airport, previously the world’s busiest single runway airport, and, says Marsha, more challenging than Heathrow.
“At a facility like Heathrow, you have the air carrier aircraft — Airbuses, Boeing aircraft — that are flying at approximately the same air speeds, they have the same flight characteristics. Here you’ve got 60 different types of aircraft that are flying 60 different types of air speeds and their characteristics are different, so our control room staff have got to ensure that they take all that into consideration,” he said.
In addition, military aircraft must retain tactical room for maneuvers as they come in since it is a combat zone, which means less of the crowded air space can be allocated to other aircraft.
“It just makes it very challenging to keep the traffic flowing as efficiently as possible,” he said.
An average day would also see F16s, F18s, A10s, Mirages, C17s, C130s and a lot of civilian aircraft, Marsha said.
Marsha is understandably proud of his 42 staff, most of whom, like himself, are ex-military.
“Being prior military helps them adapt to the environment and to understand the complexities of working in a combat environment,” he said.
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