Carolinas Aviation Museum

“USAF Battlefield AN/TSW-7 Air Traffic Control Tower Arrives at The Carolinas Aviation Museum, April 2005. 

Carolinas Aviation Museum
4108 Airport Drive
Charlotte/Douglas International Airport

North Carolina 28208 

April 2005 

The Carolinas Aviation Museum is please to announce the arrival of a fully functional United States Air Force Battlefield Control Tower. Recovered from the North Carolina Air National Guard Base at the Stanley County Airport, this unit is complete with radios, head sets, manuals, and most of the items necessary for operation. This unit is typical of one that would be deployed to a remote air field in war time.

In addition to having been used at the Stanley County Airport, initial research indicates that this was also used at Mc Entire Air Guard Base in South Carolina. In the coming months we will research its complete operational history.

The unit is now on display at the Carolinas Aviation Museum, located at the Charlotte-Douglas International Airport, in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The Museum gratefully acknowledges the assistance and generosity of the North Carolina Air National Guard in enabling the Museum to display such a historic artifact.

 

Thanks to the hard work of Floyd Wilson, Jim Henry, & many others, the Control Tower has now arrived at the Museum.

 

 

 

 

About the AN/TSW-7 Air Traffic Control Center

The AN/TSW-7 Air Traffic Control Center was designed to provide military air traffic controllers with the basic equipment required to rapidly launch and recover aircraft at remote airfields with damaged or no control towers.

The unit provides controllers with access to land lines, UHF/VHF radios, crash phones, emergency warning and evacuation alarm signals, barometers, tape recorders, NAVAIDS monitors, light guns, and wind measuring equipment.

The facility consists of a communications shelter, and an ancillary equipment pallet. The communications shelter contains HF/UHF and VHF equipment. The facility is designed to accommodate up to three air traffic controllers ar one time. In a three-man team, the work load would be divided into: local control (controlling local airborne and runway traffic), ground control, (controlling all aircraft on the ground but no on the runway, and a flight data position (administrative coordinating with AWACS, and other air traffic control resources.

Typically, the unit is transported on two 2-1/2 ton trucks. This permits rapid tactical deployment. A team of seven is typically able to set up the unit within 16 hours. Under such a scenario, the tower would be operational with 3 UHF radios, a 243.0 MHz guard receiver, 2 VHF radios, a 121.5 guard receiver, and 1 light gun.

Electricity, air conditioning, and telephone support are typically supplied by the air wing the tower is deployed to support.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For more information contact:
Floyd Wilson President
704.463.1411 E-Mail [email protected]