ATC vs TRACON

 "The air traffic control in the United States is run by the FAA. It has five divisions for its air traffic control system, namely “Air Traffic Control System Command Center”, “Air Route Traffic Control Centers”, “Air Traffic Control Tower”, “Terminal Radar Approach Control” and “Flight Service Station”." (Freudenrich 2021)

There are five different entities when dealing with Air Traffic Control that all work hand in hand with each other. They all have many similarities while also being very different. For this blog post I decided to compare the Air Traffic Control Tower (ATCT) and Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON). 

Both the ATCT and the TRACON play major roles in the ATC world. The ATCT is located at every airport, air station, air base and anywhere else in the world that allows landing and takeoff or any aircraft. "Towers handle all takeoff, landing, and ground traffic." ( Freudenrich 2021) The tower is basically the control center for all traffic in the air within its airspace. 

                 

 "­The United States airspace is divided into 21 zones (centers), and each zone is divided into sectors. Also within each zone are portions of airspace, about 50 miles (80.5 km) in diameter, called TRACON (Terminal Radar Approach CONtrol) airspaces. Within each TRACON airspace are a number of airports, each of which has its own airspace with a 5-mile (8-km) radius." (Freudenrich 2021)

 The TRACON basically handles the bigger picture for the ATCT. There are 21 TRACONs in the USA since there is one within each airspace zone. Every zone has a specific number of airports and ever air port has at least on ATCT. 

TRACON handles departing and approaching aircraft within its space, while ATCT handle landing, takeoff and ground support of said aircraft. So the aircraft states under the ATCT control but once far enough into airspace, the TRACON states over until said aircraft reaches the appropriate airspace for the receive ATCT to take back over.

Freudenrich, Ph. D. Craig (2021, May 14). How air traffic control works. HowStuffWorks Science. Retrieved March 6, 2022, from https://science.howstuffworks.com/transport/flight/modern/air-traffic-control.htm