Clearing general aviation’s paper jam

Deep Dive

by Yves Le Marquand

7 March 2025

Philip Wright, senior air traffic controller and aerodrome manager at Redhill Aerodrome, oversees operations from the control tower.

It is a surprisingly warm Monday afternoon for early March in Surrey, the county immediately south of London, UK. The early spring sun glints off the occasional aircraft that pass the control tower at Redhill Aerodrome.

“Monday and Tuesday are our quieter days,” says Philip Wright, senior air traffic controller and aerodrome manager at Redhill. “The next one we have due in is at about half past three.”

However, in less than a fortnight, he will be overseeing air traffic movements at the Cheltenham Festival, a very popular horse racing event held in Gloucestershire, UK, which sees upwards of 300 helicopter movements per day during its four-day duration.

This is general aviation.

Traffic volumes can often fluctuate, and whilst the patterns may be somewhat predictable, when it gets busy, air traffic controllers are often left scrabbling around for pieces of paper to make sense of who is landing or taking off when and where.

It has been like this since the 1950s. As modern technology, such as flight information displays, digital billing and weather information, has become commonplace in most control towers, there has been a reluctance to move on from paper flight strip systems. This is because alternative systems are both unaffordable and incapable of supporting the dynamic and complex nature of general aviation.

But now a low-cost digital flight strip platform, cleared by the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority for use as a standalone system, has been operating live since last weekend and could offer the solution that air traffic controllers the world over have been looking for. The software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform, known as Skytower, has been designed and developed by London-based startup Skyverse, which has done so with an initial seed raise of about £400,000.

The system

Now, having just closed their follow-on seed round for approximately £500,000, co-founder and chief operating officer Hal Newberry tells us the company is focused on refining user experience through three months of planned use at Redhill Aerodrome, before rolling out the system with features required by regional and international airports. More on that later, but first, the system.

With patent applications pending in a number of geographic regions, including the US and Europe, the firm’s Skytower platform is a cloud-based workflow solution that provides more data and flexibility to the control tower. Most importantly, though, it brings much greater efficiency and situational awareness to the controller. The platform has been designed as a management tool that places the controller at the heart of the operation. Developers have also built in additional safety features like automatic wake timers and pressure change notifications.

“Controllers are the ultimate safety net in air traffic control, their expertise and professionalism are paramount. However, relying on paper systems leaves them vulnerable to human error. To support their critical role we must provide them with the technology they urgently require,” says Newberry.

“Obviously, paper strips are decades old, they’re very tactile. So we wanted to have a tactile approach to it. Everyone grows up with a touchscreen now. Everyone’s got a phone, you just touch and swipe.”

The software is downloadable to a laptop or tablet; the tower at Redhill has it installed on a 28-inch Microsoft Surface Studio.

“We have databases of aircraft and airports, and you can self-configure the system with your local information. So Phil might say, taxi to alpha one and squawk 7010 or issue a departure clearance. And it’s just tap, tap [on the screen], because all the data’s already in the system. Previously, he would need to write all the information down on a flight strip.”

The old, redundant paper strip system has found a new home under a desk in Redhill’s control tower.

What do the controllers think?

According to senior controller Wright, the system has proved a success so far. He says one of the biggest challenges of the paper system, particularly at events like Cheltenham Festival, is reading his colleagues’ handwriting. At times when movements are high, such as special helicopter events, Wright believes Skytower is going to make a big difference.

“We get a lot of problems with pilots that book in and then don’t turn up, or turn up in a different helicopter or at a different time. At the moment, we scrabble around trying to find the strips or have to write a new strip when you’ve got other helicopters calling you. It takes a lot of capacity away from the controller, whereas if you’re just entering the call sign, the system will produce a strip from the database.”

Wright says air traffic control at Cheltenham plans for one movement every 30 seconds. There are five gates, and they need to be consistently used.

Immediate need and beyond

Newberry believes there is a real need for the Skytower system today. Rolling out to existing airports will also support advanced air mobility in the medium to long term, he says.

“It will give general aviation airports safety and efficiency benefits and the connectivity to other applications such as invoicing systems. Then, as the AAM world evolves, those airports that embrace modernisation are best placed to support emerging aircraft technologies and diversify their operations.”

The ability to communicate with other facilities that also have Skytower is also a benefit, according to Wright. He says with the lack of a joined-up air traffic system – meaning a lack of general aviation data infrastructure – in the UK, or most of the world for that matter, easy communication with another airfield comes in handy. The UK is fairly unique in that just about every airfield is also its own air navigation service provider.

“Looking at the events in particular, most of our helicopter traffic comes from Battersea. So if Battersea have a departure and we’re the destination, we get a notification when the flight takes off and a live strip is produced on our system,” says Wright.

Newberry adds: “Also, in today’s world, when a pilot checks in, say they’re arriving at an aerodrome, he or she has to pass on all of their flight information over the radio. With a connected digital infrastructure, that flight data will be on the strip. So instead of the radio call ‘pass your details’, we can imagine a world where the call is ‘I have your details’, significantly reducing RT congestion.”

Cyber safety and security

Speaking of today’s world, it is one often fraught with cyber dangers ranging from phishing emails to DNS (domain name system) tunnelling and worse. One great thing about paper strips is that they are difficult to hack.

According to Newberry, innovation and security go “hand-in-hand” and cybersecurity is embedded into every aspect of Skyverse’s work. “Our ISO 27001 certification demonstrates our unwavering commitment to the highest standards of data protection and system integrity.”

When Revolution.Aero first spoke to Newberry last year, he explained how multiple layers of redundancy also offer protection against unexpected incidents, giving the example of an electrical fire in the control tower.

“You will have to evacuate the tower. If your system is online, the platform is served across the same login. So you can simply pick up that piece of hardware – a laptop or tablet – walk out the door and continue to operate and ‘make safe’.”

Why has no one done this before?

Newberry believes the primary challenge Skyverse will face in rolling out its system is breaking the status quo.

“Paper strips are all anyone has ever known, it’s still used at college to teach students. Aside from those who have worked at large airports that have their own expensive bespoke systems. A lot of those systems are designed from the 1990s,” he explains.

“When we first made our system and we said it’s up to the airport to have what hardware they want, the first controller asked for a stylus, which was commonly found on those first electronic systems.”

The controller has since changed to a touchscreen, finding it more intuitive, adds Newberry.

Skytower is being priced relative to a customer’s operation size and the number of controllers employed. Somewhere small, such as Redhill Aerodrome, could cost around £10,000 to install. A larger regional airport might be in the £40,000 to £80,000 price range.

“Current air traffic control systems lack the flexibility to support dynamic flight operations,” concludes Newberry. “Controllers are forced to use decades-old paper flight strips, hindering efficiency and increasing workload. Outdated and disconnected, it’s time for a transformation.

“We need to show the world that modern air traffic control technology is available today, and it’s far superior to paper.”