A Visit to EFIN

Last week we visited Finland's Area Control Centre (EFIN), which is located in the city of Tampere. The visit was part of our Air Law studies and we were actually about to go there earlier on but it was postponed to a later date.

Area Control Centre of Finland

The Area Control Centre is responsible for coordinating air traffic that fly over Finland and traffic between airports on national flight routes. We got a short presentation about the building and the history of Finnish ACC, whichafter we could go to the main room where all the actual ATC service and communication is done.

Air Traffic Controllers doing their job and us watching closely :)

It was interesting to see how the controllers managed different flights and very often talked to their closely workmates about situation-related things, informing each other about incoming flights and changes to flight routes or altitudes. Of course there was a lot involved so I didn't get hold of everything that was happening.

The workspace

All in all, it was a nice visit and of a sort that's becoming quite rare nowadays. EFIN is being transferred to Helsinki and it seems getting a visit after that will become much harder.

Meanwhile, ATPL studies continue and hours go by. We've been mainly going through Meteorology, Flight Planning & Monitoring and Radio Navigation. Actually we finished the latter a while ago and already took the school exam. I got 88%, which is okay. Only five more school exams left and then it's time for the final challenge..!