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by computerdl 667 days ago
How does the TLS work with multiple aircraft landing at once? With ILS, the signal broadcast is static but it seems like it will now be per aircraft.
4 comments

The entire fleet qualified for McMurdo seems to be six planes and three helicopters, if I'm reading this right.

https://www.usap.gov/sciencesupport/scienceplanningsummaries...

I would guess it to be pretty rare that multiple aircraft would be on approach at once, and if so, I'd imagine one could hold at a distance to allow approaches to be serialized.

I've flown to/from McMurdo on a total of 4 types of planes... C-17, C130 (kiwi AF), L-100 (Safari, contracted by Italian antarctic program) and LC-130 (to/from pole).
What an experience! Can I ask your role in visiting?
Basically I work on experiments (balloons and in-ice) that are attempting to detect ultra high energy neutrinos interacting in ice sheets via radio.
This continues to be one of the cooler ongoing projects that produces significant, physical results. Good luck finding the special neutrinos!
There are a few other airports that have this, and my understanding is that only one aircraft can do the approach at a time. If another plane tunes in the ILS they will see the localizer and glideslope indications for the other plane.

I’m not sure how the TLS figures out what transponder to look at, I guess either the controller enters in the code of the plane on approach or there’s some reserved transponder code for the approach.

I would expect that these runways are not high volume. Temporary/shifting/special needs.
This is about McMurdo. I'd be surprised if they ever had multiple flights landing at once.
Exactly. I could see a 'convoy' of aircraft for a resupply, but I also expect even that might be just a few a day (because of weather and such, to avoid excessive aborts or returns due to weather or unloading delays).
In theory, you can broadcast different signals on different frequencies, one per aircraft.