Illustration by Paul Combs

Nobody told us this when we were a little younger, but Rudolph’s red nose has been supplemented by a whole bunch of navigation and communications electronics over the years to get Santa to the right chimney on time. His electronics far surpass even today’s police, fire and EMS vehicles. (And Rudolph’s red nose? It’s caused by the non-ionizing radiation from all of the sleigh’s transmitters.)

Although cloaked in mystery for years, just recently a short, anonymous insider provided us with pictures of the electronic control panel of Santa’s sleigh (left). Our informant smuggled the picture out of Santa’s workshop in his hat, so be very suspicious of any 9-1-1 employee who wears an oversized hat.

It turns out that Santa’s sleigh has four different types of navigation systems, including a moving map display (more on those later). Now, because it often operates in controlled airspace, controlled by the FAA in the U.S., the sleigh has dual 760 channel, two-way radios for voice communications with almost any air traffic controller and airport control tower, along with s

atellite phones. Santa’s flights take him into restricted airspace, which were put in place in this country at the insistence of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of Defense (DOD), so his sleigh has recently added a Narco AT165 Radar Transponder with Altitude Encoder. This gadget allows the radar screens of the air traffic controllers to identify which radar blip is Santa, preventing F-16’s from being dispatched to intercept Santa, sleigh, reindeer and all those presents.

Being delayed delivering presents on Christmas Eve is, of course, a big deal because the presents that Tommy and Tammy might get late on Dec. 28 just aren’t quite the same as getting the presents on the 25th. So en route from the North Pole, Santa has two different kinds of long-range navigation systems: a Garmin GPS with a moving map display as his primary system, and a receiver for a similar Russian system. GPS is a DOD system and very reliable; however, out of concern that someday enormous solar flares could temporarily compromise signal reception from the 24 GPS satellites, Santa’s sleigh also has a second system—a Loran C system. Because Loran signals come from ground-based transmitters installed by the U.S. Coast Guard, a solar flare may not bother them as much.

For close-in navigation, Santa uses the GPS, and sometimes he uses the FAA Instrument Landing Systems (ILS). ILS will get him within 100 feet left or right, and 100 feet up or down, when he is within one mile of his destination. From that point on, he gets cleared by the air traffic controller for the Visual Chimney Approach (VCA) to his destination.

What about the rumors that the reindeer sometimes party a bit before the long Christmas Eve trip? Our informant is silent on this issue. But he did say that Santa recently added three FAA-approved gyroscopes to keep the sleigh right side up. Equipment redundancy gets Santa to each Christmas tree on time, so some of the gyros are electric powered, but some are mechanical—just in case the sleigh loses power.

Electricity is also important, because today, Santa’s list of presents and kids is electronic. Just in case the sleigh’s computer goes blue screen, Santa keeps a paper “Christmas Present List” in the small glove box in the right side of the control panel, where he also keeps his Medicare Card and veterinary shot records for each one of his reindeer.

To keep it legal, everything in Santa’s sleigh is FAA approved. Even his altimeter is Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) recertified every two years, just like IFR aircraft. And it’s just as well because if the altimeter is off too much when Santa is flying in the clouds, we could wake up Christmas morning and find his whole transportation rig wrapped up on one of our radio towers.

Flight issues: How does Santa get all those presents in the sleigh into the air? He actually has to take off a little over the gross weight of the sleigh’s ratings. But with only the reindeer to complain, it works out after he delivers some of the heavy presents. Because of the weight restrictions, he likes the lightweight electronic presents that most kids want these days, but he reportedly doesn’t have any good comments about the adult who wants a heavy-duty vise for his shop. (We’re supposed to think about such things when we make our Christmas present lists.)

Now for the non-believers who think the sleigh can’t have so many electronics because there are no visible antennas: Well, they’re there, and they’re visible. The antennas are disguised as antlers on each reindeer. In fact, they also have Bluetooth antennas for each reindeer linked to the moving map displays in Santa’s sleigh. In fact, any reindeer worth its salt would not want to fly that far without his or her own Heads-Up Display, would they?

Merry Electronic Christmas!

About the Author
Ralph H. Gould is a certified flight instructor and the executive director of the Kent County Dispatch Authority in Michigan. He recently retired as communications manager of the Grand Rapids Police and Fire PSAP. The instrument panel in the picture is from his Piper Cherokee Six, which he and his family have taken to the Bahamas, Cape Cod, Colorado, the Oshkosh Wisconsin air show, Mackinac Island and many other destinations. Contact him via e-mail at [email protected].

What’s on Your 9-1-1 Wish List?
If you could get Santa into your comm center, what would you ask for? A few thoughts from the trenches:

• A bottomless coffee mug;
• Full staffing;
• Never-ending spectrum;
• Full & free build-out of exclusive public safety broadband access in the D-block;
• Dispatchers with multiple arms;
• All-access multiband radio to ensure interoperability;
• An interoperable wristwatch radio (“Calling Dick Tracy. Come in, Tracy!);
• Raises for everyone;
• No mandatory overtime;
• More spectrum;
• Respect;
• Appreciation;
• Fail-proof console equipment;
• Callers who know where they are;
• Twice as much sick time as has been allotted;
• Exercise equipment;
• Shorter shifts;
• Twice as much vacation time as has been allotted;
• Higher pay;
• Stress-relieving classes;
• No procedural changes for one year, unless dispatch-recommended;
• On-site child and pet care;
• A massage therapist on staff;
• Personal climate-controlled consoles for everyone;
• Cell phones that give EXACT caller locations;
• More spectrum;

And the list goes on …

Originally published in Public Safety Communications magazine, Vol. 75(12): 28-31, December 2009.