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During the weeks the TSAS team did not travel, some members supported the TBFM Team for sustainment testing and work on the NEC. Other members participated in numerous telcons with Leidos and Raytheon software engineers to enhance the TSAS system. Update for the week of Sept. 17, 2018 DATACOMM Chad Geyer (ZLA) is the Article 114 Representative for DataComm. His report is below: Controller Pilot Data Link Communication (CPDLC) sites are now sending over 51,000 clearances a week. Tower Data Link Services (TDLS) version 12.5 has been deployed to almost all sites. LAX continues to lead the nation with over 2700 CPDLC clearances being sent each week. The Program Office is assessing a rebuild of the 12.5 Build for cases where a flight ID is stuck in the pick list. Data from the sites is currently being collected to determine how often this happens. There is a possibility that a patch would delay a 12.6 build to the field in the March timeframe. The Program Office has also been working with the TFMS office to implement an enhancement in the RAD tool to verify that an ICAO destination is entered into the revision instead of just the three-letter identifier for an airport, i.e., KLAX vs. LAX. The problem with a three-letter identifier for a destination airport is that it makes the clearance unloadable. Controllers at the tower can revise the flight plan to change the destination back to ICAO compliance so the clearance can be uplinked. Briefings are being developed and coordinated with SYS OPS to advise local TMU specialists of the issue and to be cognizant of the ramifications of not including the ICAO destination in the reroute. ZID and ZKC have finished all of the checklist items for DataComm Functional Verification (DFV). ZME is 66 percent complete with their checklist items. ZID is planning on 8 hour runs during the day, beginning Sept. 19 and 24/7 operations on Oct. 3. ZKC is planning on running 24/7 operations near the end of October. These schedules are dependent on the success of the ERAM EAE121 build. ZID projected IOC is Nov. 1 and ZKC projected IOC is Nov. 26. The DataComm Use Case Team met at Leidos in Gaithersburg, Md., to finalize the speeds use case for full services. Due to the fluctuations in the budget over the last few years, the speed service was removed from full services. After discussions with controllers, it was determined that we should do everything possible to include speeds in full services. The program office is working with the various offices to secure funding for the speed's capability. The CHI team will be meeting over the next several months to determine how the controller will interact with, and display the unlinking of speed assignments. One of the capabilities that was added to speeds was the ability for a controller to uplink CROSS a FIX at a TIME. This should assist those sites that use time-based metering. Obviously, controllers will have to use their best judgement on when this message will be used, based on the amount of traffic over that fix.

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