NATCA Bookshelf

TBFM The week of Oct. 8, there was a review of the TBFM course at Oklahoma City. During this visit, Ops team members reviewed all of the lesson plans and their associated exercises. There was some updating and corrections made, but overall the course continues to receive good feedback. That same week, the Ops team members were at ZAB to do the initial software verification of the IDAC system for the upcoming IDAC Installation and Training activity. The following week, sustainment testing was conducted at the Tech Center. This continued monthly robust testing continues to help identify issues early, and overall has helped keep the quality of the releases as high as possible. There were some issues found with between Future Change in TBFM and IDAC flows. These issues were also present in previous releases, so there should be some direction coming out in the future reference using Future Change for IDAC changes. Additionally, there is an overall ticket in the works to overhaul all of Future Change, and IDAC should be included in that. Also, Ops team members joined personnel from Tech Ops, Program Office, and Engineering Services during the install of IDAC IDSTs at PHX and TUS. Their job was to ensure that the display and the operation of the IDST was correct prior to the technical people leaving. There were some technical challenges during the installation, but all parties got the work done and left the system running correctly for training later. The same IDAC installation activity was repeated at ELP and ABQ the week of Oct. 22, and after dealing with a number of issues, the IDST displays worked correctly. This was the week of CFS, and Paul Carroll and I helped answer questions at the TBFM and TSAS Leidos booth. There was a lot of traffic at the booth and a lot of good questions about the current usage of TBFM and IDAC and future use of TSAS. During the month of October, the NEC subgroup continued their work of visiting facilities that will be involved with PHL metering as part of the Northeast Corridor. Briefings were held at ZTL, ZJX, and ZID. There will be a larger meeting in the near future to brief on the system after final development plans are completed at the Tech Center. TSAS During the first two weeks of the month, the Team participated on a vast amount of telcons each week to support the program. On Oct. 6, I (Paul Carroll) attended the ATCA Convention to review the Leidos TSAS demonstration and provide input. Their presentation was used at NATCA's Communicating for Safety Conference, the largest safety conference in the world. On Oct. 7, TBFM Article 114 TBFM Rep. Matt Gammon and I participated in the Trajectory Based Operation (TBO) Summit at FAA HQ. FAA senior leadership along with NATCA PMO Jeff Woods and Deputy Director of Safety and Technology Mark McKelligan spoke to the group about the components of TBO and the vision towards the future. Time Based Management (TBM) and Performance Based Navigation (PBN) are the main components of TBO. During the week of Oct. 15, we conducted testing of the TSAS system at the Tech Center. The Team was able to use the Denver adaptation in string 2 during the week. The ANG Capabilities

• Cover