A publication of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Issue link: http://natca.uberflip.com/i/1056689
NATCA TAMR has worked collaboratively with the vendor, agency, and PASS since its inception. All BUMs should understand the time and effort it takes to coordinate these transitions and have patience with all involved. We are working with external entities to ensure new software, better weather on the display, and that hardware issues are being worked on a daily basis. If any BUM would like to discuss issues pertaining to their facility, please ensure to coordinate with your FacRep and contact the NATCA TAMR team at TAMR@natca.net. TAMR Software/Hardware Report Submitted by Kyle Ness (M98) Operational Testing and Evaluation (OT&E) Ness travelled to the Raytheon facility in Marlborough, Mass. with NATCA SMEs from BTV, RSW and A80 in mid-October to participate in an early evaluation of a new AT Coach training tool. Specifically, this tool will convert a STARS CDR recording to an AT coach training scenario. Raytheon demonstrated the ability to modify a converted scenario with existing AT Coach editing tools as well as manipulating events from the pseudo pilot position. Another evaluation will take place as the product matures and bugs are worked out. Program Trouble Report Working Group (PTRWG) NATCA attendees at the October meeting moved two PTRs related to ADS-B display information to a higher ranking. The ADS-B 2020 mandate is nearing and NATCA feels that improved ADS-B display items will benefit the controller. At NATCA's request, the November and December meetings will be an end-of-year cleanup by reviewing older PTRs for potential closure. MSAW/CA Board FAA Human Factors concluded a study on controller reaction time to MSAW/CA events and preliminary results seem favorable to adjusting safety alert algorithm parameters. To validate the effect of making these changes, FAA Human Factors is planning a simulation experiment to see how controllers react with various lookahead parameters programmed into the scenarios. The experiment is in the early planning stages and NCT has been selected as a data source since NCT has a variety of CA/MSAW alerts. The next step will be to procure data and AT Coach scenarios to build simulations. Software Planning Board STARS will migrate from Solaris to the Linux OS in early 2022 and the effect of that transition is having a significant impact on software planning. It generally takes 12-16 months to develop and field each software build which means there is only enough time to get two more builds out to the field before the OS rollout begins (R9 and R10). The R11 build had been planned but developing and deploying R11 would put the schedule at the risk of slipping the OS migration and therefore had to be moved post-OS. Working with the Software Planning Board (SPB), NATCA identified several priority PTRs in R11 that needed to be merged into R10. Taking the new R10 content into account, a new schedule was drafted and concurred by all stakeholders. STARS Hardware Ness will travel to the FAA Technical Center mid-November to conduct a final evaluation STARS TCW installation on Slatwall design. The objective of the TIM is primarily to do final fit checks of