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SAFETY AND TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT Update for the Week of Oct. 15, 2018 ATO OPERATIONAL CONTINGENCY GROUP (ATOC) Jason Grider (ZFW) is the ATO Article 114 Representative and the Business Continuity Plan (BCP) Representative. His report is below: The Contingency Training workgroup has met monthly throughout the summer to develop new training requirements for controllers working traffic during a contingency event. The workgroup will send their recommendations to AJI for the development of training to be distributed to facilities. The CO group spent the month of September working with ZMA and ZSU to make improvements to their operational contingency plans (OCPs). The team provided the facilities with draft OCPs that would serve as a foundation for the facility to begin negotiations. The work that was done was very well received and the CO group is moving forward with deployment to all facilities over the next few years. The national oceanic contingency group met with the ATOP workgroup at the WJHTC in New Jersey to explore different ideas on how to utilize ATOP in the event of an oceanic facility going ATC-0. Several ideas were captured and will be looked at for feasibility to be used on live traffic. 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. Version 12.5 has been deployed to all but one facility. This version's system performance and stability appears to be better than version 12.4a. Forty-one sites are running some version of auto mode, when initial flight plans are printed in the tower and the system auto populates the information that needs to be delivered, and automatically sends the clearance. Prior to the enhancement to Tower Data Link Services (TDLS), only 5 sites were using auto mode. The use of auto mode is increasing as additional sites adapt operational configurations because auto mode is a timesaver for the clearance delivery position. There are some facilities that combine ground control with clearance delivery, and the benefit of not having to take your eyes off of the taxiways improves safety. ZID went to 24/7 operations on CPDLC Oct. 3. Aircraft participation was between 100 to 200 flights a day until Southwest Airlines activated their crews. The participation rate then increased to approximately 550 flights a day. ZID is the first site to go to 24/7 operations. During the course of the full day runs, the site experienced some network delays and failures, which prompted the site leads to fall back from 24/7 operations. The program office is working with Harris Corporation, Rockwell Collins, SITA, OEM manufactures, and others to determine the cause of the network delays. They are also trying to determine if they are confined to ZID

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