NATCA Bookshelf

the site and how the site will be training the controller workforce. After this meeting, Mr. Costa worked with Jim VanZee (GRR) and Robert Faulkner (D01) to discuss the challenges of integrating systems into local procedures. Finally, Mr. Costa traveled to Massachusetts to visit with Raytheon to discuss the Operational System switchover in STARS. The new OS will come with a new tool in AT Coach that will allow for more point and click functionality than currently exists. This tool is known as AT Prepare. We discussed some of the training concerns and needs for deployment and are hopeful that we will receive a demo on this tool in the near future to ensure adequate training recommendations. TAMR Software/Hardware Report Submitted by Kyle Ness (M98) Operational Testing and Evaluation (OT&E) – S6.R8 testing will commence on Nov. 27 at the Tech Center in Atlantic City, NJ, and will run three weeks. The purpose of the R8 build is to integrate Terminal Sequencing and Spacing (TSAS) tools and functionality into baseline STARS software. NATCA SMEs will run system tests to ensure existing software functionality performs as expected and will also run tests with TSAS to evaluate performance and display of TSAS tools. S6.R7 Drop 14 went to a keysite in late September and a handful of software defects were discovered including: intermittent remote tower router network failure, an MSAW/CA adaptation flag, FDAM criteria, and MCW indicators. Raytheon recently delivered fixes in Drop 15 and NATCA SMEs will test Drop 15 in mid-December. Pending a successful test event, the build will go back to keysite before Christmas and eventual national release in early 2019. Program Trouble Report Working Group (PTRWG) – This time every year the PTRWG reviews the list for old or unneeded PTRs. During the November meeting, stakeholders closed over 30 PTRs that were either several years old or written against obsolete software builds. Closing these PTRs condenses the list and the PTRs represent a more accurate picture of current STARS problems and improvements. This helps TSLE and Raytheon prioritize their software development efforts and meet the needs of the terminal controllers. Several PTRs need to be revalidated and will be reviewed at the December meeting. MSAW/CA Board – Mr. Ness and TSLE software met with FAA Human Factors (HF) to continue planning for the planned MSAW/Conflict Alert reaction time experiment. It was agreed that NCT provided quality MSAW/CA data and the experiment should use NCT traffic and airspace as a basis for the project. A timeline for the experiment has been developed to use NCT SMEs to validate simulation realism and perform the trials. HF has received AT Coach training scenarios from NCT to use as a basis for experiment simulation and will move toward validation in early 2019. Software Planning Board – The R8.R1 software build will migrate the STARS operating system from Solaris 10 to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. There will be no fixes or improvement in R1 for Air Traffic, Tech Ops, DOD, or OSF, so R2 while three years out, is already taking shape. NATCA has identified several high priority PTRs to be delivered in R2.

• Cover