NATCA Bookshelf

• Assisting with updating legacy training and future delta build training for controllers • Ops evaluations for new builds • Key Site selection • Field Communication, including conference calls with sites, software releases, ATC questions on adaptations, maintaining site personnel communication for adaptation issues, and airline questions • ATSAP/Safety review coordination The Program Office has also submitted an enhancement request to ERAM for an indication to be printed on a tower departure flight strip to show that the aircraft has filed for a CPDLC departure clearance. The majority of the work lately has focused on CPDLC in the En route facilities. ZKC, ZID, and ZME are the key sites for CPDLC. The automation system is working as designed and enhancements and fixes are planned for later releases. The main issues that have been seen at these sites have been with network issues and avionics issues. Since the key sites have been testing with the aircraft, Harris Corporation has identified many of the avionics and network issues, and there are now plans to address and fix each issue. There are also issues associated with ARINC, SITA, and different airline radio and FMS configurations. One of the biggest issues is when an aircraft transitions from one radio tower to another. Just like with your cell phone, if the correct handoff to another tower is not done correctly, your call will drop. We have noticed a higher than expected failure rate for Southwest Airlines (SWA) FMS and CMU configurations. The issues do have a fix, the same fix that was approved and installed for the Airbus airframe, but certification to install the fix has not yet been approved, and a plan will have to be developed to bring the operator back on line. Southwest is the largest operator participating in DataComm, and because the issue is affecting their avionics equipage type, the sites are seeing a large number of AIMS tickets on the SWA fleet. The Program Office has decided to remove SWA from En route operations until a plan is developed to fix the aircraft and bring them back into CPDLC operations at a manageable pace. This path forward should reduce the workload on the controller to document the issue and reduce the work associated with removing the indication when a message does fail. ENROUTE AUTOMATION MODERNIZATION (ERAM) Julio Henriques (ZNY) leads the ERAM efforts for NATCA. Rex Jackson (ZDC) provides the report below: Due to issues within the CPDLC infrastructure all three key sites (ZID, ZKC, and ZME) have fallen back to, or remained in, Limited DFV testing. FTRs and national and local SMEs at the sites continue to support the test activities. Plans are being developed to continue and progress CPDLC deployment. EAE130 rebuild completed successful ops eval testing and has been released to ZLC,

• Cover
• ERAW received a briefing from Second Level Engineering and the Program Office on the Alternate Display Path in support of R-side Tech Refresh. The goal is to allow the AIX processor to provide data to the glass in the event of an MDM failure due to th...
• SE2 Use Case Updates
• o 4th Line – The team reached agreement on the 4th Line use case referencing the ON/OFF switch functionality. Once all team members concur, the use case will be sent to SLE.
• o Airspace Transfer – The team discussed the changes to the use case and a section was added for the "Push" function. The team also decided that language should be added to capture review of national procedures.
• DataComm CHI
• o The uplink type for Speed and Route Generic Uplinks was discussed. A recommendation was made to modify the classification of the Confirm Speed (uM134) and Confirm Assigned Route uplinks from Temporary Generic Uplinks to Permanent Generic Uplinks. Th...
• ER 195554 AHI and Point Outs
• o The team reviewed and reached agreement on the problem statement, "The desired behavior is to add system functionality that will insert an AHI (Auto Handoff Inhibit) for an aircraft from the initiating sector to the receiving sector after the receiv...
• ER 194653 Pending Font and Brightness
• o The team discussed and reached consensus on the problem statement, "Its desired behavior is to change the button functions on the SAA Filter Menu so that both hot and pending airspaces can be changed independently."
• Altimeter CAR
• o The team discussed updating altimeters at a more frequent rate. A task team has been created to work the issue with SLE and respond to the CAR.
• ER 186070 Weather Updates
• o The ER describes a situation where the weather report for a specific station did not update and the old weather remained displayed. A draft problem statement will be created with a desired behavior of reporting weather observations as missing, if th...
• PDRR/ABRR
• o Critical AIMS 196440 was written against PDRR and a software fix is needed to correct the issue. The ERAM fix will be delivered in April 2019, and the TFMS fix in 2020 or later. The initial suggestion is to disable PDRR at the facility level until t...