NATCA Bookshelf

National Office Update: March 25, 2019

A publication of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association

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During the week of March 18, the TBFM Ops Team traveled to three events that covered TSAS, NEC, and sustainment. There was a meeting at D01 where Ops Team members were together with NexGen representative and engineers. The purpose as to gain knowledge of the current Denver TRACON operation to help NexGen finish setting up the lab at the Tech Center for DEN TSAS testing. NEC Ops Team SMEs will be at the Tech Center to continue the lab testing of the PHL XM system in lead-up to the facility all-hands demo the week May 6. Additionally, there will be another 4.8.3 P1 keysite activity at ZOA and ZLA. Ops Team support will be at ZOA, while ZLA will have remote support. TSAS Subgroup Update submitted by Paul Carroll (PCT) During the week of March 4, the Ops Team met in Oklahoma City to create a plan for the next several months, due to the furlough and the re-re-plan. The furlough affected many programs and all of the planning had to be reworked. The Acting TSAS PMO, Warren Byrd, briefed that the Tech Center ANG lab work will not be completed and useable until July. This has a tremendous impact on testing the new Denver adaptation as well as the continued software stress testing. We plan to work with ANG to have more lab availability in the coming weeks. He also briefed us on the status of several software changes that are required. The Team composed a list of risks to implementation at the first keysite. We identified several high-level risks that are software related and others that are programmatic, such as the training contract. One new issue that arose during an inspection of a problem report on RNP is the RNP indicator on the terminal TCW. During TSAS operations, the "carat" that is displayed in the data block is supposed to indicate that the aircraft is RNP capable and has an STA (scheduled time of arrival) calculated from the use of the RNP approach to a particular runway. Leidos has engineered the current software to only show that the aircraft is RNP capable which presents a problem to the approach controller. There are several possible routes that could be used to determine the schedule in TSAS. The controller is not aware of which route was used, thus would not know which approach clearance to issue the aircraft. We are reviewing the requirements to determine if this is working as designed or if it will need to be re-engineered. Regardless, this will be a high priority for the program. WAKE TURBULENCE John Murdock (PHL) is the Article 114 Rep to the Wake Turbulence Office. His report is below: Our first meetings of the year included scheduling and planning for CWT implantations at D10, ACK, and A90. Training and IOC dates are still being decided upon. The goal is to have both areas IOC no later than June 30, 2019. We are currently developing a waterfall and training for upgrading existing RECAT facilities to CWT. The CWT order may get a few updates prior to upgrading any current facility. AJV-8 is considering making some changes to the time-based separation rules to squeeze more efficiency out of CWT. When D10 and A90 both IOC CWT, that will conclude the NAC commitments for Wake RECAT. Going forward, current RECAT facilities will be upgraded to CWT to maximize the efficacies of RECAT at all facilities and to work toward a singular wake turbulence separation standard for the NAS. We are also working with ANG to categorize new aircraft that enter the system as quickly as possible. RECAT 2.0 introduced a non-pairwise heavy grouping that requires significant

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