NATCA Bookshelf

National Office Update: March 25, 2019

A publication of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association

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SAFETY AND TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT March 18, 2019 Update TERMINAL AUTOMATION MODERNIZATION REPLACEMENT (TAMR) Aaron Rose (NCT) is the TAMR Article 114 Rep. His report is below: It has been a busy month for the TAMR program, reorganizing the waterfall and coordinating with facilities on new Initial Operating Capacity (IOC) dates. Equipment delivery, contractor acceptance inspections, and new site survey dates all have to be coordinated as well. Rose attended two deployment meetings, one in Washington, D.C. and another for the FAA Western Service Area (WSA) in Seattle. Two more are scheduled for the Eastern (ESA) and Central (CSA) Service Areas in the beginning of April. Software re-planning has been an issue over the last four weeks. Kyle Ness (M98), TAMR software lead, has been collaborating with both FAA Second Level Engineering (TSLE) and the PMO in regard to new software testing and release dates. Ness will share more details in his report. During the D.C. deployment and implementation summit, the new standardization project was discussed, which will follow on the heels of STARS deployment. The project will entail site surveys at every terminal facility and will assess the site hardware configuration to ensure STARS Sustainment 3 (SS3) activities can proceed. These activities cannot occur until all copper pathways are replaced with fiber optics. SS3 includes Linux (the new operating system), digital video, and T1 replacement. Rose coordinated with Region X Regional Vice President (RVP) Curt Howe to ensure the standardization project has the correct NATCA representation. Joe Ferguson (Region X New Orleans) will be the Rep working the project in addition to Rose. Ferguson will attend the next two meetings in Fort Worth, Texas, and Atlanta. In Seattle, the TAMR PMO briefed the WSA on the complexity of the standardization project and also discussed the remaining sites that need to be transitioned to STARS. Joshua Control Facility (JCF) Edwards was a main topic of discussion. JCF will be transitioning to STARS in June 2020. The facility is staffed by FAA controllers and Tech Ops, but the building and STARS equipment is owned by the Department of Defense (DOD). Trying to figure out who is responsible for what at this point is unbelievable. It is not just the FAA and Raytheon, but the U.S. Navy, Air Force, Army, and NATCA who all want their say about install and site adaptation. Conversations are still underway about who will review the adaptation which will be completed by the DOD and Raytheon. Rose is pushing for a review by FAA JCF controllers before going live in 2020. There was a TAMR Article 114 meeting on Feb. 26. Items discussed included R90 keyboard issues which turned out to be a grounding issue. There were no reported failures in the last three months. Additionally, testing new software and understanding how small issues are missed during testing was also discussed. Raytheon, NATCA, and the WJHTC all missed an issue with R7 software. It had to do with emergency airports and how to find them in the correct order. The issue is being corrected, but meetings are now set to discuss how to improve testing as to not miss future bugs in the software. Optical trackball replacements will be heading to the field soon. Tech Ops will really appreciate the new trackballs, and after testing by NATCA, it was determined that the new trackballs work as good, if not better than the legacy. Last but not least, there was an issue during the government shutdown and we discussed how to correct the situation if the government shuts down again. The issue was "Government Shutdown After Action Review" from the OSF AJV-E2 RVM group, and concerns about there being no one to

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