A publication of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Issue link: http://natca.uberflip.com/i/1182646
The WIMAT committee met to continue discussions of the implementations of the NWS retiring the text Airmen's Meteorological Information (AIRMET) and only using the Graphical AIRMET. The Agency was under the impression that the AWD would present AIRMET in a format that could be used to produce a strip with the legacy text format. The AWD is designed to show AIRMET graphically and currently does not produce text in legacy format that controllers are accustomed to seeing in order to disseminate. Further work will be necessary to produce a text product for controllers. Dynamic Weather Operational Needs Assessment (ONA) The dynamic weather ONA originally started in April has been finalized and was scheduled to be delivered to the directors' forum at the end of October. Collaborative Decision Making - Weather Evaluation Team (WET) The WET has been tasked with assisting in improving the often-conflicting forecasts of when the morning stratus will improve in San Francisco. Decisions have to be made often times within the first hour and the WET has recommended that the NWS and industry meteorologists host a telcon 30 minutes prior to the planning telcon to discuss the forecast. The call would allow the users to hear different perspectives of the forecast and decide which type of traffic management initiative to implement based on the confidence of the forecast. The team is planning on meeting in early December with the various parties to formalize the process and plans on delivering a recommendation by early January 2020. October 21-27, 2019 Update TERMINAL AUTOMATION MODERNIZATION REPLACEMENT (TAMR) Kyle Ness (M98) is the TAMR Article 114 Rep for NATCA. His report is below: Terminal Automation Modernization and Replacement Update Two more legacy STARS sites successfully achieved IOC transitioning from STARS G1 to STARS G4 ELITE. Boise (BOI) achieved IOC on Sept. 27, and Des Moines (DSM) achieved IOC on Oct. 17. That leaves five STARS G1 sites to transition in 2020: Memphis, Norfolk, Pensacola, Lubbock, and Corpus Christi. Norfolk and Corpus Christi are scheduled for equipment delivery in November and December. Joshua Control Facility (JCF) is scheduled to transition from REHOST to STARS G4 in June 2020. All ARTS IIE and IE systems have been replaced by STARS. Omaha (R90) has experienced random keyboard lockups for over a year. TSLE has implemented several remedies to fix the problem such as improving system grounding, hardware modifications, keyboard replacement, and static discharge. Instances declined but random lockups have still persisted, and the cause of these lockups could not be identified with CDR playback. In late September, TSLE installed electronic monitoring equipment to more effectively gather data between hardware components if another lockup occurred. Since then, two lockups were experienced, and the collection devices were able to capture the data. At this writing, Raytheon and TSLE are sifting through the vast amount of information and are narrowing down potential causes. We