A publication of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Issue link: http://natca.uberflip.com/i/1182646
Kendrick attended the TAMR Look Ahead, SRM Panel, and weekly OSF Technical telcons. TERMINAL FLIGHT DATA MANAGER (TFDM) Aaron Rose (NCT) is the Article 114 Rep for TFDM. His report is below: Mr. Rose traveled to Atlantic City, N.J., during the last week of the reporting period. Regression testing was completed on Build 1.05 P21 at the WJHTC. The TFDM team, which includes Bob Kerr (NATCA CLE), Aaron Rose, and multiple contractors from AJV, verified fixes in the software. Unfortunately, there are still issues with Electronic Flight Strips (EFS) and Surface Management (SMN) – multiple bug issues and fixes promised that just fail completely. In addition, locally created STARS data transferring to a flight strip has issues. Arrival strips and overflight strips are not created in EFS which needs to happen. Departure strips are created via STARS but can only be done one way to ensure the strip is created. This is different from ways some controllers enter flight plans. TFDM needs to create a strip regardless of how it is entered in STARS. Also, issues continue with the lab. Traffic Flow Management System (TFMS), ERAM in a Box (EIAB), and FIDO connections fail periodically, which affects testing and time spent evaluating the system. The first week of First Course Conduct (FCC) was completed with SMEs taking part from SAN, CAE, ORF, MEM, DAL, and SDF. Bridget Brazelton will have more in the TFDM training report. During the same week, Oct. 21-25, a safety board was convened to evaluate the risks moving from paper strips to EFS. Louis Caggiano (EWR) and Nate Miller (MDW) took part in the SRMP. TFDM EFS portion was deemed safe for deployment, based mostly off the past performance of Advanced Electronic Flight Strips (AEFS) which is deployed in PHX, CLT, and CLE. The first three weeks of the reporting period were all telcons for Mr. Rose as he recovered from medical issues. Multiple Discrepancy Report (DR), Program Trouble Report (PTR), and Change Request (CR) telcons occurred each week and were attended by Mr. Rose and the NATCA TFDM team. All these meetings include NATCA, PMO, AJV, and Leidos. In these meetings, we covered all issues associated with TFDM software. Strip bay behavior for the initial deployment in PHX has to be completed and tested within the next month or two to ensure we are providing a product deemed operationally ready. In addition, TFDM NATCA prioritized all the DRs, PTRs, and CRs for each build. The problem is there is only so much room in each software iteration. This is actually the toughest part of the job, choosing what we can live with as a workaround and what we cannot. On the AEFS front, a major milestone was reached when the team tested AEFS software on TFDM hardware. When we deploy to PHX, CLT, and CLE, we need to be