A publication of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Issue link: http://natca.uberflip.com/i/568433
· Attended the following o Daily SIB Meetings o Site Triage Meetings o DataComm 8/31 build exit briefing o IAH discussion o DataComm Implementation Coordination meeting o Weekly Key site meeting prep o Small Tech Working Group Meeting o ZLC/ZHU/SLC/BOI/IAH/HOU Weekly meeting o DataComm Implementation Meeting o TAS Operational Try - out in OKC INTEGRATED DISPLAY SYSTEM REPLACEMENT (IDS - R): Richie Smith (N90) serves as the IDS - R Article 48 Repre sentative. Mr. Smith has done an excellent job of keeping the membership and the National Office staff constantly updated with the rapidly changing IDS - R implementation issues. The report for this week is below. · Emergency Release 4 keysite te sting began last week at PVD and PHL. o Early, unofficial, news is that everything went well at PVD and no bad news has come out of the PHL testing. o The FAA and NATCA seem to have a slightly different view of information dissemination in regard to th e keysite test results. o The FAA gets its report on Monday morning, reads through it and then distributes it accordingly. That would mean that Article 48 representative Richie Smith would get the test results on Tuesday and you would not be reading the results here until a week later. o NATCA is asking for Friday afternoon reports as to keep the membership up to date. It is funny how an agency that operates seven days a week and twenty four hours a day seems to think that closing up shop on Friday afte rnoon and doing nothing until Monday morning is an acceptable way to operate when important test results are sitting idle. · Mr. Smith attended a meeting last week in Washington DC to discuss the IDSR program. o The purpose of the meeting was eit her misunderstood, misrepresented or miscommunicated. o NATCA was led to believe that decisions were going to be made about how to run the NIDS program with a 54% budget cut in FY16, particularly in relation to the waterfall. Instead the meeting discusse d various possibilities that the program could encounter based on financial and logistical scenarios. o While this meeting was productive, it was not what NATCA expected it to be. Other offices and divisions were upset at not having been invited to this meeting, thinking that concrete decisions were being made about the future of the program. o No decisions were made nor will they be made until all the appropriate stakeholders are represented. · Some data needs to be clarified about the IDS Repl acement program. o IDS - Replacement is a program of which there are currently two "products": NIDS and EIDS. o EIDS is not yet funded and probably won't be seen until 2021 at the