A publication of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Issue link: http://natca.uberflip.com/i/645606
T OWER FLIGHT DATA MANAGER (TFDM): Matt Baugh (IAH) leads NATCA's efforts on TFDM as the Article 48 Representative. His report to the membership is below. • TFDM FID (Final Investment Decision) has moved from March to April due to the recent budget cut of $60 M in FY17 - 19. The contract will not be awarded until a successful FID, now planned for April. • Members of the TFDM team visited IAH on 2/2 & 2/3 to present an Operational Evaluation Review (OER) to local members of Management, NATCA, PASS, Airport Ops, and United. The meeting went well and the facility was very interested in having the capabilities TFDM will bring the operation in the future. • Advanced Electronic Flight Strips (AEFS) o Mr. Baugh visited EWR and PHX with Safety and Tech Deputy Director Jim Ullmann and the PMO Article 48 Represent ative Jeff Woods on 2/4 & 2/5. The purpose of the visit was to bring them up to speed on the progress of the system over the last few months so they could then attend the NAC meeting later this month with as much inf ormation as possible. o Delays in acceptance of resolution comments have pushed the expected completion date of the Digital Audio Legal Recorder (DALR) NCP to the end of Feb. This may push back the ability to add seconds to the clock and a viable time sync t o the system until the 5.3.0.3 build due out in May. o AJI has approved of the AEFS ATC Course Design Guide and everything is in place for the Operational Try - Out and First Course Conduct in March and April in SFO. Once this process is completed and has been approved by AJI, the training will be considered validated for further facilities. o Mr. Baugh had a telcon with Dean Lacharite (CSA NATCA Safety Representative), and the TFDM Program Manager (PM) Mike Huffman, to discuss the changing of AEFS reporting issu es from t he current mechanism to ATSAP. The PMO has expressed some concerns and an additional telcon is scheduled for this week in order to answer his questions. o PHX Training for PHX Tech Ops started the week of 1/25 and has since been completed. Their system will be upgraded to the 5.3.0.2 build that is currently in CLE once a suitability/stability call has been made. o CLE Bill Spencer, a contractor, was sent to CLE from 2/1 - 2/5 in an attempt to capture additional information regarding a cascading GUI error that has begun. Dave Flagg, and Tony Kristovich (TSLE) and Bill Spencer, were in CLE from 2/8 - 2/10 to upgrade the thin clients and install backing plates for the monitors to hold the cables in plac e. They also brought a debugging thin client and ho oked it up to LC in order to identify any additional memory leaks but none were found. The results of the follow - up to the heads down study done in early Jan have been released. They showed a decrease in heads down time on local and clearance delivery/flig ht data, with an in crease at the ground position. It was decided that future studies will include