A publication of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Issue link: http://natca.uberflip.com/i/675504
The program office is working with Net Jets, Executive Jet, other small private operators and even the military to include them in CPDLC operations and identify any issues with their system. • International carriers are slowly beginning to subscribe to CPDLC as well. Just recently British Airways, Emirates, Singapore , and China Air have begun to participate. Foreign a ir c arriers must follow a process within their own version of th e FAA to allow them to participate. U . S . carriers must gain approval through the FAA's Operational Specifications and foreign air carriers must do the same in their country for each type of air frame. ELECTRONIC FLIGHT STRIP TRANSFER SYSTEM (EFSTS): Below is a report from Pete Slattery (CLT) who is represented NATCA this past week in an EFSTS key - site activity at Nashville (BNA). • There are approximately 80 sites that use the Electronic Flight Strip Transfer System (EFSTS) throughout the NAS. Commonly call ed the "scanner system," EFSTS users barcode scanners to send (transfer) departure strips from a control tower to a TRACON. • Approximately 45 of the 80 EFSTS sites have keypads associated with the scanners. Keypads can be used by tower controllers to trans fer control information (commonly known as Automated Information Transfer or AIT) along with the flight strip. Sites that do not currently use keypads are not scheduled to receive the EFSTS Replacement Keypad (ERK). o Unfortunately the keypads used by EFSTS since its inception are Commercial - off - the - Shelf (COTS) items that are no longer being produced. Replacement units (spar es) and spare parts for repairs are in short supply and expected to no longer be available in the very near future. o Fortunately, EFSTS engineers at the Tech Center in Atlantic City have developed a replacement for the COTS keypads in the form of a touchscreen keypad. It is known as the EFSTS Replacement Keypad, or ERK. Extensive development and testing of the ERK has occurred over the la st 18 months. NATCA has been involved in every aspect of this activity to ensure acceptability by the workforce. • Two key sites were selected to field test the ERK : Nashville Tower/TRACON (BNA) and Philadelphia T ower/TRACON (PHL). The tests will run more o r less concurrently and last approximately 21 day s . Installation is staggered by one week due to having just one engineering team performing both key site installs. The units were installed at BNA the week of April 25th and will be installed at PHL the wee k of May 2nd. • At the conclusion of the test period, a determination will be made on the fitness of the units for use at the remaining facilities. A tentative waterfall deployment schedule has already been developed and will be followed upon successful con clusion of the test. The ERK units will be shipped to the remaining facilities in kit form for installation by local TechOps personnel. • Controller training on the new devices is via PowerPoint instruction and hands - on demonstration. A concerted effort was made to replicate each faci lity's current keypad layout and functionality in order to flatten the learning curve as much as possible.