A publication of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Issue link: http://natca.uberflip.com/i/675504
• Mr. Sla ttery met with Nashville FacRep Jonathan Grimes on Monday, April 25th and discussed the coming week ' s activities. Mr. Grimes introduced Mr. Sla t tery to his ERK p oint of c ontact, Chad Joins, and F acility Support Specialist Kenneth Edwards. They discussed the importance of the upcoming test and the fact that we would seek to minimize disruptions as much as possible. La rgely, they succeeded. • Mr. Slattery participated in all of the activities at BNA during this past week. Mr. Joins attended day one and Ken Edwards attended all three days. Controllers had previously been presented with the PowerPoint presentation, which pr ovided an overview of the new units. A simulation lab was set up in the conference room and controllers were given a hands - on demonstration on all aspects of the new units. Generally this period of instruction lasted between five to 10 minutes. They were t hen afforded the opportunity to make as many entries as they wished until they were comfortable using the ERK. • One ERK was installed at a seldom - used controller position in the tower cab on Tuesday. o It was tested for correct functionality and then discon nected from the live EFSTS system. Until all controllers are trained on the system, the new ERK will remain disconnected from the live EFSTS. It will be available for practice entries until all training is complete. o Once everyone is trained on the ERK, it will be reconnected to the live EFSTS system and testing will begin. This expected to occur sometime early next week. • Controller acceptance of the ERK seemed to be high. It appeared that the general feeling was that the ERK was superior to the old keypad s in every respect. o The older keypads have physical buttons that can wear out after years of repeated pressing. Also, the characters on the buttons can fade and become illegible over time due to normal wear - and - tear as well as exposure to direct sunlight. o Since the new ERK is an eight - inch touchscreen display with variable brightness controls, it is much easier to see and read in any lighting condition. Life expectancy of the new units is unknown at this point, but the displays have a very high Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) rating and are expected to last several years before requiring replacement. • The week concluded with an out - briefing to facility personnel on Thursday. TechOps, Air Traffic, and NATCA were all in attendance and given a final opportuni ty to ask questions and provide input. Everyone seemed to agree that this necessary upgrade went better than expected. There are still a few minor issues that the EFSTS engineering team indicated they would address in the next release of the software. Thes e issues do not affect the stability or functionality of the ERK in any manner, but are more along the lines of, ' it would be nice if it could do this ' type of issues. • Overall, a very successful key site activity. INTEGRATED DISPLAY SYSTEM REPLACEMENT (ID S - R): Richie Smith (N90) leads NATCA's efforts on the IDS - R project as the Article 48 Representative. Below is Mr. Smith's report.