A publication of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Issue link: http://natca.uberflip.com/i/724722
and M98 were involved with STARS testing and evaluation during A ugust. Th ree weeks of testing S6R5d2 and S6R4d12 at the Tech Center in Atlantic City was followed with a weeklong session at the Raytheon facility in Marlborough , Mass . NATCA SMEs evaluated a variety of STARS functionality including: STARS backup systems, conflict alert, ADS - B, tracking, ATPA, four - character airport IDs, and data tag enhancements. Maintaining the numerous software platforms in the field while planning and constructing future builds has placed significant constraints on tech center resources. NATCA i s working with the agency to prioritize the current automation needs of controllers while minimizing schedule impacts to future software builds. A revision for Segment 1 sites is forthcoming this fall and a finalized version for Legacy/ELITE sites is neari ng completion. Work continues with OSF, TSLE, Raytheon , and the PO to alleviate nuisance conflict alerts at Chicago (C90) TRACON. Software changes and adaptation continue to be evaluated as resolutions. Radar tracking problems persist at Potomac TRACON (PC T) despite numero us adaptation changes such as: added reflection surfaces, surface tracking filters , and adjusting radar parameters. Minneapolis TRACON (M98) has been reporting random and intermittent coasting. Working with our NATCA SBS brothers and the T ech C enter, the problem was determined to be surveillance parameter associated with ADS - B , and a solution was quickly put into place that solved the problem. TIM E BASED FLOW MANAGEMENT (TBFM): Eric Owens (I90) is the Article 48 Representative for TBFM. Th e month of August was very busy f or the TBFM National Ops Team. The week of August 1 - 5, I attended a meeting at ZMP to discuss a plan to t est early departure scheduling. Early departure scheduling is where the tower or center TMC will schedule the departur e through TBFM 30 minutes prior to the air craft being ready for takeoff. The expectation is that the scheduled time and ready time will allo w for less delay on the ground. We will test early departure scheduling at Z MP the week of September 12th. While I w as attending this meeting at ZMP, the remaining TBFM Ops Team members attende d the TBFM 4.6 Ops Evaluation. The evaluation went very well and should be ready for discovery site testing i n October 2015. Prior to this discovery site , we will have the 4.5 key site activity at ZAB the week of September 19th. The second week of August, Matt Gammon (TBFM NATCA SME) and Kevin Bell (TBFM NATCA SME) went to ZOB to observe their operation for our upcoming Integrated Departure and Arrival Capability (IDAC) install, sc heduled for two weeks beginning September 26th. There were no major issues observed , so ZOB appears to be ready for this activity. The third week of August, I was at Raytheon with the Te rminal Sequencing and Spacing (TSAS) workgroup to continue development and to complete requiremen ts for this phase of the build. We have continually advised the FAA that we are not going to be able to finalize how things actually function until we can get into a lab environment and put our hands on the actual TSAS tool in a sim ulated operational environment. As a result, we are keeping as much functionality in the tool as possible so we can fine - tune it at a later date in a simulated operational environm ent. During this same week, we had additional Ops Team members at ZAB for a meeting with P50 and ZAB to assist these two facilities with the flow into P50. The facilities worked well together and came up with a plan that is currently being tested. An additional meeting wi ll be scheduled in the future. In addition to these two m eetings, we had Matt Gammon and Joey Sanders (HSI contractor) observing the operation at ZBW for the upcoming IDAC install. ZBW IDAC install wil l take place September 6 - 16th. The ZBW terminal facilities receiving IDAC will be BOS, BDL, MHT, PVD , and ALB.