A publication of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Issue link: http://natca.uberflip.com/i/729966
NCS: (Non - cooperative Surveillance) Quick refresher : NCS is a new program that is looking into what the replacement will be for the ASDE3 radar , which is currently well beyond its life cycle. This program came about due to all the attention behind ASSC adding back in SMR (surface movement radar ) . The agency sent out a market survey, which did have NATCA participation. The timeframe for questions has passed with seven manufacturers showing interest. Market survey results are coming up, and we hope to provide more info to you soon. Terminal Fusion: NATCA remains very focused on the Common Terminal Digitizer (CTD) effort necessary to incorporate numerous ASR - 8 sites into STARS Elite as well as Fusion. An issue with TDW displays se ems to be close to resolution. Both the Agency and NATCA agreed that an adaptation parameter could reso lve the issue with target size. After Operational Eval, the change was pushed forward to o ur key site, Evan sville (EVV). Provided on - site evaluation is successful, the pixel size change will be forwarded on to all other affected sites. SCT issues continue to be a large focus. NATCA is heavily involved in the SAAT team, which is examining long - term alternatives to help improve overall sur veillance in the SCT airspace. The first efforts are aimed at mitigating the effec t of the new Stadium near LAX. NATCA and the Agency have agreed to move forward wi th raising the LGB radar site. We are also working on a Wide Area Multilateration (WAM) design. Funding and timelines are a constant battle in these efforts. Vehicle ADS - B: The spectrum office continues to be difficult to work with as far as transmit map approval goes. The transmit map for BDL has finally been approved a year after the team conducted the initial outreach. HNL, MCO , and LAS have contacted the agency regarding Vehicle ADS - B. The team hopes to visit those sites in the upcoming months. TRAFFIC FLOW MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (TFMS): Brian Campos (DCC) represents the NATCA membership as their Article 48 Repr esentative to the TFMS project. His report is below. September 13 - 15 meeting involved a day and a half on the new RAD tool for Airborne Rerouting (ABRR) and Pre - departure rerouting (PDRR) to understand how to pull the i nformation to train in January. This involved lab discussion in understanding current probl ems and the best way to train. It was best decided to develop a Q and A for further support. Some workflow was reviewed to determine just how to approach the tr aining on the big event. During this process , another critical issue was discovered and believed to be a setback for release 4. Release 4 was suppose d to be delivered September 17, then it was pushed to early October and now it's the first week of November . Any further critical finds may f urther jeopardize its launch. They are still working on resolving the critical found in August. Additional work areas involved refining the RAD 2 ideas for next delivery. We reviewed the ABRR/PDRR i nitial look of the CBI p art 1. Some m inor adjustments were made and discussion continued on how it will frame the training in January. It was discovered the National ERAM team decided to file an AMES to turn off automatic FRC when the TMC uses the RAD to m ake a route amendment fo r PDRR. This came as a surprise since in March it was decided to make the automation do this until TFMS can do everything from the RAD into ERAM which is field 10 and 11