A publication of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Issue link: http://natca.uberflip.com/i/733446
There are presently two new NIDS software versions at different stages of deployment. Version 3.5.2 will be key sited during the week of September 26th at MIA with a proposed national release date of October 13. This release contains fixes to FDIO interface issues along with document interaction issues. Th e issues that are being experienced at various facilities when a workstation freezes during a search of a large document (e.g. 7110.65) were preliminarily found to work. However, after NATCA was given the opportunity to deviate from the basic test procedu re it was found that the document viewer could still be frozen when conducting a search for a large word or phrase such as " administration " or " wake turbulence." This was tested on the SCT database and only occurred on certain tower homepages, not all of t hem. While the document viewer locks up, the workstation does not. Clicking another button on the page unfreezes the viewer and the workstation remains functional. The vendor and Second Level Engineers are looking into the formatting and structure of the f ailed pages to look for differences from others. Version 3.6 passed testing at the vendor ' s lab and was sent to Atlantic City for further regression testing where a " memory leak " issue was discovered. There were two different angles pursued to investigate the problem. First it was found that the tech center was using newer hardware that is not in the field yet. When the lab was reconfigured to simulate the NAS , the test results improved. Secondly, it seem s that Windows allocates memory in Task Manager to p rocesses as needed but apparently does not redistribute the memo ry when it is no longer needed. The problem with this is that the Task Manager log will always show a maximum allocation is opposed to a timeline of usage. The test, which runs for 72 hours, was started on Friday , September 23rd and won ' t be completed until after this update is submitted for distribution. NATCA was unofficially informed that the first eight hours of testing went well. Regardless of t his memory issue , the Program Office wants t o install V3.6 at SCT for System Acceptance Testing and key site it at I90 on October 24th. The impact on the fixes greatly outweighs the potential memory issue. NATCA agrees with this assessment. OSHA : Mike Odryna (ZBW) is the Chairman of NATCA's OSHA Co mmittee. He has provided an update for the membership. Weekly Meetings: Continuing weekly meeting with Kathleen Edic (AJW - 23) EOSH Services. POC: Mike Odryna New Orleans Lakefront Tower Mold Issues Mike Odryna is continuing to meet with the agency regard ing the o n going water and mold issues. It was determined that the concrete block making up the Base building is saturated with water. Several air scrubbers and dehumidifier have been installed. An independent CIH has been hired by the agency to oversee the remediation of the mold. FAA engineers are working on a plan to remove all the damaged sheetrock. While minor fixes are being done at this time, the major project is sc heduled to begin on October 25 . POC: Mike Odryna, Geoff Bac ci, Nichol Bell, Lawrence Ph arr San Diego Convention