A publication of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Issue link: http://natca.uberflip.com/i/738498
The meeting on Fri day was between FAA management and the facilities only and included no NATCA members. This obviously created more issues as we arrived on Sunday night for IOC , but in talking with the area reps for costal and Mike Sanders , we were able to set another call for Tuesday. The call on Tuesday resulted in a work group being put together for SNA/SCT to have management and NATCA from both facilities work on a solution and I have made myself available to help facilitate the process. The larger issue with this issue being discovered is the decision to roll out the B757 rules nationally by AJV last December. As of right now the 7110.65 has no lower limit to the distance of the parallel runways for wake turbulence. We had both Wake and AJV people working this issue and will continue to move forward to fix the problem. Being the SRMD showed safety only down to 700ft , then we would likely have to change the .65 to reflect that change on closely spaced parallel runways. Since this was just discovered the issue is just star ting to be worked but it reflects the separation between AJV and Wake due to personal issues causing safety concerns. In addition to the issues at SNA/SCT in the third week of the month , we had our initial site visit to PHL for RECAT 2.0 and it went extra ordinarily well. It appears that they are going to be able to accomplish training and IOC before the moratorium for Thanksgiving , with IOC on November 15/16. Once training has been scheduled and IOC set , we will be making plans to travel and get that facil ity up and running. By adding PHL , we will now be able to collect data from the two big versions of Phase 2.0, which is one facility that works a Super A388 and one that does not work the aircraft. Hopefully this will give us data for both options over the lull in rollouts through the first quarter of 2017. The last week of the month was spent at SCT and the associated towers for IOC. Despite the last minute issues with SNA , the rollout went very smoothly with most of the controller workforce adapting well t o the changes. We did have another issue with type aircraft that pushes for the need for a national program to handle type aircraft problems. The first morning LAX arrival received a handoff for an aircraft type LJ36 that showed up as no weight. Upon learn ing of the issue , we had the controller question the pilot as to the type of aircraft and he stated it was a Lear 36/LJ36, however that was not an identified ICAO identifier. We looked through the aircraft order and the Lear 36 falls under the LJ35 family , so the aircraft type is LJ35 and the controller changed the type aircraft to show Category E, and informed the pilot to call when landing to inform them as well. These ICAO type identifiers are going to continue to become more and more of an issue with the new NextGen systems that are coming out to the floors of facilities. We rely on these type aircrafts for separation standards and use of systems such as RECAT/ATAP in the terminal world where , at major airports , we required reduced separations on the final f or capacity. I believe the last determination from NATCA ' s conference call on this issue was to submit a CAR to the FAA , but we knew at the time it involves so many systems from different divisions that it's a daunting task but it is becoming increasingly imp ortant. The rest of IOC at SCT had no issues and all were comfortable working the program when we left on Wednesday. October is going to be a slow month for RECAT until the training picks up PHL at the end of the month. In the meantime I hope we are able t o work some of this issues that have occurred from the SCT RECAT and the type identifier issue that keeps happening at facilities as a result of flight plans filed with incorrect ICAO IDs.