A publication of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Issue link: http://natca.uberflip.com/i/806148
Shawn Engelland of NASA briefed on the progress of ATD - 2 at CLT and upcoming milestones. He expressed optimism in the work so far and anticip ates that the system being created will be functional for the initial rollout in September 2017. The technologies being applied to surface issues appear to be on schedule and very promising, which is an improvement over the atmosphere in fourth 2016, whi ch was much less optimistic. INTEGRATED DIS PLAY SYSTEM REPLACEMENT (IDS - R) Richie Smith (N90) leads NATCA's efforts on the IDS - R project as the Article 114 Representative. Below is Mr. Smith's report. The IDSR program reached a milestone when PHL declar ed IOC with NIDS during the last week of February. The system promptly fa iled, but after a lot of trouble shooting it is now functioning as designed. The milestone achieved was that PHL was the last facility on the waterfall to declare IOC. At the present t ime 35 of the 41 NIDS facilities have declared Operational Readiness, abandoning their old IDS systems. The FAA is of course anxious to complete the waterfall while NATCA continues to be cautious about moving forward too quickly. The newest software rele ase (3.6.1) has been nationally distributed and facilities are slowly installing the update. There is no time requirement for the installation of the upgrade but the program office pressures facilities that needed the packaged fixes to install in a timely manner as to verify the build. A new operating system passed testing in January but its release has been postponed so as to bundle in some security patches. Neither a new test date nor a new operating system have been decided on at this time. RNAV and PERFORMANCE BASED NAVIGATION (PBN) Bennie Hutto (PCT) is the Article 114 Representative for RNAV and PBN criteria work. Mr. Hutto's report for the membership is below. PBN Criteria Update: AFS Criteria Discussion In late February, John Belk (FAA PBN Techn ical Lead) and I t raveled to Oklahoma City and me t with Flight Standards Service (AFS) to discuss the current design criteria contained within several documents (FAA 8260.3C, FAA 8260.58A, F AA 8260.19G, and FAA 8260.46F). During our meeting, we discussed t he Standard Terminal Arrival (STAR) criteria within the FAA 8260.3C pertaining to the Origination and Termination, Routes and Transitions, Altitudes (En Route Transitions, Common Routes, and Runway Transitions), STAR Termination Altitude, Speeds, Runway Tr ansitions, and Bottom Altitudes as well as the FAA 8260.19G regarding Runway Transitions/Landing Directions and Bott om Altitudes. For FAA 8260.46F, we discussed Top Altitudes, Departure Route Descriptions, and Charting. Overall, it was a good meeting and should see the information disseminated and discussed within various workgroups in the near future, which will lead to criteria changes making it easier for proced ure design and ATC compliance. One thing to note, criteria changes are no different than any other changes within the FAA and will take time, but we are on the right track.