A publication of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Issue link: http://natca.uberflip.com/i/816138
Mr. Andrews attended the annual CDM Spring Session on April 11 and 12, held this year at Southwest Airlines O peratio ns Center in Dallas . Until now, queue length has been considered to be the number of aircraft in line at a runway waiting to depart (queue count). A new metric to describe queue length has been introduced - queue time, which measures how long an aircraft joining the back of a queue can expect to wait until cleared for takeoff. The benefit of tracking the queue by time is that the automation will be expected to incorporate additional variables that the queue count version would not. Using queue count, a qu eue might be considered to be overrunning the desired length due to the additional time for the departure of heavy aircraft or due to a shared u se runway situation. By tracking the time that a plane waits in queue, the unaccounted for variables will be inc luded in calculations for Target Movement Area Times (TMATs). Another new concept introduced was Metering Participation App. General Aviation or low volume air carriers at a specific airport might not have access to infrastructure that accurately updates Earliest Off Block Time (EOBT). An app has been proposed that would allow these pilots to send updated EOBTs to System Wide Information Management (SWIM), increasing predictability, which in turn reduces the chance that a runway queue may over or undersup plied. The benefit to the pilot to make the effort to update the EOBT is that the plane can be confidently issued a TMAT and reserve space in the queue, instead of being assigned a later TMAT at call - for - service. Some ATC specific questions that the SCT will be exploring in the upcoming months - With multiple EOBTs at the same time for aircraft of different airlines and/or function, how does the Departure Metering Program algorithm choose which planes to put ahead of others on the timeline for TMATs? Is t here an effort to prevent blocks of one airline getting TMATs close together to prevent the appearance of favoritism? How is the fix mix/runway mix balanced? 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. AFS Criteria Discussion Met with Flight Standards Service (AFS) in Washington, D . C . on April 14th, in which we discussed the current design criteria contained within several documents (FAA 8260.3C, FAA 8260.58A, F AA 8260.19G, and FAA 8260.46F). We discussed the Standard Terminal Arrival (STAR) criteria within the FAA 8260.3C pertaining to Routes and Transitions, Altitudes (En Route Transitions, Common Routes, and Runway Transi tions), STAR Termination Altitude, Speeds, Runway Transitions, and Bottom Altitudes as well as the FAA 8260.19G regarding Runway T ransitions/Landing Directions. For FAA 8260.46F, we discussed Top Altitudes, Departure Route Descriptions, and Charting. Over all, 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 cha nges are no different than any other changes within the FAA and will take time, but we are on the right track. Pilot Controller Procedures & Systems Integration (PCPSI)