A publication of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Issue link: http://natca.uberflip.com/i/832092
• Using cameras to determine aircraft position without creating requirements for the cameras. • Using cameras as mitigations to construction projects blocking line of sight from the tower. • Fixing the proc ess for approving construction projects that create blockage to line of sight. • Limiting cameras to situational awareness only. (Non - remote tower cameras) • Human interface issues. • Scope of area cameras being used for. There are of course many other issues, but the primary ones center on using cameras bought by an airport to justify blocking line of sight to a movement area, particul arly a runway, or runway exit. I am just starting now and will need to work through these issues as we move forward to having a "situational awareness" camera program. DATACOMM Chad Geyer (ZLA) is the Article 1 14 Representative for DataComm. Below is his update. Last week Controller Pilot Data Link Communication (CPDLC) sites se nt over 4,100 clearances a day. The Data Comm progra m and NATCA SME s have been very busy over the last month. The group participated in a meeting with NavCanada to discuss their operation and how their system works compared to the U . S . design. One very interesting piece of information is that NavCanada does not use CPDLC below FL290. They also do not send route informat ion to the flight deck. The SME s will be working with NavCanada over the next few years to work on Data Authority transfers. This is an under the cover transfer of who has the ability to s end clearances to the aircraft. The SMEs have also been working on what site testing and implementation will look like when the CPDLC service is turned on in the center. There is a Test and Training Lab (TTL) scenario that must be built along with testing on functionality. Then when the system is enabled on the floor, what do those scenarios look like since real aircraft will be schedule d to assist with testing and message verification. The group has also been working on ground system enhancements for a vionic issues. One of the main issues is when a route that includes a STAR is uplinked, certain aircraft treat it differently. The group worked with the flight deck working group on the DataComm Implementation Team (DCIT) to find a solution that will work with a ll aircraft and be seamless to the controller. The DataComm program also hosted a Computer Human Interface (CHI) evaluation of the CPDLC CHI at Leidos in Gaithersburg. Several members of the National User Team and DataComm SMEs attended. There has been di scussion that when the CHI team sees Data Blocks on the Leidos simulators that certain attributes that are seen in the field are not displayed the same way in the lab. The Gaithersburg lab is real ERAM running on real scopes. There appeared to be some diff erences in brightness from what the team has seen in the field. Leidos has also taken an action to see why there appears to be different appearances of the same information on different scopes.