A publication of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Issue link: http://natca.uberflip.com/i/865677
ADS - B IOCs have been completed at all En Route (ERAM and MEARTS) facilities. All ERAM sites have promoted ADS - B to the top of their sort cells. 102 of 155 Term inal sites have reached their ADS - B IOC a nd 99 are operating on Fusion. The majority of the remaining Terminal sites are ARTS 2E sites awaiting an upgra de to the ELITE (STARS) build. The Terminal ADS - B/Fusion tran sition proceeds in this order: Kickoff meet ing, ADS - B Flight Inspection, ADS - B IOC, Fusion Operational Suitability Demonstratio n (OSD), and Fusion Operations. The most recen t and upcoming Terminal events: • Baton Rouge (BTR) ADS - B Flight Inspection 8/23/17 • Fayetteville (FAY) ADS - B Fusion Kickoff 8/2 4/17 • Charleston (CHS) ADS - B Flight Inspection 8/30/17 • Montgomery (MGM) ADS - B Fusion OSD 8/30 - 9/01 • Montgomery (MGM) ADS - B IOC 9/01 • Lexington (LEX) ADS - B IOC 9/01 • Pasco (PSC) ADS - B Fusion Kickoff 9/06 • Moline (MLI) ADS - B Flight Inspection 9/06 • Lexington (L EX) ADS - B Fusion OSD 9/12 - 13 ADS - B Avionics Issues: NATCA SBS continues to work with the Agency toward a more proactive appr oach to ADS - B avionics issues. Though these are infrequent occurrences, the Agency's approach to date has been hampered by a lack of resources, bureaucracy, and legal constraints. These issues occur when standards for installation or configuration within aircraft or ground systems are not met. ADS - B is a cooperative surveillance source relying on the position information determined onboard the aircraft. Multiple ATSAP reports have been file d on the known issues to date. Controllers and facilities are encouraged to report any identified events through ATSAP and any other mechanism. In order to reduce the number of safety compromisi ng events in the NAS we need an effective, efficient response mechanism. The Agency is working on mitigations including enhanced validation and a No Services Aircraft List (NSAL). Enhanced validation has a limited effect (15nm around a Terminal Radar) on these issues but i t has been deployed NAS wide. The NSAL has been fielded in ZLA and ZOA airspace, including underlying terminals, and will soon be rolling out NAS - wide. Governance of the NSAL has been the biggest concern. As originally conceived by SBS management, the lag time between identifying a safety - compromising event and re acting could be days or weeks. NATCA is working on streamlining this process, potential ly via an automated mechanism. The end result needs to be an effective means of iden tifying bad actors and reacting as close to real time as possible. Article 114 discussions resulted in agreement that B787 aircraft will be placed on the NSAL as soon as possible. These aircraft have a latent avionics issue that causes false position inf ormation to b e displayed to the controller. This has alarmed several facilities and caused both SCT and NCT to demote ADS - B in their sort cell priorities. Two events in August highlighted the inability to react effectively or efficiently to identified avionics p roblems. On August 9, an ADS - B equipped Embraer 170