A publication of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Issue link: http://natca.uberflip.com/i/883404
Mr. Rose also spent a week at NCT catching up on ELMS, r ecurrent tra ining, and CEDAR requirements. Participated in the monthly ART 114 telcon, TAMR TSAS telcons, STARS Hardware telc on, and N90 Post ORD meetings. N90 AT Coach issues are still being worked. NATCA TAMR has made it clear to the program office the need for quick resolut ion to AT Coach issues at N90. Technical Refresh One was approved by the JRC on Sept. 17th and includes money for a new STARS OS and digital feeds for MDM. The new OS will allow improvements to AT Coach and eventually enhancements needed for years. Mr. Rose met with Mark Minik (AJT) about JCF, CRP, and D10. Joshua Control Facility (JCF) will be transitioning t o STARS within two years and even though it is not on the TAMR waterfall, NATCA is involved to ensure adaptation a nd training will be top notch. Both CRP and D10 have issues with automated handoffs and point - outs between the FAA and Navy. Mr. Minik will be meeting with the Department of Defense in two weeks to discuss how we can improve the situation. CTD (Common Terminal Digitizer) - AJI and PASS completed a walkthrough of training material developed fo r the CTD in OKC. AJI has provided comment to the PM O, in the current software version, the CTD is not maintainable and AJI recommends delaying Tech Ops training until the next software vers ion is suitable for deployment. Software version 2.6 is scheduled for delivery to the FAA in November 2017 and will re quire OT&E testing. This will delay Key Site activity until June 2018. The main issue with the training material is since the product was so flawed initially, there has never be en a solid baseline developed. The CTD PMO is currently evaluating the comments by AJI and NATCA TAMR believes they will attempt a key site regardless in January 2018. PASS, I believe , will not let this happen and NATC A TAMR supports this position. As an example of the issues, when Tech Ops needs to accomplish maintenance, the entir e radar nee ds to be taken out of service. In the current build, the system cannot isolate the radar channels from each other, channel A from B or vice versa, and maintenance accomplished on the "standby" channel can negatively influenc e the controller pres entation. This will reduce availability of the local radar for AT services since maintenance accomplished today without an outage will re quire a complete radar outage. Software version 2.6 is slated to mitigate this current limitation of the system. Duri ng the most recent user evaluation at RFD during the week of Sept . 11, NATCA SMEs identified a new issue with extreme levels of Anomalous Propagation (AP). These three issues (system availability, severe false weather in proximity to real weather, AJI/PASS system maintainability concerns with current software) will have to be remedied prior to CTD beco ming operationally suitable. The initial deployment date for CTD was November 2016. NATCA TAMR raised concerns with both AJW a nd the CTD project since 2014. The CTD program has had a year to get this system operational and I do not see a completion un til June 2018 at the earliest. To mitigate TAMR waterfall deployment issues TAMR has worked with the CTD PMO and other groups to proc ure all TDX - 2000's in the NAS . Unfortunately, there are not enough legacy TDX2000 digitizers in storage t o complete the TAMR waterfall.