NATCA Bookshelf

SURFACE CONCEPT TEAM (SCT) Kyle Andrews (ORD) is the NATCA Representative to the Surface Concept Team (SCT) for Collaborative Decision Making (CDM). Mr. Andrews forwarded the information below for the membership. The SCT and CAT held a joint meeting at the ATCSCC on Dec. 6. Also attending were representatives from major airlines, NBAA, and representatives of CDM airports. NASA IDAC has allowed for improved efficiency by showing gaps in the overhead stream in relation to the position of an APREQ aircraft in the runway queue. It has also improved safety by allowing ATC to find slots that fit with an aircraft's expected arrival at the front of the departure queue. Although that slot might not be available, it provides more flexibility for maneuvering the aircraft in relation to slots. Previously, aircraft might need to cross the active runway to jump the line to hit the only slot that ATC was aware of - the one that the plane had been given. There may be an unintended consequence in applying surface metering - even though there is variation from day to day on planes being ready to push or be towed in to a gate, there is a schedule that provides a daily rhythm for how a ramp handles its traffic. When a surface-metering program is introduced, this interrupts the rhythm. The number of tugs and ramp crews available is finite, and it would be difficult to increase or decrease the number of teams. If a new daily rhythm develops, the ramp efficiency will adapt, but if surface metering programs simply introduce a randomness that was previously not existent, the ramp may end up losing efficiency. Will the Surface Metering automation be able to adapt to occasional changes, like taxiway closures, in real time? How would the automation get that information, and who would design the algorithms that would adapt the taxi times? If not, then calculations to determine taxi time and time in queue will be incorrect, and could make severely inaccurate recommendations. TERMINAL AUTOMATION MODERNIZATION REPLACEMENT (TAMR) Aaron Rose (NCT) is the TAMR Article 114 Representative for NATCA. His report to the membership is below. The NATCA TAMR team has outdone itself in numerous ways in 2017. We have helped to complete the transition of 27 CARTS facilities and 18 legacy STARS facilities to TAMR STARS. Of course, it was not just the NATCA TAMR team but also all the individual locals working hand in hand with agency counterparts to see the transitions to successful completion. Kyle Ness (M98) has led a team of dedicated software SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) to prioritize software issues and ensured testing was completed at the William J. Hughes Technical Center. Scott Robillard (A90) passed lead deployment duties to Jim VanZee (GRR), and both in concert with Aaron Rose and the TAMR PO ensured transitions were on time and coordination completed with the locals. Bill Spence (BTV) passed on the duties of training to Ross Costa (RSW). 2018 will be a busy year for Ross with section 804, SPOT, and R6 training.

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