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NATCA Safety & Tech Update Week of January 1, 2018 AIRPORT CAPACITY DECISION SUPPORT TOOL (ADEST) Kristen Laubach represents the membership as the Article 114 Representative for ADEST. Her report is below. No new changes to report on Airport Capacity Decision Support Tool (ADEST) this month. The programmers continue to work on resolving issues that came up when the data feed was updated a few months ago. The new data feed is not allowing ADEST to receive updated NOTAM or flight schedule information. AIR TRAFFIC PROCEDURES (AJV-8) Andy Marosvari (BOI) is the Article 114 Representative in the AJV-8 Office. Mr. Marosvari forwarded the summary below for this update. Changes to Descend Via and STARs with Runway Transitions A Safety Risk Management Panel (SRMP) was held Dec. 5-7 to determine the hazards and mitigate the risks associated with new guidance proposed for 7110.65 4-7-1, CLEARANCE INFORMATION. As more RNAV STARs serving multiple runways are designed and implemented in the NAS, a standardized method of assigning a STAR, issuing a Descend Via clearance and ensuring the correct transition is flown is needed. Some facilities issue landing directions and some issue transitions using a runway number. The users of the NAS have indicated that in order for their Flight Management Systems (FMS) to function properly, a STAR runway transition should be issued using a specific runway number since the FMS codes it this way. Chart notes, indicating which runway to load based on the direction of landing, have been used successfully at some facilities but users argue that the information contained in a chart note is not a clearance and only information. AJV-8 has determined that the use of a STAR transition to a runway must be issued using a runway number. It's important to remember that this clearance, when issued by an ARTCC, is not a landing runway but a lateral path to the airport. Terminal facilities are still required to issue the landing runway upon initial contact or as soon as practical. The proposed guidance from the Agency will require a runway transition to be issued at least 10NM from the Transition Waypoint but will also permit controllers to clear aircraft direct to downstream fixes on the transition under certain conditions. Currently, any change to the lateral or vertical path of a transition requires radar vectors. The SRMP determined that, although the risk of using chart notes on STARs with multiple runway transitions was minimal, the Agency, in collaboration with NATCA, has written a new Document Change Proposal (DCP) that will address the changes. This document will go out for a 45-day review very soon so please, don't hesitate to contact me with concerns or comments. Interpretation Requests The normal process for receiving an interpretation from the FAA can be time consuming and confusing. During the last month, I have received several requests from facility FacReps regarding Merging Target Procedures, Converging Runway Operations and

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