NATCA Bookshelf

Terminal Flight Data Manager (TFDM): Matt Baugh (IAH) is the TFDM Article 114 Representative. His update for the membership is below. Being the first update of the year, I would like to take this opportunity to thank my NATCA brothers and sisters on the TFDM team for all of their hard work, dedication, professionalism, and knowledge. Jim, Louis, Kelly, & Ray, I could not have gotten this far without your efforts. Along those lines, I would like to introduce two new TMC members to the TFDM NATCA team: Robert Berrien from DTW and Erin Murdock from PHL. They will be heavily involved in the development of Build 2, which will include the surface metering and situational awareness tools. With the final implementation of these capabilities, when added to the integration of TFMS and TBFM, we will be able to meter from gate to gate, and not just at FL330. In early January, the TFDM team met with the Traffic Flow Management System (TFMS) engineers and kicked off our work together for the Surface Viewer that both teams will develop for the TRACONs and ARTCCs. Towers will also have the surface viewer available but it will not interface with ASDE-X. There will be many more meetings over the course of the next year in order to finalize the product. The intent of this capability is to allow the overlying facilities to see the surface as those in the tower see it. This will hopefully lead to better communication and tactical decision-making. There is a new risk with TFDM concerning the interface of ATD-2 and AEFS in CLT. The Authorizing Official Designated Representative (AODR) notified the program that the local AEFS/ATD-2 interface at CLT might not be approved. If that were to happen, the AEFS/ATD-2 interface would need to be routed through a NAS Enterprise Security Gateway (NESG), which will require the site getting a new FTI connection – a process which can take anywhere from six months to a year. It's too soon in the process to tell how much this could slide the AEFS/ATD-2 interface schedule, but we are working with the right people to make that determination as quickly as possible. If the schedule does slip, not only would the interface in CLT not be realized on time, but also the benefits and lessons learned from such a monumental task would not be garnered by TFDM for when we are scheduled to subsume AEFS & ATD-2 in 2021. There will be a System Requirements Review (SRR) this week with the NATCA, the FAA, and Leidos. During this process, we will attempt to finalize all of the build 2 requirements. Those that cannot be finalized during the week will be passed on the appropriate work groups to be wrapped up over the coming months and during the build process. Advanced Electronic Flight Strips (AEFS) NATCA and AJV-7 (Requirements) will be going to the Tech Center the first full week of February for initial AEFS testing of build 5.4.0.0. Additional suitability testing for that build will be March 12-16, with additional participants from the field. CLT will be the key site for this build, as it has numerous ATD-2 specific changes. Build 5.5.0.0, which will have more integration capabilities with ATD-2, is schedule to go through its initial shakedown testing at the tech center in the middle of June, with official suitability testing scheduled in early August.

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