NATCA Bookshelf

NATCA National Airspace Rep Much of the Metroplex and .41 PBN work has been reviewed recently so a process can be developed for prioritization of procedure design and implementation. There are currently more than 4,000 procedures in the gateway and we hope this will be the beginning of a more fluid and timely procedure development process. We do not expect immediate changes but look forward to this positive move. We were advised this week that the agency is still looking for ways to cut an estimated 30 million dollars from the mission support budget, this will continue to affect most of our projects negatively. As the funding crisis continues, we are hoping for updated and positive news in June. If the funding does not improve it is unlikely the FAA will be able to financially support the current airspace and procedure design and implementation commitments. Submitted by Jim Davis, NATCA National Airspace Rep AIRSPACE TECHNICAL DEMONSTRATION 2 (ATD-2) Pete Slattery (CLT) represents the membership as the Article 114 Representative for ATD-2. His report for is below. The NASA Integrated Arrival, Departure, & Surface (IADS) ATD-2 system continues to be used daily at Charlotte (CLT). Tower TMCs collaborate with the local ramp tower, operated by American Airlines, to accomplish Departure Metering just prior to bank two every morning. As of Feb. 19, after mutual agreement by all parties, we are now metering bank 3 also. We will monitor the effects of metering this additional bank before considering any of the afternoon or evening banks for metering. This decision will come once all parties have studied how the addition of Bank 3 has gone. So far, metering appears to be going very well, from the perspective of both CLT TMCs and local Ramp personnel. A new version of the STBO software (3.1.0) was deployed on Feb 12th. This version addresses some changes and enhancements requested by CLT TMCs, as well as Ramp managers and Ramp controllers. The most significant changes on the STBO client (the ATC TMC equipment) are: • The ability to swap flights within the same TBFM SuperStream Class via the timeline, • A Departure Delay Table that replicates current ARMT function and design, • A change to the way flights subject to APREQ are arranged on the timeline. They now appear in the order they taxi rather than being 'frozen' to their release time. This is a much more intuitive way to display flights and gives TMCs a better idea of whether a flight can/will meet its release time, or if you should/could request an updated time (earlier or later). • Improved flight search functionality across all types of display windows, • Single flight exclusions from Ground Stop or Departure FIX closures, • The ability to select either inclusion or exclusion action types when applying constraints to a TMI, • Better handling of closed Departure FIXes and CDRs, • General GUI enhancements as well as bug and stability fixes.

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