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Old 27th August 2001 | 09:37
  #24 (permalink)  
Delta Whiskey
 
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 43
Likes: 0
From: East of the West Island
Wink

Spotter
We use roller ball to "designate" SSR tracks or targets if you will, and then a custom keyboard with full QWERTY keys and number pad and about a dozen and a half specific function keys such as "modify" "hand" "accept" and so forth. Once you've designated the aircraft you're interested in you whack the appropriate function key, change the data in the SSR label using the keyboard, e.g. cleared level and hit "enter". The label then reflects your voice instruction to the aircraft and others can see what you're doing which cuts down inter sector coordination.
All the above is radar control = there is a planner who runs a bit of a paper war with printed strips, but he too spends most of his time eyeballing a radar display - the strips are mainly for disaster recovery if we suffer the "black hole syndrome" - a blank set of screens. With the strips we hope to be able to remember who was out there!
We may have been at X purposes in the electronic strip matter - we work 90% from the SSR label on a radar screen - I personally use a jotter pad to remember headings and speeds assigned but a lot of my coleagues simply give a "turn left 5 degrees" type of vector and don't bother with specific headings.
This is getting mighty long but on our Oceanic Control System we do use true electronic strips and a mouse/windows system. The strips are really only aide memoirs - show nav equip, positions and ATA/ETAs coordination carried out, levels and speed. All are updated by the computer automatically in response to HF and/or datalink positon reports, and clearances/coordination composed in a separate window. As you perform tasks the computer changes the strips to reflect what you've been doing.
If you've got this far you're doing well and have a high boredom threshold !!
I guess our strip marking is pretty relaxed compared to the examples you gave.
Cheers
Delta Whiskey is offline