TCNE development - a few years ago colleagues proved that the reliance on PRNAV was a folly and that fundamentally the design idea was flawed. These were people who work the airspace day in day out. Were they listened to? No. Several years and several million pounds later, oh, it's failed.
Central airspace. Just recently failed the 3rd simulation attempt. Fair enough one go and it fails... during round 2 - the guys from AC were all saying that the process was not being run properly and that corners were being cut - which could be detrimental... lo and behold RTS2 failed.
Bring in TC for RTS 3. Every ATCO stated that the timescale was too tight (Mar 09). 9 months for a major airspace change?!! Staff numbers for the Real Time Simulation etc were fudged, again against the wishes of the ATCOs who stressed theneed for proper testing. A rush job and guess what - it fails again... this time on issues that may have come to light before the expense of running a full time sim during one of the busiest times of the year.
Now it's full steam ahead for the 4th attempt - guess what - to be implemented by mar 09. Sounds like clutching at straws to me - not a good use of company money. The cost so far?? Several millions.
I fully agree that we can't get it right first time every time, but we are not learning from our mistakes. We are employing 'project managers' who have no ATC/engineering experience and all they are interested in is the deadline, they have not got a clue about the real problems and brush them aside when they are brought up by the experts.
I agree theses developments are expensive, but if we took the time to listen to the experts we have in the company (ATCOS/ATSAs?ATCEs etc) then we might just save some money.
Don't get me started on the new layers of management, but just for tasters we thought when TC moved to Swanwick that we were going to streamline watch management by having one combined AC/TC manager per watch. We did that but then a few months down the line, conjured up new management jobs that we never had the need for before!!
This company wastes money left right and centre, until it starts to sort that out, why should it be left to the employees to bail NTS out again??