London Heathrow - Welcome to ATF !

[DFWcowboy]

Hello LONDON

For about sixteen months we have been developing an automated "Tower" facility (ATF) with a company called Texas Traffic Systems (TTS). At the end of shift today we were told that you boys in little England were the people who wanted it ready for 2008. The First to buy ! Many congrats folks.

I've gotta say guys, your a brave bunch if you have this by 08, its not ready to take the capacity of movements that we have been told you guys at London Heathrow get today! Ground Controlling will still be done by one of your men (and Ladies if you have them of course) But Tower Departures and Arrivals of your capacity is 40% over its current software capabilities.

The Contingency Controller doesn't have to step in much when we run DFW or LAX simulations, It will in your senario. The biggest problem so far is integrating systems such as SMR, TCAS, Mode A,C,S. The Automatan doesn't necessarily choose the right order according to MDI's ! BUT the goaround function is damn damn good. I know 2008 is a longtime a way to you guys but its justa round the corner to us.

Although I'm excited about ATF, if its employed at London Heathrow they said today it will reduce the workforce buy 20-30, but they will be redeployed to other units. Is that right? or will people actually lose jobs? The briefing today stated a shortage of traffic controllers throughout England, I hope thats true.

Let me know if they are telling us a rat pack of lies cos we developed ATF as a tool to get rid of the boring jobs with repetative phraseology, rather than put people out of work!

Cheers y'all

[VectorLine]

I smell Sheeeeite!

[055166k]

Dear cowboy, sorry to blunt your zeal but NATS is at least two generation technology jumps beyond what you are proposing and it should be up and running by 2015. There are no current plans for an interim quick-fix. The human input will be from an offshore location, probably on the Asian sub-continent, and with quadruplex redundancy over seventeen non-overlapping datastream conduits.....this may be reduced in stages over a period of three years[current estimate] as in- service validation dictates. The closest thing to what you are suggesting is the DCI [Direct Cockpit Interlink] due 2006, however I thought that it was still under wraps........I have never heard of your system!

[BEXIL160]

Hmmmm.....

Cowboy? where from?

Texas DFW? More like Texas DIY :p

BEX

[DFWcowboy]

055166K - Thanks for your genuine input. I wish that I'd kept my welcome to myself because there seems to be a lot of hostile people out there!

DCI - Ongoing tests in Detroit have shown that this is not going to make the grade before ATF. Although very simplistic, ATF uses current transponder/interrogator technology which has proved so successful in both our and the L.A trials.

If you need some convincing of this, I believe a party of your NATS team are due out here in AUGUST 2003. I'm a bit confused though, maybe you can answer a question for me. We have been developing ATFwith three prospective buyers keeping a close eye on our project. 1 - Alaskan Air Traffic Serices AATS, 2 - DFL Germany, 3 - British Airports Authority BAA. NATS was only mentioned yesterday so who owns who ? thats not my field, its just a personal question.

Cheers
Reggie

[Bright-Ling]

BAA own a number of aiports, including Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester etc.

NATS are now a private company (formerly part of the CAA) and as such are simply sub-contracted to provide ATC at a number of airfields.

[chiglet]

Hey [notso]Bright,
Manchester Airport PLC is "owned" by ME and 'tother taxpayers oop 'Ere. BAA?:} In the words of David [Bunny] Gunson
"I spit on your BAA"
Cheers
we aim to please, it keeps the cleaners happy

[Bright-Ling]

Oh yes - was written under the influence - meant to say Stansted.

Sorry old boy.

Will the ATF make the ATSA post more redundant then??

[Scott Voigt]

DFW Cowboy;

Just what does your system do and who is the company that you work for???? I haven't heard of your system and I work in the Metroplex...

regards

Scott

[Gonzo]

Hey, Spunkfarter, so you were bored again?;)

[PPRuNe Radar]

A DFW Cowboy with a UK ISP ... now that's novel. :sad: :hmm: :rolleyes:

[055166k]

I must admit that my 9 June response was made up, about two thirds complete fabrication: however on the Area side there is some truth in the reference to speechless datalink, and it worked quite well a couple of years ago when we tested it under realistic traffic level simulation. If any of the NATS bods are from Bournemouth I'm sure you'll be briefed. As you know the Brits invent wonderful stuff and then give the whole lot away. You may have come across things like the jet engine, and of course that gem went East as well as West!

[VectorLine]

as I said......

I smell sh1111te !

[DFWcowboy]

WOW.... this is the first time I've ever used this website and I can surely say that not everyone over in England is coming across as friendly !

ATF for the people who dont know..... I guess you guys have automated ATIS over there right? An electric voice that gives out the information which is standard ! Well, ATF automatan has a vocabulary of 700 words. All your boring stuff such as "Land", "Line up" etc are available. Unfortunately guys a computer can judge distances, departure intervals and sequences better than we can ......AND can save lots of money to the operator.

Emergencies have an overide facility operated by a contingency controller who steps in for go-arounds or actual accidents. ATF is nothing new, its been on the developing board for over a decade. Initially I thought 055166k was a serious cookie but unfortunately theres a lot of jokers on here ! Oh by the way 166K - there is a DCI trial operating with Boeing and DATSF.

Brightling - What is ATSA in England terms?

I did some questioning an hour ago when I got in work, does ATMDC mean anything? is that a NATS branch or a BAA branch as they will have simulation testing Feb 2008 for online at London Heathrow November 2008 !

Last question...... If I can direct this at London Controllers, How many aborted landings do you have on average a week ?

Cheers
Reggie

[Scott Voigt]

Reggie;

What does the computer do when it doesn't get a standard read back? How about when the pilot doesn't do what you tell him or her to do? I've been involved in a LOT Of testing of "new" equipment and nothing is out there yet that is going to replace the human anytime in the near future. Computers don't do the unexpected very well. Also take a look at AMASS and see all the false alerts it generates as well as some other technologies that work some of the time... We run things a bit to close for them to work some of the time. If we spaced things out so that the computers on the ground and in the aircraft could handle things, the airlines would surely go bust with all of the extra delays.

regards

Scott

[Llamapoo]

Gotta agree with Scott there. I don't think a computer will replace a human anytime soon.

I was also involved in the datalink trials in Bournemouth (NATS' ATMDC) and feel that it was a hard fight to get a datalink implementation that was human-centred rather than technology-centred. Not saying it didn't show some benefits, just that people's expectations about new technologies and systems have to include a prominent role for the human.

Simulation booked for 2008 - that sounds about right. ATMDC (or ATTSC or whatever it's called today) try to book up their simulator slots a long time in advance. And don't underestimate the effort needed to prepare for the simulation - best start now!:ok:

[Warped Factor]

Bumped into someone from DAT&S (formerly ATMDC) today and they hadn't heard of anything at all as described by cowboy.

WF.

[Gonzo]

Hey, DFWCowboy (aka bored Heathrow ATCO) :rolleyes: ,

This must be a hush-hush job then, because the DFW Tower ATCO who I chatted to as part of an FAA delegation visiting a few weeks ago didn't mention it at all you know, and it was an R+D/tech visit to boot!

Gonzo.

[Point Seven]

I imagine that must have been riveting.:zzz:

[LostThePicture]

Well, isn't this exciting?! :eek:

Is it true, or is it a genuine wind-up? True? Wind-up? I haven't been this riveted since BBC1 screened "Dale Winton's Wedding" the other night!

I'm sure the last time I was at MACC, the ATIS was still being done by a rather bored human every 30 minutes. We're clearly like, so yesterday, in NATS.

And I find it a bit rich that the Americans are coming up with this idea, when it's their pilots that produce so many circumstances requiring human ATCO intervention! There's no sector quite so busy as one that's full of American pilots giving wrong readbacks.

"Two countries divided by a common language"

[Scott Voigt]

Lost Picture;

I would think that most of the US pilots problems stem from having grown up in an aviation environment where they don't have to worry about standard phraseolgy to be understood. It makes on lazy as to the real phraseology. We controllers here in the US HATE it that the RT is so sloppy in the US and appears to be getting worse all the time. In the UK, anyone who is going to go any distance at all, is going to be talking to someone who is an english speaker as a second language and is going to have to conform to stardard phraseology, and the controllers are going to INSIST on it...

regards

Scott

[Gonzo]

P7, There were about twenty of us, and we were all in Wetherspoon's T2 at the time, so we were quite happy thank you very much.........:D

Gonzo.

[bekolblockage]

Spot on LostthePicture.

Any time an American pilot starts a readback with " Understand you want us to ....." means "I have no idea what you want us to do!"

Why are even talking to this git.

[DFWcowboy]

Scott

Its quite simplistic really, the Automatan is monitoring every aspect of your flight whether it be at the holding point or on final approach. The process works similar to TCAS RA transmissions ie the pilot is expect to follow what has been said and if that doesnt happen Automatan redefines the situation and acts accordingly.

On final approach, if an aircraft that is observed to climb more than six hundred feet instead of the correct descent profile, it initiates the alarm. At this point contingency controller steps in an has the option to overide instructions to "X" amount of particular flights by typing in callsigns on a pc based system in the tower. This system works quite well, but like I said before, so some stranger reasons the software has bugs which is not getting MDI orders perfect yet.

If the Automatan issues the instruction " Falcon 487 Line UP 32 Left"...... and the pilot responds "I need 2 minutes more before departure" If the Automatan hasn't voice recognised the words "Line-UP" It issues the instruction "Falcon 487 Line UP 32 Left or Hold Position, say again message" The Automatan automatically selects loud speaker on the Contingency desk to which the CONTCON can input in the pc where the Falcon can rejoin the flow of traffic. It does work, especially when all pilots are aware of the automated system and standard phraseology is paramount.

No one has answered my question about whether jobs will be lost in England or whether people will be redeployed ?

Reggie

[ITSUX MADAD]

It does work, especially when all pilots are aware of the automated system and standard phraseology is paramoun

Where has it been proven to work in a real life environment ?? As opposed to in some mad scientists lab ??

If it's in the US, then I'm sure that S.Voight can do some background checks for us.

Incidentally .... NATS SDI (the people who pay for the development and procurement of new systems) know zip about the claims of this individual or the company allegedly involved. Looks like we have our own ATC version of the infamous Guvnor :uhoh:

Something smells incredibly fishy ... inevitable when there is a 'troller' involved I guess. We get plenty of them in the North Sea :}

[Warped Factor]

reggie,

No one has answered my question about whether jobs will be lost in England or whether people will be redeployed ?

Probably because, as ITSUX MADAD points out above, nobody over here has a clue what you're going on about.

WF.