Automation in ATC

[Gonzo]

Can I ask what the 'answer' your system provides to the topic area of 'NATS for sale'?

[NewModelATC]

NATS For Sale?

Gonzo and others that may be interested,
My proposal is that the New Model is a unique and complete solution to the introduction of automation in ATC. There is overwhelming evidence that it will work as advertised and 76 out of 78 visitors to my stand at Farnborough were on the positive side of neutral. Two actual TC controllers were even complimentary. A 777 fleet captain who started with sceptical comments stayed for 40 minutes and went away wishing that the system was already in service. At Farnborough the NM featured in FLIGHT DAILY NEWS and since July there have been two letters from me in FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL and a short piece in AEROSPACE INTERNATIONAL (an RAeS publication). Notwithstanding these results I respect anybody’s right to simply dislike the approach.
However, if the idea does work then what is NATS worth if it owns and can develop the technology? Developing systems doesn’t mean they have to be used in the UK. There are some very large markets out there. On the other hand, what is NATS worth if another ANSP realises the potential and exploits the already considerable information in the public domain?
I presume many people are familiar with Rolls Royce’s rejection of the Jet Engine and the subsequent donation of the technology to the USA for a nominal sum? Frank Whittle said that one of his major regrets was that the jet engine did not play a greater part in the winning of WWII. I don’t make any personal claims to brilliance; I’ve just put together a few ideas and requests that real controllers gave to me. Hence my feeling that readers of this site should be interested.
One of my own aims is to have some influence on emissions by air traffic. This week’s FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL has an article on the role of ATM in reducing contrail pollution. The New Model does work (whereas Free Flight was always incomplete and could not work without other tools). I'm hoping that I won't be shot as the messenger.

[Gonzo]

I visited your stand at EGLF, but you yourself were speaking with another visitor. A lady took my brother (works Clacton sector at LACC) and I through the system and the demo that was running. Now I'm no area controller, but her level of knowledge of en-route ATC was, to my mind, not very high. I didn't come away from the stand with any of my concerns allayed.

[NewModelATC]

Gonzo,
I'm truly disappointed that we didn't get to talk. I went all the way to Texas last year and didn't get to speak to the great Scott Voigt. Which day did you come to Farnborough? Was the lady old or young? Some of my helpers were on the stand because of their knowledge of IT systems. None of them would have claimed any ATC knowledge and none of them has worked on the New Model. I simply couldn't man a stand for a week by myself. I understand you will have concerns. From my side I know that the New Model does work and that its virtues make it a very valuable concept. It is still unique. You may see automation as a threat to your job but I would see it as an opportunity for very experienced controllers to capitalise on their experience by becoming consultants or mentors. All of the controllers I spoke to at CFMU said they enjoyed their job more there and felt as if they were productive than they had been on the ops room floor. The cracks are beginning to show again in projects such as SESAR and NGATS; just look at the potential market for the UK if we could develop a system. I would still be very pleased to go through the NM with you and address your points. You don’t have to reveal who you are. And if I found out it would be immensely stupid of me to reveal your identity. I won’t try to make an enthusiast out of you. That would be arrogant. I’d just like as many people as possible to understand the complete concept. Many of the controllers I spoke to at LATCC said I was unusual in actively consulting them and really trying to listen. I hope I may have the chance to prove to you that I am listening and that I am on your side. PM?

[Gonzo]

I don't have time for a lengthy reply right now. I certainly don't see automation as a threat to my job, as it's technically impossible right now.

As I said, I'm not an area ATCO; most of my concerns relate to skill atrophy and training.

I was there on one of the public days, I can't remember which!

[Jerricho]

Originally Posted by NewModelATC

You may see automation as a threat to your job

Just to echo my old friend Gonzo, at this point in time "automation" and terminal environment are very much mutually exclusive concepts.

[anotherthing]

NMA

I have no knowledge of your system, but ask one simple question..... have you been to West Drayton in the recent past?

I honestly do not see how automation can work in the London TMA; I cannot speak for other areas as I do not work in other areas.

It is a genuine question, not a snipe.... I cannot believe a computer could get anywhere near what a human achieves in TC. That is before we even begin to talk about emergencies and weather etc etc.

Good luck, because anything that assists me in my job would be a Godsend.

[BlueSkye]

I see this thread started over a year ago and was revived recently. I trained on a non-automated system(Thompson-CSF) and then moved to an automated system(Thales' EuroCat X). At first the skepticism was rife amongst everybody with exactly the same questions. Have you worked in XXXX? Our airspace is unique. What about weather? These questions were plentiful and when the day came to move away from paper strips and onto electronic, I thought of resigning. I mean, how will I handle a mouse if I am so in love with my trackerball? How will I spot conflicts without strips? What about those pesky litlle 100NM linesquals that cover ALL the feeder fixes? How on earth can anybody trust Maestro(the sequencing tool)?

Well, lo and behold. Within two months I wondered how we ever managed without it. Use flightstrips now to write down telephone numbers. As for the trackerball, comes in handy during Obud. One guy installed one in his bar at home. As for Maestro, it gets switched off during heavy WX. So NMATC, I have not had the oppurtunity to experiment with your project, but what I can see from your screenshots is that at first it looks really confusing because you are not used to it. But stare at the screen for a couple of minutes and it all starts to make sense. To all the non-believers I'll say this, automation is the way forward for ALL sectors. ACC, App, Twr, GMC the lot. I don't know if your system is similiar to EuroCat, but if it is then it is a Godsend. "Walk towards the light all yee non-believers."

[NewModelATC]

Thank you BlueSkye for posting your experience. I worked many years ago on software for the printing industry. The printers said that nothing could replace hot metal and then along came Rupert Murdoch and Fortress Wapping. Now any youngster with Adobe can produce a document in minutes to knock anything the old compositors could do into a cocked hat. The railway signalmen (who did a job very similar to the modern controller’s job) said software could never replace them. Now most of the UK is fully automatically signalled. Even the pilots are disconnected from the control surfaces by fly-by-wire software. The space shuttle has a fully automatic landing capability and Harriers can now be recovered aboard ships by computer. ATC automation by comparison is relatively simple and the New Model asserts that no new discovery or development is required. It can be done now, fully involving the controller and with all the safety and redundancy margins that the modern world requires.
Anotherthing, I was last inside West Drayton about five years ago but I have associations going back to 1944 and I remember Linesman-Mediator. I’m sure you’ll say things have moved on since 2002 but I doubt if anything fundamental has changed. One of the New Model’s unique features is that it keeps up with events even if the controller is operating without reference to the advisories. NM is therefore there to help you and not to overload you when you are busy. PM me and I’d be happy to arrange a demonstration. NM meets ALL of NATS requirements for an FDP system and then offers an evolutionary path to almost any functionality that one might want in the future. An NM speciality is support for incidents and emergencies. No other tool addresses exceptions so positively. Variable spacing for wake vortex? Variable routes for reduced contrails? Fully variable separations according to navigation capability? VLJs with PPL/IRs on board? UAVs in controlled airspace? GCA calculation for the Kegworth accident or the Virgin flight that lost all of its cockpit displays? These are things the airspace users want now and they all become simple in the NM concept.
Automation with the controller in the loop is now possible. The capability to use that automation to improve trajectories (pilots at Farnborough in July told me that they were still not getting long distance direct routes) and reduce emissions means that this is something in which EVERYONE now has a personal interest. Anyone at all there to support BlueSkye?

[Point Seven]

Originally Posted by Gonzo

most of my concerns relate to skill atrophy

That much is true for all of us who work with you

P7

[Gonzo]

I hope you learnt a lot from Friday.
Here's a tip, try N1.

[Jerricho]

Don't worry Gonze, there are some skills that people like P7 have that you just can't teach........like being an asshole

(Hey P7, PM me your email address)

[Point Seven]

Originally Posted by Gonzo

I hope you learnt a lot from Friday.
Here's a tip, try N1.

As I pointed out to you at the time, due to the WIP on the airfield, I use it when the situation dictates. Which it didn't.

P7

[Lon More]

Some of my helpers were on the stand because of their knowledge of IT systems. None of them would have claimed any ATC knowledge and none of them has worked on the New Model.

What sort of people did you expect to visit your stand? Some of the most knowledgeable people in aviation visit Farnborough and expect to meet similarly qualified reps. Would you buy a new car from a salesman totally unfamiliar with the product? I'm afraid that such an amateurish aproach will not further your cause.
The comparisons you make are apples and oranges. There is no similarity between fly by wire and autoland systems and ATC automation. And I can remember back to when it was tried to equate Controllers and Railway Signalmen salaries as certain politicians believed the tasks to be identical. This was dumped when the difficulty of stopping an aircraft in flight after a controller's mistake was pointed out.
I spent a couple of years working on the New ODS at Maastricht UAC. The task proved so difficult for many of the big names (Plessey, Siemens, Thomson, Thalys) that it went several years and many euros over budget. in fact a number of features have still not been implemented as there is still not the required computer capacity or processing speed available.
Despite my -ve remarks above, and even though i am now retired, I would like to see this in action. Are you planning to demonstrate your ideas at the ATC show in Maastricht next time round?

BTW for some other posters. Haven't you got a private NATS forum to wash your dirty laundry in?

[NewModelATC]

Lon More,

Because the New Model is a new idea with no funding there are inevitably very few people with a full understanding of its structure and potential. I was on the Farnborough stand the whole time (other than for essential breaks) but I could only talk to one group of people at a time. Laugh out loud if you like but I AM one of the most knowledgeable people in FDP systems. How was it that nobody else on the eFDP project had ever worked on an FDP implementation? And radar systems? I was the technical integrator for Signaal’s Rotterdam Harbour system which (when I joined the project) was so late that questions were being asked in the Dutch Parliament. I was personally tasked with getting it into service and my first delivery was on time six months later. I’ve worked for the big names and there are very good (but not excusable or justifiable) reasons why so many projects are late.

My comparisons are meant to illustrate different points. It is easy to suggest that something can’t be done but Clarke’s First Law states:

“When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible he is very probably wrong.”

Some of my examples show how true this is. Frank Whittle had to suffer people telling him the jet engine would never work even after the E28/39 had flown for the first time! Regarding the railways (which I use as an extended example on my website) I have actually taken a group of signalmen around LATCC and visited them at Slough Signal Box. Of course aircraft can’t stop in mid-air but if the path allocation and signalling are correct then trains don’t stop either. If they do then that is exactly analogous to aircraft holding. If you draw further parallels between CFMU and pathing, sectors and block sections, co-ordination and telegraph bell codes, separation standards and clearing distances then the operational problems of the two domains are identical.

The area I try to keep as far away from as possible is politics. Salaries, terms and conditions are not for me to comment on. However, as I have written before, those who understand the New Model will be able to control their destiny. If someone else gets there first then the future may be out of your hands. Denial is not the best strategy.

Thank you for your post. I am grateful to all who take the time and trouble to read or comment. I am still talking to my bank manager about Maastricht.

“Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.”

John Steinbeck, East of Eden

[missy]

If you want to talk to managers and engineers try Maastricht 2007. If you want to controllers try IFATCA Annual Conference (2007 in Istanbul).

[songbird29]

NewModel's statement

The railway signalmen (who did a job very similar to the modern controller’s job)

brings back old memories. All through my career I have heard this comparison. As Lon More has said already, mostly to keep the salaries down. However, for the salaries the comparison didn't work. Salaries in the US and Europe are higher than ever dreamt of by PATCO in the eighties. I'm not speaking for extreme greediness of course and also not for countries like India or Brazil where there is room, or rather urge, for improvement to say it mildly.

NewModel uses the railway comparison again to argue that ATC can be automated. Does his argument hold water? Or, more generally, should ATC be automated? In fact, the answer is simple: if automation brings advances in safety, capacity, economy and environmental exhausts - yes, it will happen.

NewModel brings a demonstration model where everything fits. However, a demonstration model demonstrates potential but does not prove any advance in safety, capacity or economy. Also the NewModel is far from unique, as claimed by New Model. PPrune moderator has already made the correct reference:

I am sure I saw such a system at Bretigny Sur Orge in the mid 1990s.

Valuable concept development since the mid nineties has been abundant. In the US we have witnessed the rise and fall of the 5 billion $ NAS modernisation project of the nineties, a managers and engineers dream intended to replace ATCO's in the wake of the PATCO sackings (this was before the UAL pilot ignited the Free Flight discussion, which also took millions of $). European R&D culminated in the common PHARE project, demonstrating the potential of automated arrival management and conflict detection/resolution.

Since PHARE, specifications for Basic and Advanced ATC Functions (of the type that one can see demonstrated in the NewModel), including all important HMI, have continuously been upgraded in international forums and demonstrated in various models, at Eurocontrol's Bretigny, CENA in France, NATS and Qinetiq research in UK, DLR in Germany, NLR in the Netherlands, NASA and MITRE in the US. I will not go into the detail of all the resulting demo products. Many contributions to this thread mention them and they can be seen at aviation exhibitions and on websites.

The pan-European Flight Data Processing project where NewModel got involved in was the eFDP. Now he claims

Laugh out loud if you like but I AM one of the most knowledgeable people in FDP systems. How was it that nobody else on the eFDP project had ever worked on an FDP implementation?

A lot can be said of eFDP and its political fate and breakdown into three national or regional projects (VAFORIT in Germany, SACTA in Spain and UK, and the French/Italian project, with Eurocontrol's Maastricht and East European CEATS staying on the fence), but it is blatantly untrue for anyone to claim that nobody in eFDP ever worked on an FDP implementation. Scandalously untrue even. I will not publish the names and coordinates in a forum like this but I have them available.

One might say that those with real FDP implementation experience were on the conservative side and were not ready to include the advanced functions which are now in the NewModel, but that is something else. There was also political clout because contributing National Administrations preferred to develop their own systems, which also seems to be NewModel's line of thinking where he says

what is NATS worth if another ANSP realises the potential

Surely, NewModel has demonstrated the usefulness of automated advanced functions. But his dream of getting included in John Steinbeck's hall of fame of inventors should be challenged and is in fact counterproductive. NewModel is just one of those, an engineer building on the common experience of many, many others. He would do better to keep acknowledging this, as he still used to do two years ago in previous posts

The New Model draws on the conclusions of projects such as ERATO and CORA

ATC automation is a continuous process where we are all cogs in a wheel which is put in motion by the need to improve safety, to gain capacity, economical benefits and the necessary contribution to diminish the ever more threatening exhausts in our atmosphere. The NewModel is a good contribution to show the way ahead and I hope its demonstrations will contribute to convincing managers, engineers and ATCO's that their systems should evolve in this direction.

Having said this, it seems necessary to add that, as long as there is no closed loop between FMS and FDPS, automation in ATC will not be able to go any further than automated assistance to ATCO's, who will continue to be the pivot of ATC. Only when FMS and FDPS exchange data and intent, the role of the ATCO can evolve further.

[Quincy M.E.]

Originally Posted by NewModelATC

The railway signalmen (who did a job very similar to the modern controller’s job) said software could never replace them. Now most of the UK is fully automatically signalled.

But software has not replaced them and the last time I was at Swindon B signal box (which is IECC just like Slough new) they seemed to be pretty busy to me.

[foghorn]

Originally Posted by Quincy M.E.

But software has not replaced them and the last time I was at Swindon B signal box (which is IECC just like Slough new) they seemed to be pretty busy to me.

Indeed, in some circumstances the software has taken over a lot of the drudgery from the signalmen. But even in the most automated of signalboxes, the signalmen/women are still there in significant numbers, manually handling the many situations that the automatics don't handle well.

And of course only a small amount of the rail network runs on the latest automated systems simply because the money isn't there to install the new systems. Much of the network runs on non-computerised signalling systems that are at least 30 years old and often older. In the recent upgrade of the Manchester area they even left the ancient pull-lever signalboxes in place to save on money!

Sound familiar?

[Quincy M.E.]

Yep and the fact the the trains running on the network are carp along with train operating companies' incompetance means that there are a significant number of services that fall out of their 'slot' in the automatic route setting software meaning more work for the siggy.