Electronic Flight Strips

[Mstream]

Hello !

I would like to ask ATCOs who electronic flight strips at their TWRs/APPs/ACCs about impressions on working with them and about advantages and disadvantages (especially comparing them to paper strips).

I have found some information on PPRuNe but since it was quite old I have decided to ask once again.

Take care

Mstream

[Mstream]

Sorry, it of course should be "I would like to ask ATCOs who USE electronic flight strips [...]"

Mstream

[Y0DA]

I use electronic strips as do all non tower ATCs in Australia. I never look at them for any information at all like I used to with paper. Another line of defence taken from us.

[Mstream]

But still, I suppose, you are to do something with them, like put some information on them or send them to another sector ... How do you deal with that ?

I want to be sure - you don't use them as a source of information because you don't need that, you don't like that ot something else ?

[Y0DA]

They are useless in a traditional strip usage therefore we have found ways to do things we used to do with them. Unfortunately most of that is to remember. They are displayed via flight data processor which gets all the filed flight plans sent into it and the flight data processor decides who needs the strip and what colour to make the tracks.

[Nookie2nite]

In S Africa they are used, the system was bought from the Aussies, but in true SA style they are still using both paper AND electronic, thanks to King Arthur.
The great advantage I reckon is the info that is available on ur display, and label.

N2n

[Jerricho]

The system used in Canada (and now being introduced into the UK) by the Terminal/Approach and Towers is a little different to the Australian, where the display screen is a stand alone screen separate from the radar screen (not contained in a window). The input can be mouse or touch screen.

It has it's good and bad points. The down side is that it's not hard (especially when you have fingers like elbows) to to kill a strip unintentionally using the touch screen. And of course, as has happened to me twice now, the system has fallen over, leaving the controller with no flight data input. It is also an adjustment for anyone who has learnt ATC using strips and used to physically moving strips into a sequence order (or throwing at somebody as they walk past............a PC screen is a little on the heavy side)

Up side, with the systems between the Tower and the Terminal units, some verbal co-ordination requrements are reduced. Things like sequence orders, planned low approachs, requested runways, departure orders are displayed. We can also "physically" hand a strip off to the tower for low level VFR arrivals and alike. The system is also linked to the radar such that if a flight plan is entered by a controller into the system through the radar, a "strip" (Or FDE - Flight Data Entry) is created.

[missy]

Civil Radar Towers in Australia use TAAATS which has electronic strips. We also use paper strips so effectively run dual systems.

Paper strips are used for recording times and are relayed between controllers as there is only 1 paper strip per flight.

Electronic strips are used for relaying information to other parties, eg APP/DEP including level (CFL), DRWY.

Not all the Civil Radar Towers do it the same way, some use Traffic Management Windows to display data, some use the system SID to relay the clearance that has been sissued to the aircraft.

Some Towers have a Maestro display.

[Spodman]

Advantages: Anything you put into them can be seen by everybody else.

I'm not dependant on the knucklehead 3 consoles away telling the Flight Data to give me a strip.

A CHG message will update the strips.

Disadvantages: Anything you put into them can be seen by everybody else.

Really only look at them to guage my up-coming workload & because there are some tasks you can only do with the strip.

Desperately useless for any other situational awareness, if its not on the label I don't see it when I'm busy and need it.

[CUNIM]

One of the disadvantages of the electronic strip as compared to the paper strip is the loss of the clunk when the assistant puts the strip on the strip bay, the lack of feel and mental confirmation when placing the strip in the runway bay to denote runway occupied and most importantly, the increased "head down" time since data appears, is modified and disappears without any hint of noise etc, so the controller has to monitor the screen to see the changes. The enroute and approach controllers have a data display of their play area and so can concentrate on that, the Tower was the last to join the electronic linking which has many advantages over paper - if correctly designed. BUT putting all the data on screens inside the Tower, being subject to the sun and wide variations of light/dark ain't the right way. The Tower controller's job, like the VFR pilot, is to keep his/her head out of the office. The work is outside in the circuit or on the apron and manoeuvring area, not on a screen inside. We have designed the system to split the job now and not conjoin it.

There is an alternative way by placing the data in space outside overlying the airport. It is called a head up display and is unaffected by the sun or any level of light or lack of it. In the future, you will be able to see through fog. It ain't magic, but it needs a serious input from the controllers to carefully analyse their task in considerable detail.

Rant over

[GuruCube]

The Tower controller's job, like the VFR pilot, is to keep his/her head out of the office. The work is outside in the circuit or on the apron and manoeuvring area, not on a screen inside.

Well, we havent lost the heads up ability at all. We havent lost any data from out of the window... that is all the same. All thats changed is how we log the data. Maybe it will take longer initially while we try to remember where the data is now kept, but there are things that are certainly quicker to click than write!

Now Ive not been in this very long, but Im using electronic strips, and other than basic teething problems, the only major issue seems to be people having to change and adapt (Hey, humans have always hated that, right?). After a few months, people seem to be getting on, but in general has sped the tower process up a great deal and seems much tidier.
With reference to the above point - Its just a matter of learning where everything is now. Probably no worse than having to accept a paper strip from someone with appalling handwriting!

[CUNIM]

Well Gurucube, I am pleased that you are comfortable with your relationship between head up and inputs, but your experience is not internationally recognised as many of the international R & D units are becoming increasingly concerned with the proliferation of screens in the Tower and the effect upon Head up time. The tower is the only part of the ATC environment to have its work areas split. As I said, for Area and Approach the traditional split between radar and strips was resolved by placing the spatial and alphanumeric data onto the single large screen. The Tower by contrast has continued the split and in the view of many controllers and researchers, exacerbated the situation over the years by the implementation of additional screens. Research work is actively being progressed at present, hopefully some results will emerge in the not too distant future.

[DirtyPierre]

I did work in the old days with paper strips and procedural boards, planner consoles and radar consoles with controllers working side by side

Now in TAAATS in Oz, I can honestly say it's like comparing appples and oranges. They are different systems of ATM. Electronic strips are for strategic planning and passing info quickly from sector to sector, centre to centre. Your tactical planning and manipulation of traffic is done by the label on the screen. That becomes your main method of info about each flight.

Electronic strips are not meant to be used like paper strips. Your label on the ASD (Air Situation Display) is the equilivant of your old paper strip. The electronic strip becomes the messaging system, abbreviated flight plan info, etc.

With both ways of ATM there are disadvantages and advantages. Personally, I prefer electronic strips and the system we call TAAATS in Oz (Eurocat 2000 made by Thomson/CSF and software by Thales).

[av8boy]

One of the disadvantages of the electronic strip as compared to the paper strip is the loss of the clunk when the assistant puts the strip on the strip bay...

Not to mention the sound of the printer going nuts, warning you that your life is about to change...

(As someone who also worked in the "old days) I'd also be curious to learn more about the loss of that tactile connection to the data-- when I write on a strip with a pen I remember it (and I'm old!) Inputting those data digitally doesn't seem to fire-up the brain cells in the same way. Granted, electronic strips are great for coordination, but when it comes to working with what's in front if me my brain still likes paper.


Dave

PS I feel Jerricho's pain... agreed, you can't throw e-strips at passers-by. What's more, on a mid you can't put the bucket on the other side of the room and try to hit it with e-strips. Nobody ever impressed a noob by setting an e-strip on its legs, hitting the end of it and having it land perfectly in somebody else's strip bay. Nobody ever writes "call home when you get a chance" on the back of an e-strip, puts it in a holder and puts it in your bay. Not to mention the knack I've developed for popping a strip out of the holder with my thumb in one loud, easy motion. What the heck am I supposed to do with THAT skill-set? What about security? If a bad guy shows-up am I supposed to hit him with the mouse? Strip holders my friends... accurate and deadly at 60 feet. Oh. And they're really hard to set aflame. Not that I'd know...

[Jerricho]

Agreed Dave

Never again knowing the joy of building a strip-holder tower as high as you can with somebody's car keys in the centre of it.

Sad days.

[DirtyPierre]

av8boy,

Can understand where you're coming from, but in an electronic strip system you learn new skill sets.

For instance:

- there is an ops data line in the label. The next sector can read it (along with anyone else) and you can leave a short but terse message in there.

- In the Oz system, you can input flight plans into the system from your console, and even fly them around the airspace as a flight plan track. Guys on TOPS group (Nth Australian Sectors) once input a flt pln on an aircraft they gave the callsign "GAYBYRON" because Byron (a controller) was sitting on one of the consoles. They launched the aircraft from one side of the airspace to arrive in Byron's airspace 30 minutes later. However Tindall RAAF Base sector controllers called TOPS to find out about "GAYBYRON" . The practical jokers had planned the aircraft thru Tindall airspace and the ATM system automatically sent Tindall the plan and departure message.

It's a bit like when we got rid of the old telephones and started using cordless phones. When you hang up in anger, you can't slam the phone down anymore, you just push a button. Not quite the same.

[av8boy]

Ah, but I could enter a flight plan at the old FDIO and do the same thing! The difference was that the strips could be used as evidence. And they were.

I've had much the same experience with military units that you seem to have had-- If only I had had the common sense to include them in the joke ahead of time, there'd probably have been a lot less pain...

Ah yes, Jerricho... strip holder engineering. I could build remarkable structures, but could never balance one on my nose no matter which way I turned it (them).

The silly things were useful in so many ways... one afternoon we got into an argument about whether a particular application of logic was valid. It was the hypothetical where you've got three doors to select from. Behind two of them are lumps of coal, and behind the third one is a new headset or a car or a great deal of money or something else you'd find useful (and you don't like coal). So, you select one of the three doors. The door you selected remains closed, but one of the other two doors is opened to reveal a lump of coal. You are given a choice: stick with the door you originally selected, or switch to the other door which has not yet been opened.

The traditional logic (which seems counter-intuitive) is that you should switch to the other unopened door, because when you originally selected your door you had a one in three chance of being right, whereas if you select the other closed door now you'll have a 50/50 chance of being right. Some people thought this was nuts and others believed it to be as predictable as gravity. So we found three perfectly-matched strip holders. In two of them we put strips marked "coal," and in the third we marked the strip "car." Then we turned them face-down and spent hours doing empirical research. The results were completely convincing, owing largely to the fact that there was just no way to cheat with the strip holders. Of course we could have done it another way (in other words, it admittedly didn’t have enough to do with strips to reasonably shoe-horn it into a thread like this), but it was just so freaking elegant with the strip holders.

Which puts me in mind of the night that a broken strip printer, a wicked thunderstorm, a flight of four (4) RF4Cs, the physics of tangential velocity, and an utter and complete failure of circular polarization joined forces with fate and my own ineptitude to create a situation wherein my aged mother called me from 40 miles away from the airport and asked, "just what the hell was that that just went by my house?" But in that this is a thread unrelated to such matters, it’ll wait.

Dave

If anybody ever opens a pub for old ATCOs I want to be the guy by the window with the dog.