EFPS - Writing on the strip

[Tarq57]

You have all given me insight into my origional question though; it depends who you are and what your background and exposure to different systems is.

That's just one of several conclusions you could draw from the responses.
It also depends a great deal on the thought that goes into the system, how it is introduced, why, and what training takes place.
And quite a few other aspects.

[SimGod]

Tarq,

Could you please expand your statement?

That's just one of several conclusions you could draw from the responses.

Ta

[Tarq57]

Just quickly, because it's approaching the witching hour and I have an early start,
The way you wrote what I quoted implied that that is what you took from the replies. Which is valid. But I hope it is not all that you took from them.
Maybe I'm reading too much into it; for me it's become a somewhat emotive issue (in case you didn't notice.)

[SimGod]

Fear not! I am not a newbie at this game..

I have been through this process more times than I care to remember and its always painful, and usually the older ATCO's are resistant to change (human nature). My belief is we must look at these new systems and see what they can bring to the table and look at if the older way of doing things should be challenged, or even phased out...

I firmly believe writing on Estrips is worthless, mainly due to the limitations of the technology (HMI). However there are so many benefits to EFPS for an airport and a regional/national ATM as a whole that it cannot be ignored as the future. Also, go ask the average 21 year old ab initio to write on paper strips vs using EFPS and I am pretty sure you know what response you will get.

I know it hurts.

[alfaman]

^simgod^ I'm a little bothered by the seemingly flippant way you dismiss paper strips: there are a lot of advantages to using paper strips, benefits to memory recall etc, which potentially are lost when electronics come in. Understanding that is a step towards mitigating it: ignoring it is a step backwards.
Both systems have advantages & disadvantages, unfortunately, too often a rush towards the advantages of EFPS has ignored the pitfalls, & swept the benefits of paper under the carpet. Older "resistant to change" ATCOs may just be the ones who can see those flaws, by using something called "experience"?
To paraphrase: "...because 21 year olds don't like it?" That's not a great arguement, tbh: the 21 year olds I deal with have no problem with either, provided they are trained in the appropriate way.

[Lon More]

aged 44

= older ATCO IMO

In my experience most of the older controllers were for the change, one less thing to do. A lor also depends on the complexity of the airspace being controlled - in this case it was the Belgian UAS, when use of paper strips, one per reporting point or conflict point, would just lead to a logjam of paper and plastic, a transit through an 80 n.m. wide sectot requireing at least 4 strips. An interim step was to introduce 1 mini-strip per sector, per flight. This ran for several years, then in parallel with the strips an electronic display was introduced which bore no resemblence to the old paper format. Use of the paper strips became optional and eventually everybody was keen to see them go. The good news was that the organisationhad stockpiled tons of boxes of perforated paper, useless for anything other than scratch pads for controlers.

[towerguy]

I was very resistant to the change initially - paper to efs - but having worked with it for a while now in a moderately busy aerodrome environment I would have to say that I wouldn't go back.

I still use the "writing freehand" function quite a lot and would NOT like to see it go as it is too handy and gets used quite frequently.

mainly it is for the unexpected calls from ground vehicles , tugs etc when busy on ground. 1 tap on a seperator strip and then a freehand callsign - a quick reminder so I can make up a more permanent strip if I require it or an easily deleted item if not required. It is not for interunit coordination or anything - only my own info - so writing style etc is irrelevant.
sometimes we get safety officers swapping jobs around the feild and as the callsign field cannot be edited on these it's easier to hand amend it without having to completely rework up another - it is easy to hand amend back again when he gets back.

on delivery it is easy to hand annotate a quick self reminder on certain strips that may require different handling or particular information to be passed or an extra HOLD etc.

On aerodrome - well I thought I would be using this all the time for those itinerant calls and vfrs etc that come up at short notice .. I'm a grumpy crusty old fart resistant to change for the sake of change ... well. within a very short time I found that I hardly ever use the function on this position, it's totally a matter of upping the skill set and you soon find that it is just as fast to tap in a callsign and amend the strip later if required.

still there is one funtion that it is invaluable for

message from ADC to Tower Data .... "coffee- white- none... cheers"

EFS - use it, like it, wouldn't go back... but still consider the freehand function invaluable for usefulness and flexibility.

[On the beach]

I'm still trying to understand fully what are perceived to be the advantages of EFS over paper strips. If your EFS is linked to the FDPS, then sure, I see the advantages in not having to co-ordinate verbally, both internally in an ATC unit (Tower/Approach) and externally with your ATC centre (Approach/Area) and also communicating information to/from airlines and airport operators. But don't you need everyone to be linked into the EFS eg airlines and airport operators for passing stand allocations, flow restrictions etc?

I'd be interested to know how many of those units that have installed EFS have linked it to the FDPS.

I'd be interested to know how many of those units that have installed EFS have dispensed with the need for assistants.

On the beach

[OA32]

Not sure about Aberdeen but I know of one APS unit at which the EFS will be linked to the RDP/FDP/Stand allocation and Airport information screens. They are also phasing out the assistants on the basis of what the systems will be capable of, if they dispense with all assistants remains to be seen. I should point out the company supplying the system have not produced EFS for the Approach/TMA function before so the unit controllers are being used as guinea pigs.

[Hootin an a roarin]

OA32

Mmmmm! Let me think, I wonder where you are talking about?

[pdcta]

Why you need to write strips?! What you have to write down on it? Can't you move to a stripless system?!
We have EFS but no one cares them. All the things you can do on the EFS can be done also on the radar screen on the lable or in the inbound list.

[Tarq57]

Originally Posted by SimGod

Fear not! I am not a newbie at this game..

Who said anything about fear?
Frustration, we can talk about that, maybe.

I have been through this process more times than I care to remember and its always painful,

Been through a few myself, and it's absolutely not always that painful. Some of the tech changes I've seen go through have been, by and large, a pleasure to work with, after the bugs were ironed out. Unfortunately that has not been the case with many of the recent ones.
We work in a profession where change is frequent and ongoing. Learning and study is required throughout the career. To view it as painful is, I believe, unhealthy. Sometimes it can be fairly challenging, however.

...and usually the older ATCO's are resistant to change (human nature).

It is human nature, but you seem to not know controllers that well. We (older controllers) have learned over quite a long time what constitutes change for changes sake, and change that is actually beneficial and required, seen the many blurring of lines between those, and sometimes become a little cynical of the reported reasons for said change. You might be surprised to find some of the older controllers are actually surprisingly adaptable.

My belief is we must look at these new systems and see what they can bring to the table and look at if the older way of doing things should be challenged, or even phased out...

By your emoticon choice, your mind is already made up, then.
I'll tell you something, I challenge the way I do things, and the tools I use to do them, old or new, every bleeding day. My livelihood depends on it. And maybe a bit more besides that.

I firmly believe writing on Estrips is worthless, mainly due to the limitations of the technology (HMI).

And you base that on.....?
Even with the poor definition of the writing tool, I would not want to be without it.
Case in point: Today we had an emergency. A/c came back with a fire warning. Without the writing tool, it would have been possible to create the information required to be displayed, if' we'd had a couple of spare minutes to do so, and had nothing else to do in the interim. We had neither of those luxuries. Without the information displayed in some form, quite an element of risk is introduced. Especially when immediate decisions need to be taken, amidst multiple distractions.

However there are so many benefits to EFPS for an airport and a regional/national ATM as a whole that it cannot be ignored as the future.

Maybe there are. What are they, then? And at what cost? No, don't bother answering that.

Also, go ask the average 21 year old ab initio to write on paper strips vs using EFPS and I am pretty sure you know what response you will get.

And the value of the opinion of an ab-initio, who has no mastery of the job, in regard to a new shiny toy is that s/he might bring a new and previously unconsidered view to the topic? Or did you have another point to make with that statement?

I know it hurts.

I find your response insulting, because it is assumptive, patronizing, and shows you to be closed to input. Or maybe selectively closed. Why did you even ask the question, if you already think you know the answer?

Originally Posted by pdcta

Why you need to write strips?! What you have to write down on it? Can't you move to a stripless system?!
We have EFS but no one cares them. All the things you can do on the EFS can be done also on the radar screen on the lable or in the inbound list.

The question was in regard to a control tower environment. Many of the a/c and other traffic dealt with by tower controllers do not appear in any radar list.

[anotherthing]

I firmly believe writing on Estrips is worthless

Are you an ATCO SimGod??? What do you base this belief on - do you have an understanding of how ATCOs actually do the job, why they do it that way (legalities/MOO etc)?

Why you need to write strips?! What you have to write down on it?

Where do you work pdcta?

There are many places where verbal coordination is still required, and always will be because 2, 3 or more controllers have aircraft flying through the same piece of airspace, airspace that is the AOR of only one of those controllers. In order to give any instruction to the transiting aircraft, coordination needs to take place.
It is not unusual for a climb/descent etc to be subject to 2 or 3 (or more) conditions... these need to be written down. They need to be written down on the strip, not a scratch pad, because as we all know (I would hope), the strip is a legal document.

Coordination pertinent to any executive instruction is part of the requirement for strip marking. If you have an incident and you have not marked your strip properly, you can expect to be pulled up for it.

Make a habit of it, and you could find that you no longer hold a license.

If the suggestion is that to introduce electronic strips, this coordination will no longer be able to take place (I think everyone realises and accepts that there will be a change in method of operation with the introduction of EFPS - that is inevitable), then the capacity/efficiency fo those sectors will reduce.

It is up to management and the airlines to decide if the reduction in capacity is acceptable...

It is NOT the remit of someone who is not an ATCO, but who is involved in projects, to unilaterally decide that the MOO will change.

[MPN11]

As some might guess from my user-name, I started in ATC a lonnnng time ago. I was a manual strip-writing assistant at London Centre in the early 60's when it was black huts on the north side of LHR. I did chinagraph ATC and DF and 'real' GCA, raw radar in both Terminal and Area, and spent a few years at LATCC.

Oh yes ... and blame me for the touch-screen comms system at LATCC, and the Visual simulator at Shawbury.

HOWEVER ... all the cool technical developments over the last [OMG] half-century have a few minor problems. It's called failure.

In the old days [yawn, yabber etc.] the worst thing that really happened was your chinagraph pencil broke, or your ballpoint ran out of ink. Since then I've seen the chaos that ensued at LATCC when the Strip Printer system crashed, or the glazed look on a trainee's face when track labels or Mode C failed. I've seen too many controllers completely bereft of ideas, or spatial awareness, when systems they have relied on have failed.

One good thing about a manual flight strip is that it is virtually immune to tech failure. The worst that can happen is that you drop the holder on the floor. The best thing is that when the comms system fails you can throw it across the room to someone who needs it.

ATC suffers from the engineers' "art of the possible". In the process it has, IMO, lost the simple art of controlling aircraft.

[now running for cover]

[OA32]

Hootin an a roarin

I'm sure you are thinking of the right place. I neglected to say that while the EFS will be linked to the RDP there will be no interaction available through the labels.

pdcta

You can't program rules in EFS for every situation as it would lead to complicated coding/rules which would no doubt lead to the software being less stable and more susceptible to failure. As Tarq57 has already said The free writing option gives you a useful tool for those unusual situations and would no doubt be quicker than fumbling through the box menus for something that may not even be there.

[pdcta]

Where do you work pdcta?

Padova ACC, Italy. We manage the north-eastern part of Italy... to understand: above the alps, Venice, Verona, Florence, Bologna! We share the borders with Vienna, Ljubljana, Zagreb, Zurich, Munich, Milano, Roma and Brindisi.
In Italy we use EFS since the mid 90s, I think. We still use paper strips in the TWRs, procedural APPs and Flight Information Centers. All other units (ACC and radar APP) are with EFS or totally stripless.
Anyway... we cannot write anything on our Electronic Strips. They just show us callsign, FL, fixes and estimates, coordinated exit FL and other info as 8.33, RVSM etc. We have a free text field but it can contains only 7 (or maybe 8) characters. So, useful just to take note about Mach/speed restrictions. Everything else can be done on some dedicated field on the EFS or hooking the blip on the radar and opening the relative options from a Menu on the radar screen.
Executive controller works with a "full radar" picture. Planner Controller works with a smaller radar picture with on the same screen the Electronic Strip Bay, inbound list, flight directory etc.
We only watch at the EFS when we receive any approval request and we still don't have the flight on the radar... so from the EFS we can highlight on the radar the flight trajectory, open the FPL etc. Once the flight appear on the screen we can do everithing on the label too.
In Milano, for example, they are full stripless. Also the planner controller works with a full radar picture on the screen using some additional "inbound estimates windows" instead of the EFS.

There are many places where verbal coordination is still required, and always will be because 2, 3 or more controllers have aircraft flying through the same piece of airspace, airspace that is the AOR of only one of those controllers. In order to give any instruction to the transiting aircraft, coordination needs to take place.
It is not unusual for a climb/descent etc to be subject to 2 or 3 (or more) conditions... these need to be written down. They need to be written down on the strip, not a scratch pad, because as we all know (I would hope), the strip is a legal document.

We have something similar too... but we do not write anything. Phones are recorded, as well frequecies, radar and all the inputs we give into the radar screen (cleared FLs, re-routings, revisions, dep clearance, inbound release, fpl change, requested FLs, holding orders, oldi messages, exit flight level coordinations, release, transfer of control etc).
Really, cannot imagine what we can need to write on a paper strip!

If the suggestion is that to introduce electronic strips, this coordination will no longer be able to take place (I think everyone realises and accepts that there will be a change in method of operation with the introduction of EFPS - that is inevitable), then the capacity/efficiency fo those sectors will reduce.

It is up to management and the airlines to decide if the reduction in capacity is acceptable...

We do not have flight data specialists or assistants anymore. After the EFS our sector capacietes incresed... a lot!!
We can modify everything with some click... how can you think to reduce the sector capacity when you reduce your "manual" work?!

[MPN11]

I remain firmly in Gonzo's corner.

Technology should not dictate what an ATCO can, or cannot, do. If a controller/assistant has an operational need to input text on a FPS, then technology should facilitate that and NOT limit it.

When I was the desk officer at NATS, responsible for the specification of the LATCC touch-screen plasma-panel comms system, I had endless arguments with the Tels Engineers about the number of channels that could be in use at any time. Their view was that a controller would only need 2 RT frequencies and 2 landlines at any one time. HELLO? I fought that fight for 2 years, non-stop: I hope it eventually worked out?

Technology is the SERVANT, not the Master. OK?

[criss]

Teoretically you're right, but practically, technology limits what we can do all the time. And with electronic strips connected with flight data systems, limits can be actually less.

[SimGod]

Thanks all, now we are getting to the nuts and bolts of it. I can see many advantages to both sides now that I have stirred up the bees nest and people are really talking. I thank you all for your input and have realised that I will probably never find the right answer as there are so many that are correct based on what situation you are in, and what role you need to do.

I guess I will just have to focus on what the guys here require. Interestingly those who have previously worked on EFPS seem to be mostly in favor of switching, but we need to make sure that the training and integration is not dismissed as a minor issue and we allocate plenty of time and resources to this.

Thanks again!

[OA32]

It sounds like (although I could well be wrong) pdcta uses the SATCAS 2000 system in which the electronic strips can be displayed on the same screen as the radar feed. The screens aren't necessarily touch capable which is why they don't have the free write feature but would have a keyboard for data entry, you can also input headings/levels through the radar labels. Most other systems are separate from the radar screen and use a wacom tablet touch screen for interaction so free writing is available. It is obviously safer in terms of redundancy in having the EFS as a separate system so you shouldn't lose both radar feed and strip information at the same time.