Electronic Strips
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GroundBound....
I'm not advocating that strips are sacrosanct, merely that we need to careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
You say that there are "problems" with the use of strips, electronic or paper. Lets go through your list of percieved problems:
1) They cannot easily handle traffic which does not proceeed along predefined strip points.
Yes they can and do. Indeed, one of the advantages of strips is that you CAN move them around easily to highlight conflicts REGARLESS OF DIRECTION. I do this everyday at work.
2) It takes a lot of effort to learn how to use them.
Not in my opinion.
3)With increased traffic, the strips have become almost unuseable and are often not updated.
Not so. Would an electronic display be any easier to update?
4)What is written on a strip is visible only to the controller(s) who have immediate access to them, and changes to data must be manually forwarded .
Not completely true. At LACC some data is automatically forwarded by the planners "electronic" display. The Tactical display remains paper.
5)The fact that some units have cameras to make the strip data available to other working positions only goes to highlight the limits of strips.
I think this actually demonstrates how flexible they are. In future, instead of using CCTV for thing like stacks, the whole lot could be digitised (a la DigiStrips) and made available to a lot more people.
The future of ATM will have a lot more to do with DATALINK. As yet it isn't clear just how this will interface with ground based ATM systems. We are left with the choice of sticking with what we have, updating to some sort of halfway position (DigiStrips or their equivilent) or going all high tech(and high risk) and gambling on what form the ATM system will take.
Best rgds BEX
P.S. My licence contained all the same ratings and validities (incl PAR) and now has a few different ones as well.....
I'm not advocating that strips are sacrosanct, merely that we need to careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
You say that there are "problems" with the use of strips, electronic or paper. Lets go through your list of percieved problems:
1) They cannot easily handle traffic which does not proceeed along predefined strip points.
Yes they can and do. Indeed, one of the advantages of strips is that you CAN move them around easily to highlight conflicts REGARLESS OF DIRECTION. I do this everyday at work.
2) It takes a lot of effort to learn how to use them.
Not in my opinion.
3)With increased traffic, the strips have become almost unuseable and are often not updated.
Not so. Would an electronic display be any easier to update?
4)What is written on a strip is visible only to the controller(s) who have immediate access to them, and changes to data must be manually forwarded .
Not completely true. At LACC some data is automatically forwarded by the planners "electronic" display. The Tactical display remains paper.
5)The fact that some units have cameras to make the strip data available to other working positions only goes to highlight the limits of strips.
I think this actually demonstrates how flexible they are. In future, instead of using CCTV for thing like stacks, the whole lot could be digitised (a la DigiStrips) and made available to a lot more people.
The future of ATM will have a lot more to do with DATALINK. As yet it isn't clear just how this will interface with ground based ATM systems. We are left with the choice of sticking with what we have, updating to some sort of halfway position (DigiStrips or their equivilent) or going all high tech(and high risk) and gambling on what form the ATM system will take.
Best rgds BEX
P.S. My licence contained all the same ratings and validities (incl PAR) and now has a few different ones as well.....
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Paper strips
Retention of paper strips has saved the Swanwick Centre; however it would be foolish not to consider alternatives. A compromise and transitional stage would be to move to single paper strip and if that works, the next step will be that much easier. What we don't want is a technology jump of such magnitude that all our eyeballs drop out in shock, did I say eyeballs, sorry, Freudian slip.
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I do believe that Stansted, Gatwick and then Heathrow will be going to electronic strips, all based on a Canadian COTS system. Apparently SS will be operational this time next year.
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Hi Bexil - Thanks for posting such an important subject. I have been involved since 1983 - remember EDDUS? One of the most difficult aspects that has not yet been addressed is the physical area of the data display for all this digital information. The Digistrip needs its own 29" screen to hold all the traffic. If you only have a single 2K x 2K screen, strips is out! there ain't enough room for them and the radar display. So we are back to windows of data in differing formats, depending upon their uses. Windows are a misnomer - try looking through them to the traffic underneath and try addressing a radar label under one or try moving an elastic vector over an active window. A Canadian company is the only one capable of permitting "through addressing" multi-density translucent windows which frees up the controller to address what he/she wants when required without the need to move a window. You could of course have the data windows surrounding the radar window, but the resulting radar window is quite small.
Coming back to the question, it is not just paper versus electronic, it is the detail and amount of data required, to present to an overworked controller on a busy session a clear unambiguous situation picture where safety is NEVER compromised. This is the problem - the more the traffic, the larger amount of data to digest and sadly paper or even electronic representations of strips don't really work, the only thing is to use the radar data block and associated Executive and Planning tools.
If anybody is interested, I have a Flash set of animated pictures of radar screens using translucency etc, just email me. And yes, much of what I have mentioned has been implemented in some parts of Europe, but not true translucency - yet!!
By the way, for the Tower, forget electronic screens - the Tower controllers job is outside and that is where the data should be - on a Head Up Display as demonstrated at ATC Maastricht over the past couple of years.
Coming back to the question, it is not just paper versus electronic, it is the detail and amount of data required, to present to an overworked controller on a busy session a clear unambiguous situation picture where safety is NEVER compromised. This is the problem - the more the traffic, the larger amount of data to digest and sadly paper or even electronic representations of strips don't really work, the only thing is to use the radar data block and associated Executive and Planning tools.
If anybody is interested, I have a Flash set of animated pictures of radar screens using translucency etc, just email me. And yes, much of what I have mentioned has been implemented in some parts of Europe, but not true translucency - yet!!
By the way, for the Tower, forget electronic screens - the Tower controllers job is outside and that is where the data should be - on a Head Up Display as demonstrated at ATC Maastricht over the past couple of years.
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CUNIM...
Yes I DO remember much of the research at what was the "EU" in the early 1980s. I also remember the plug being pulled on the project overnight.....
Another victory for the short termers in NATS management.
Thanks for listing the drawbacks with DigiStrips. I knew there had to be some.
There appears to be a train of thought among many that paper strips "Don't Work". Well, I disagree. They do work and they are extremely flexible. I'm not saying that they shouldn't be replaced, or a whole different approach looked at, far from it. I DO feel that they have not yet outlasted their usefullness.
In the future something new will be required, particularly with CPDLC on the horizon, but what form this will take is open to question. To those involved in development can I make this plea? Get as many OPERATIONAL ATCers involved EARLY in the project and KEEP THEM INVOLVED, right up until the system goes live.
Best rgds
BEX
Yes I DO remember much of the research at what was the "EU" in the early 1980s. I also remember the plug being pulled on the project overnight.....
Another victory for the short termers in NATS management.Thanks for listing the drawbacks with DigiStrips. I knew there had to be some.
There appears to be a train of thought among many that paper strips "Don't Work". Well, I disagree. They do work and they are extremely flexible. I'm not saying that they shouldn't be replaced, or a whole different approach looked at, far from it. I DO feel that they have not yet outlasted their usefullness.
In the future something new will be required, particularly with CPDLC on the horizon, but what form this will take is open to question. To those involved in development can I make this plea? Get as many OPERATIONAL ATCers involved EARLY in the project and KEEP THEM INVOLVED, right up until the system goes live.
Best rgds
BEX
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Bex,
My dept are 'keeping up the side' for the operational staff on the Elimination of Paper Strips (EPS as a project is dead and has been succeeded by iFACTS Interim Future Area Control Tools). Our BIGGEST concern (putting aside the HMI aspects) is that of fallbacks. iFACTS etc. is still reliant on good 'ol NAS for Flight Data Processing. If NAS fails or the link fails then you lose EVERYTHING.
So until some reliable method of having secondary FDP is dreamt up or until NAS is replaced by something 100% reliable (yes, right!) any system which replaces paper strips by electronics is dead in the water.
My dept are 'keeping up the side' for the operational staff on the Elimination of Paper Strips (EPS as a project is dead and has been succeeded by iFACTS Interim Future Area Control Tools). Our BIGGEST concern (putting aside the HMI aspects) is that of fallbacks. iFACTS etc. is still reliant on good 'ol NAS for Flight Data Processing. If NAS fails or the link fails then you lose EVERYTHING.
So until some reliable method of having secondary FDP is dreamt up or until NAS is replaced by something 100% reliable (yes, right!) any system which replaces paper strips by electronics is dead in the water.
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Hi Bex
Well you will be pleased to know that EDDUS mark 2 is alive and well somewhere in Europe as I swore that when it was cancelled from under my feet that it would live, if not in the UK then elsewhere - ODID 1 was in fact EDDUS - well with alternatives with CENA France providing alternative thoughts. I agree with you on paper strips, the replacement will have to be very good to beat them.
Hey Scott
Long time no see - since Atlanta I think. I am happy that you are getting translucent windows - about time. I have been wittering on about them since oooh 1996 ish. Do you have elastic vectors? if you do, can they go over the top of the active windows? Can you push through the active windows to address traffic underneath? I'm still working on the Head Up Display for the Tower, hopefully we have the size and weight problem solved now. Since I saw you, I retired and now run my own ATC consultancy company, but due to costs, only exhibit at Maastricht.
By the way Scott - ask them if they can do variable density - it is great for weather display - only one RGB but four "colours"
Edited, 'cos I must learn to really check before pressing GO
Well you will be pleased to know that EDDUS mark 2 is alive and well somewhere in Europe as I swore that when it was cancelled from under my feet that it would live, if not in the UK then elsewhere - ODID 1 was in fact EDDUS - well with alternatives with CENA France providing alternative thoughts. I agree with you on paper strips, the replacement will have to be very good to beat them.
Hey Scott
Long time no see - since Atlanta I think. I am happy that you are getting translucent windows - about time. I have been wittering on about them since oooh 1996 ish. Do you have elastic vectors? if you do, can they go over the top of the active windows? Can you push through the active windows to address traffic underneath? I'm still working on the Head Up Display for the Tower, hopefully we have the size and weight problem solved now. Since I saw you, I retired and now run my own ATC consultancy company, but due to costs, only exhibit at Maastricht.
By the way Scott - ask them if they can do variable density - it is great for weather display - only one RGB but four "colours"
Edited, 'cos I must learn to really check before pressing GO
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EDDUS Mk1 is alive and well at LATCC Mil and feeding data to LACC, working on hardware upgrades as we speak. Of course it was only an update of Myriad which was doing elecronic strips in MASOR when I arrived in 73!
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Hi Cunim;
Elastic vectors huh <G>... We don't have that, but we do have vectors to show you where you will be in one minute, two minutes, four minutes and 8 minutes. We have had that for decades. That will also show under a window if it is transparent. We had this ability the first day that we went to DSR and had windows to worry about.
We can't click on the target below the window, but not a big deal since the window is normally not in your airspace and if you need to do something, you can still do it via the keyboard. We can and normally do shrink down most of our windows except for the data display ones. They are fairly small though and don't cause much in the way of problems. We are looking at a few new things though to mitigate even those things. Some nice tools coming up for DSR in the not to distant future unless of course we run out of money...
Hope that all is going well with your new work... I plan on not doing much in the way of work after I retire unless someone offers me something to good to be true. <G>
regards
Scott
Elastic vectors huh <G>... We don't have that, but we do have vectors to show you where you will be in one minute, two minutes, four minutes and 8 minutes. We have had that for decades. That will also show under a window if it is transparent. We had this ability the first day that we went to DSR and had windows to worry about.
We can't click on the target below the window, but not a big deal since the window is normally not in your airspace and if you need to do something, you can still do it via the keyboard. We can and normally do shrink down most of our windows except for the data display ones. They are fairly small though and don't cause much in the way of problems. We are looking at a few new things though to mitigate even those things. Some nice tools coming up for DSR in the not to distant future unless of course we run out of money...
Hope that all is going well with your new work... I plan on not doing much in the way of work after I retire unless someone offers me something to good to be true. <G>
regards
Scott
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Hi Goldfrog = Yes I was aware at the time they cut the rug from under me that at least the Military were capable of professional levels of management. After the fateful decision, a fortnight later the question was posed - could we continue with the EDDUS trials as we didn't really mean cancel? Answer, no cos all the EDDUS slots were taken up by other people and trials.
Scott - you know the elastic vectors for inputting headings or direct routes, they do not like going over windows, but mine don't care as they are above the window heirarcy for that moment. By the way, if you are contemplating retirement and you get bored after a while - well you could always join our band of retired Air Traffic Controllers, Pilots, Airport Managers and Engineers who put back into the aviation world the results of their 35 years of experience in helping countries to put together their modernisation programmes. It is fun and very rewarding.
Scott - you know the elastic vectors for inputting headings or direct routes, they do not like going over windows, but mine don't care as they are above the window heirarcy for that moment. By the way, if you are contemplating retirement and you get bored after a while - well you could always join our band of retired Air Traffic Controllers, Pilots, Airport Managers and Engineers who put back into the aviation world the results of their 35 years of experience in helping countries to put together their modernisation programmes. It is fun and very rewarding.
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CUNIM;
I'm able to retire in another three years ( a young 49 ), but I want to pay off the house before I go, so it looks like about another six years before I pull the plug. I've been having quite a bit of fun of late though working the safety stuff and then procedural stuff as well as the new ERAM project...
regards
Scott
I'm able to retire in another three years ( a young 49 ), but I want to pay off the house before I go, so it looks like about another six years before I pull the plug. I've been having quite a bit of fun of late though working the safety stuff and then procedural stuff as well as the new ERAM project...
regards
Scott
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Hi Scott
Yes, another six years shouldn't do any harm to the bank balance!!
If anyone else is interested coming up to retirement, I need ATCOs and Engineers with requirements experience.
As far as electronic strips are concerned, I doubt whether the copy of the paper strip is the answer, I believe that we need to involve the controllers at the earliest stage - before developments and system designs get fixed, but also be able to restrict the fancier ideas. I feel that the KISS principle with most of the pertinent data on the radar data block - with appearance controlled according to need using some form of expert system may provide part of the answer, but forward planning tools are still going to be essential and this will need another graphical display design window and data comparative displays (List info). I just hope that the lessons learned over the past twenty or so years will, for a change, be noted and acted upon.
Yes, another six years shouldn't do any harm to the bank balance!!
If anyone else is interested coming up to retirement, I need ATCOs and Engineers with requirements experience.
As far as electronic strips are concerned, I doubt whether the copy of the paper strip is the answer, I believe that we need to involve the controllers at the earliest stage - before developments and system designs get fixed, but also be able to restrict the fancier ideas. I feel that the KISS principle with most of the pertinent data on the radar data block - with appearance controlled according to need using some form of expert system may provide part of the answer, but forward planning tools are still going to be essential and this will need another graphical display design window and data comparative displays (List info). I just hope that the lessons learned over the past twenty or so years will, for a change, be noted and acted upon.
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electronic strips
The big advantage of electronic strips is of course the fact that ATSA grades will be made almost extinct! Great if you are a manager hell bent "on yer bonus".
Now if you want to be stuffed when the lights go out and the radar stops turning when some fool pulls the plug, beleive me it isn't any fun!
Keep the ATSA grades and the paper strips!
Now if you want to be stuffed when the lights go out and the radar stops turning when some fool pulls the plug, beleive me it isn't any fun!
Keep the ATSA grades and the paper strips!
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That's actually quite a good analogy (and may have changed my mind); until last year I'd have said the Filofax won hands-down - but since getting a Palm there's simply no way I'd go back!
Roll on EFPS......
Roll on EFPS......
You might even have better results !
