System now fully electronic again, normal flow rates applied.

Company says "Evening staffing levels have been adjusted to provide additional capacity throughout the evening"

i.e. Staff are being given time in lieu and AAVAs to stay beyound their normal shift end.

VL

Supposed to be going to Munich this afternoon. The CTOT got to 2340z for a 1630z departure. Start-up delays about 90min at LHR. Glad to be sent home.

They are trying to preserve the nightstopping and longhaul services, but did some pax being directed straight from departures to arrivals to be re-flighted in the transfers area.

I know little about the UK's ATC systems. However, occasionally (no more than once a year) we see a system failure that means the chaps have to revert to a manual mode. If we look ahead to the two centres (Swanwick & Prestwick) working on the same platforms, surely it would be worthwhile having two separately procured sets of software working in parallel (something akin to the airliner separately developed engine control programs)?

No criticisms, just a bit of sat-at-home-slippers-on thinking.

I had one lined up, was just about to clear him when the call came through.

The assistant I spoke to said it was a code/callsign conversion failure.

I really hope that NATS didn't impose a 50% flowrate because they couldn't cope with 4233 on the screens instead of BAWxxxx.

But in the absence of any other information its the best we have to go on.

Fail active, dual fail passive, automatic changeover, RAID, real-time back-up....
Ah where did all those notions go?

All anathema to the bean-counters I suppose.

CJ

"I really hope that NATS didn't impose a 50% flowrate because they couldn't cope with 4233 on the screens instead of BAWxxxx."

If they did it was to ensure safety, simple as.

Calm down, Calm down, Mr Grubby, I'm only suggesting that - "It's a funny old World innit!".

Those "still in the loop" are no doubt still working at 110% to ensure that the Company pull through this latest hiccup, irrespective of the impending drastic cut to their terms of employment.

(You shouldn't be so touchy you know )

I don't know what caused it as I wasn't in today, but it sounds like a poisoned flight plan issue. We've had them before and I know a lot of work was done to remove the logic that can cause it, but they can be VERY difficult to diagnose on the spot.

Due to some of the data flows and synchronisation issues there is a very limited amount of time to restore full electronic co-ordination before we are forced in to a manual mode of operation.

Once this time has been passed then unfortunately the traffic volumes have to be driven down to the point where manual and electronic systems can be synchronised again.

I'm guessing the delay in recovery was partly due to the fact they wanted some assurance that when they lifted the restrictions the thing wouldn't fail again...

..as I say - I've not been there today so this is a bit of guess work on my part

cb9002
If you'd ever worked:
a) 'raw' SSR data i.e. no code/callsign conversion, with the associated increase in head-up/head-down time to your strips, and
b) the volume of traffic in the LTMA and airways,

then you'd realise that it's actually a very big deal indeed!

I also wasn't there so can't confirm if it was a CCC issue or not.

Rossy's non standard type and routing?

Thanks goodness they still have ATSAs to help out on the wings

Gawd help us when iFACTS arrives and the ATSAs are at the job centre!

Yeah, the poor old ATCOs will just have to feed the 50p's into the meter themselves!:}

50p's? It's NATs. One bob bits only please. Still it's step up from the old steam powered system.

and from the original post
Chip maker broke again?

Saved again by the good old fashioned paper strips and salt-of-the-earth assistants who retain a lot of the old manual skills. Not a lot goes wrong with a piece of paper.
I'd love to see the safety case for the new system that will be bolted on to the creaking patchwork mess of the current computer; which has to have down time at least once a week as a poster has already highlighted.
Draconian safety restrictions were lifted [at least on my sector group] as soon as we could accommodate extra traffic safely.....in fact we sought out traffic and got them in the air as quickly as we could using any route and level with capacity available.......London terminal and Manchester were superb in the finest traditions of what is left of the old National Air Traffic Service [pre-nats] tradition.

Having been at the thick end of it yesterday in TC I can say that everyone worked their socks off to maintain a flow of traffic. ATSA's were brilliant as usual when it hits the fan (which is thankfully not often)

Was nice to have someone from Dav coming through to give a big :ok: to the Mids guys once it had all calmed down. Surprised they knew how to get to the TC Ops room :E:E:E....

Spamcan

One thing I dont understand, the NATS statement said something about 24,500 feet. Surely with the lowering of the DFL that should be 19500. Or do the civil sectors still have the lower / upper boundary at FL240?

QUOTE
Thanks goodness they still have ATSAs to help out on the wings

Gawd help us when iFACTS arrives and the ATSAs are at the job centre!
UNQUOTE

From what I hear, if an ATSA hadn't been 'interfacing' with the system and done an amendment incorrectly, the system wouldn't have fallen over in the first place!:p

Well done everyone for keeping it safe and delays to a minimum in difficult circumstances.

Not so simple.
 

We still have them. But if some odd bit of data tickles a bug in the primary, then it will tickle exactly the same bug in the secondary.

Someone suggested having two separately developed ATM systems. That would cost considerably more than twice as much because they would have to synchronise precisely despite working differently. Experiments with independently developed software suggests that independent teams tend to make similar mistakes. In this case they would have to be working to a very detailed specification, which itself would be error prone. In short, its not that simple.

Even if it worked, it would make no financial sense to NATS given the current level of penalties for delay. In fact it probably wouldn't even make financial sense to the aviation industry as a whole; having a few planes delayed every year or so would actually work out cheaper.

Nice to see the blame-free culture is alive and well!:hmm: