Yes BEXIL160, it can happen again and again and again! The latest FLOP was caused by EXACTLY the same type of 'fault' as caused the previous one! In a nutshell the 'Irish Gap' problem where flights from Scottish, routing through Irish airspace and then into English airspace, if they have an amendment done on them cause the whole system to collapse!
The NOS (NAS Operational Support) team have fixed those two particular faults but are of the opinion that there are LOTS more out there just waiting for some amendment to trigger them, then BANGO!

It is a nonsense for the NATS CEO to say that there is a pile of gold to dig into!! For example the proposal a very few years ago to prevent things like the Irish Gap (which is caused because NAS only recognises one OLDI centre and, Scottish to Irish is one, then Irish to LACC is two and LACC to whereever on the continent is three!) was to have a NAS MIDI (basically a mini version of NAS) especially for Scottish, the rest of NAS treating them just like a normal external NAS unit. This would have been perfect! Allows Scottish to subsume Manch with no trouble and eventually allows LACC to subsume TC. But........ The cost was £5 million, with military buy in. However the MOD insisted on a totally transparent system, without regional divides, the cost then >KACHING< £18 million!! So NATS board backed off.
I believe they are currently looking at the Spanish system which can handle 4 OLDI's. They have already looked THREE times in 10 years at replacing the FDP system!!!!

But to stir murky waters further.
Do you all recall the luverly FLOP on 17th June 2000? Well it turns out that NATS board looked at this and came up with a host of actions to be taken to prevent repetition. Have all these actions come to fruition? No. Why not? I hear you cry! Basically because of lack of accountability by those very senior board members, most of whom have either moved on or left the company and did diddly squat about the tasks they were given to do.

Take3 etc...

No, I don't think you are muddying the waters. I think you have given some very useful explanations. Thank you. Perhaps others will take note.

As you may have gathered, my own contacts and info are USA biased, but if the Spanish have a system that works and will replace NAS lets have a look at it and see how long it would take to get it up and running.... Hey we could have this thing sorted in months... :)

Except that it isn't going to happen that way, is it? <sigh> Nope, despite my, and your, evident enthusiam for getting the system fixed.....

NATS will continue to "spin" that everything in the garden is rosy, the controllers, engineers and assistants will continue to make the best of what equipment they have left and from time to time NAS WILL continue to FLOP causing delays.

As I said before, until the NEXT time...

Best rgds
BEX

BEXIL160

I suppose we both live in hope that others will take note but it seems to be a queer sort of accounting used to run NATS. NAS MIDI would have been £5 million (or 18 dependant on the MOD), but how much have these last two FLOPS cost the company? Short term bottom line profits!! There does seem to be one motivating factor to the NATS board and thats public embarrassment which they are getting in spades as the latest FLOP hit every UK newspaper!

One other thing which I meant to mention is that there also seems to be 'pet' project status for things which appeal to certain members of the board. As I've stated before there are a series of hoops to jump through to get money from SDI for projects, except...... For example EPS seems to be totally bypassing everything, despite it having no proven business benefit!!! It won't help shift more traffic, it might lessen the reliance on ATSA's but the amortisation time is around 12 years!! So why are they pressing ahead with EPS to the apparent detriment of other projects?

Whilst I'm in 'whinge' mode:
The next LACC software upgrade is N07 which has some decent operational stuff in it. But after that, despite a list of things as long as your arm asked for by the project team to assist the workers at the coal face move traffic, there are only 2 things in N08 (and one of those looks like being chucked out) and a single (weak) thing in N09. Builds are full we're told! Full of what??? This ATC system is there for operational staff but they are NOT getting what they have asked for and what we've demonstrated is required to make the system more robust and user friendly. :confused: :mad:

p.s. Next LACC DD&C (shutdown to you great unwashed ;) ) is Wednesday night, so get your paperbacks out as delays WILL be the order of the day!

ebd wrote: Just look East

It's not all plane sailing* here unfortunately.The new ODS system at Maastricht has suffered considerable delay to great annoyance of all. We are however in the fortunate situation that it has not been touted in the media as the greatest thing since Mother's Pride and so escapes the inevitable retribution.

I was in sunny Bournemouth last week on the sim and would have liked to try to visit Swanick but was too kn@ckered every evening


*pun intended