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[Andrew Podner]

To all:

After going through our 2nd FNO since my tenure as ATM began in August of 2008, I wanted to do sort of an overall review of our airspace and traffic management system in Memphis to see where there was room for improvement. The link below is a quick after action review of what happened during the event and how we were configured during the event. Overall I would say that our controllers performed very well, and we were able to roll with the punches and overcome the abnormal conditions that were experienced. The question I ask myself after these things is "Could the abnormal conditions have been prevented?" That is essentially the point that I am at. Sometimes it is difficult to look back in the mirror and examine our weaknesses, but doing so can only make us better in the future. While we have made changes in our SOPs and Training over the last 9 months, the airspace has pretty much been constant, and we have had the opportunity to evaluate it at both ends of the traffic density extreme, so now comes the time to sort through the data and see if we can make it better.

Rather than making this a strictly 'Senior Staff' exercise, I am opting to open it up for a week to the greater VATUSA/VATSIM community to get the ATC and Pilot perspective from ZME, our friends and neighbors, and the pilots we provide service to. Hopefully this will also provide some insight as to what considerations we have to kick back and forth when structuring an airspace and traffic management system to meet the goals of realism versus VATSIM as well. This thread will be open until May 1, 2009.

Thanks, and a special thanks to all pilots and controllers who were involved in the event, you guys are the ones that make it happen!



FNO After Action Review


Best Regards,

This post has been edited by Andrew Podner: Apr 25 2009, 07:06 AM

[Tyler walton]

I'll start with a couple of obvious suggestions:

I know I had at least 3 or 4 PMs going between pilots and surrounding ARTCCs about who was where all night long on Center positions. Even our own controllers were confused. Yes the 04 and 05 and such are documented as far as where it is, but pilots new to the area could only guess pick a center, call them up and say "I'm with you." but they weren't even inside your airspace. Even with "I Control NW Memphis area including KLIT airspace" inside my Text ATIS didn't help. Then u gotta figure out who they are in a mass of blips and get them directed to the proper location, all while having to deal with the other 15 - 30 aircraft in your area. (I'm not speaking of my sector on this as I was mostly dead during the event except for a few times of increased traffic)

So I propose the name changes to the following codes
MEM_CODE_CTR

CODE =
H = High
L = Low

+

2 Way splits
N
S
E
W

OR

4 way splits
NE
NW
SE
SW

So for high NE sector on a 4 way split it would be MEM_HNE_CTR
For low South split would be MEM_LS_CTR

Not sure of limitations on the name lengths but we can modify it as we go if nessessary. This would also match the tracon codes as well and therefore be uniform between all zones.

We also need to look at the split zones, I'd like to know exactly where we got the info for the splits? If there is someone who knows could they please post a link to it so I can look them over? Seems rather odd that the low split for memphis is setup the way it is. 04 has a short spit that goes down over the airport, where aircraft who are passing west to east directly over memphis are passed from 13 to 04, then 04 passes them back to 15, over an 18 mile stretch. Seems rather pointless. For several aircraft last night the need to make all those handoffs was rather pointless so we just did pointouts and left the aircraft in control from 13 for a handoff directly to 15 instead of confusing pilots more. Half the time they don't get the handoff early enough to warrent 2 frequency changes in 18 miles. Most of the pilots take at least 2 minutes to make the handoff and by then he's already halfway thru the airspace and comes back just in time to be handed off again. This would fall under the experienced pilot area I think. Since pilots on VATSIM aren't all 100% familiar with their aircraft or the abilities of it, there would need to be consideration for the VATSIM network. We may also want to consider the current split lines as an anchor position for the new spots so surrounding ARTCCs would not be required to make any updates to their sector files.

I would propose a split that would essentially split memphis into 4 equal parts centering around the main terminal instead of having one spacific center controlling all of the airspace above memphis. It would be equally distributed between the 4 split zones.

[Wes Kirkpatrick]

I'll start with a couple of obvious suggestions:

I know I had at least 3 or 4 PMs going between pilots and surrounding ARTCCs about who was where all night long on Center positions. Even our own controllers were confused. Yes the 04 and 05 and such are documented as far as where it is, but pilots new to the area could only guess pick a center, call them up and say "I'm with you." but they weren't even inside your airspace. Even with "I Control NW Memphis area including KLIT airspace" inside my Text ATIS didn't help. Then u gotta figure out who they are in a mass of blips and get them directed to the proper location, all while having to deal with the other 15 - 30 aircraft in your area. (I'm not speaking of my sector on this as I was mostly dead during the event except for a few times of increased traffic)

So I propose the name changes to the following codes
MEM_CODE_CTR

CODE =
H = High
L = Low

+

2 Way splits
N
S
E
W

OR

4 way splits
NE
NW
SE
SW

So for high NE sector on a 4 way split it would be MEM_HNE_CTR
For low South split would be MEM_LS_CTR

Not sure of limitations on the name lengths but we can modify it as we go if nessessary. This would also match the tracon codes as well and therefore be uniform between all zones.

We also need to look at the split zones, I'd like to know exactly where we got the info for the splits? If there is someone who knows could they please post a link to it so I can look them over? Seems rather odd that the low split for memphis is setup the way it is. 04 has a short spit that goes down over the airport, where aircraft who are passing west to east directly over memphis are passed from 13 to 04, then 04 passes them back to 15, over an 18 mile stretch. Seems rather pointless. For several aircraft last night the need to make all those handoffs was rather pointless so we just did pointouts and left the aircraft in control from 13 for a handoff directly to 15 instead of confusing pilots more. Half the time they don't get the handoff early enough to warrent 2 frequency changes in 18 miles. Most of the pilots take at least 2 minutes to make the handoff and by then he's already halfway thru the airspace and comes back just in time to be handed off again. This would fall under the experienced pilot area I think. Since pilots on VATSIM aren't all 100% familiar with their aircraft or the abilities of it, there would need to be consideration for the VATSIM network. We may also want to consider the current split lines as an anchor position for the new spots so surrounding ARTCCs would not be required to make any updates to their sector files.

I would propose a split that would essentially split memphis into 4 equal parts centering around the main terminal instead of having one spacific center controlling all of the airspace above memphis. It would be equally distributed between the 4 split zones.

Tyler

That procedure was used when I was ATM and we split it 4 ways. Trust me pilots still don't get it even with cardinal directions in the call sign. You just have to do the best you can. We had surrounding centers working most of the night. Those controllers should know who to hand off to. For the aircraft coming to you from uncontrolled, you must send a contact msg. For the ones that call you up and are not in your airspace you have to direct them to the right sector, or if too busy tell them to return to their previous frequency. Obviously if they are coming from uncontrolled airspace, you need to take the time to locate them and put them on the proper frequency. Sorry, but that is just part of a center controllers job.

[Wes Kirkpatrick]

Sorry for the double post, tried to edit and it backfired. I really don't like this forum.

Tyler

That procedure was used when I was ATM and we split it 4 ways. Trust me pilots still don't get it even with cardinal directions in the call sign. You just have to do the best you can. We had surrounding centers working most of the night. Those controllers should know who to hand off to. For the aircraft coming to you from uncontrolled, you must send a contact msg. For the ones that call you up and are not in your airspace you have to direct them to the right sector, or if too busy tell them to return to their previous frequency. Obviously if they are coming from uncontrolled airspace, you need to take the time to locate them and put them on the proper frequency. Sorry, but that is just part of a center controllers job.

As for the last part. The splits come from actual sectors of ZME. We combined certain sectors to make up the 4 positions. I cannot provide a link for that because we used a map off of a subscription based software client. I assure you that it is correct. the reason that small section is there is because we decided to use the low split as the default because it would work out better for staffing models and give each controller an arrival into KMEM. You did the right thing in pointing out the aircraft, if you look at the high split you will see what I am talking about.

I believe Andy has isolated the major areas for improvement and you will be seeing something in the near future. I don't feel that it is at the Center level.

This post has been edited by Wes Kirkpatrick: Apr 25 2009, 08:55 PM

[Benton Wilmes]

Tyler,

This is the current layout of the ZME Low sectors:





Hopefully, you will be able to compare it to your sector file and see the similarities/differences.

One thing to point out though; look at the 3 major airports for ZME (MEM, BNA, and LIT). Notice how the Low sectors are "designed" around them? MEM has 5 sectors around it with MEM in the middle and LIT and BNA each have 4 sectors with both airports in the middle of those sectors. That's how pretty much every ARTCC has its layout because that is what the major traffic flows are for those airports. No matter how you divide up the sectors, you will always have those few that don't follow those main streams. But at least 70-80% of all traffic (especially in the lows around major airports) will be in preset streams. The lows are just designed around those streams.

[Andrew Podner]

Thanks for all the input thus far.

One thing we have to take into consideration for our split is the skewed traffic conditions we have. It showed itself the other night for the first time in a while due to the fact that we had several center controllers on. It is clear that a high percentage of our traffic flows to the northeast, particularly since so many pilots file JKS as a first waypoint to KATL. The problem reveals itself on South Ops when an aircraft transitions the 13 Sector for 25 or 30 miles then gets transferred to the 05 sector. So it may be appropriate to consider adjusting that split line slightly to facilitate traffic and reduce the number of required handoffs.

Another discussion point that has been surfacing is the idea that 360 days out of a year we have a "Normal" operations scenario where there are no Center Splits, no Approach Splits, etc. Then we have a high traffic condition that is balanced for maybe 3 days in a year, and then on FNO nights, which is 10 hours in a year, we have a skewed heavy traffic flow with seemingly mostly inbound traffic, but it can be dynamic as well. With that in mind, I think it is important that we keep the correct perspective on any changes we make.

Changing the 05, 13 split for instance only makes a difference twice a year......but it is a big difference. So it may be worth looking at more closely.

As far as surrounding centers asking what the split is, we sent them the same FNO prep document that our guys got that clearly outlined the split. As for pilots from uncontrolled airpace calling the wrong sector, that is a VATSIM thing that will never go away, I agree with Wes on that.

Having a default TRACON split of E & W Approach doesn't appear to really do anything 360+ days out of the year, and further it does not really reinforce a concept that we need to make second nature for High Traffic, so a APP / DEP default split may be more appropriate to accomplishing our goals.

Here's what I will say for sure at this point: The TRACON configuration will be modified to reflect a little bit simpler version of the RW layout. The RW configuration has many altitude divisions that can be condensed into about 4 per side but that need to be understood to be effective in the position. There will be more emphasis on DEP & APP interaction. There will be some information on how to interact with F_APP, and what that airspace definition is. Likewise, it changes when the ops at the airport change, and that needs to be understood too. There will be hard rules on vectoring and descents in that airspace. My goal is that you will learn the east side descents, and then add 1,000 feet for the west side, to make it easier to remember. Expect training and certification in the Memphis LCTP to intensify a little bit and become a little more complex. We want to see people working DEP and understanding how to properly manipulate traffic under & over arrivals. We need a clear understanding of what the approach airspace really is, and it is not everything inside the circle.

The last item to kick around at this time is position callsigns, and I am giving that a lot of consideration right now. When we are rarely if, ever splitting positions, then there really doesn't seem to be a point to have sectored callsigns under normal conditions. This is definitely true from APP and down, but I am still kicking around the concept on CTR. To illustrate, MEM_05_CTR since Jan 1, 2008 has been manned for 1,115 hours. The 04 Sector on the other hand has been manned for only 49 hours. Assuming 5 hours per FNO (total of 3) plus 2 other events of 2 hrs each, this means that a relief callsign was used for about 30 hours or 2.6% of the time. So when it is not an issue 97.4% of the time, does it warrant adding the sector to the callsign under normal conditions? Why not just MEM_CTR? We know for sure that it applies below CTR because those positions never split except for an event. We never split high/low, so I can't really say that we need to even be concerned about that. For a normal event, we'd likely only split E & W, and only during FNO or something similar would we split 4 ways. Food for thought, but I find that the simplest solutions are usually the best.

We are also going to repackage our data and training information into a Wiki style online library that can have a full-text search to make information more readily available. That conversion is in process and will be substantially completed this week.

This post has been edited by Andrew Podner: Apr 27 2009, 06:28 AM