CAATS Winnipeg

invertedattitude · Post by **invertedattitude** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 11:19 pm

Curious how CAATS is working in Winnipeg?

Any UL people here, is the CAATS going ahead on Dec 9th?

Jerricho · Post by **Jerricho** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 6:55 am

ORD is still going in YWG.

MCA · Post by **MCA** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 4:31 pm

still scheduled for the 9th in UL, however i doubt everyone will be ready ...
can't wait to see that!

invertedattitude · Post by **invertedattitude** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 4:45 pm

Cool thanks all.

the_professor · Post by **the_professor** » Fri Nov 24, 2006 1:16 pm

av8rpei wrote:Curious how CAATS is working in Winnipeg?

Any UL people here, is the CAATS going ahead on Dec 9th?

Improves efficiency for high level, due to the "hello"/"goodbye" nature of high level control. It is a living hell at times for low level, and has permanently increased their workload, requiring extra staff. So much for progress.

Would have been more effective if all the programmers and analysts who worked on the system were not afflicted with Down Syndrome.

invertedattitude · Post by **invertedattitude** » Fri Nov 24, 2006 1:22 pm

Interesting, why exactly does it increase the workload so much for low level than before implementation?

Jerricho · Post by **Jerricho** » Fri Nov 24, 2006 2:47 pm

...........

Pygmie · Post by **Pygmie** » Fri Nov 24, 2006 2:48 pm

av8rpei wrote:Interesting, why exactly does it increase the workload so much for low level than before implementation?

High level aircraft typically fly from one airport to another, with little change in the flight while airborne with the exception of direct routings and altitude changes (both of which are easily entered into CAATS). Also, in YWG all high level aircraft are within radar coverage.

The problem in low level is that aircraft are much more likely to request destination changes en route, as well as being issued different routes for separation purposes (i.e. airways vs. direct) and it's also not uncommon to have 2-4 strips on a single aircraft. So whereas before all you had to do to enter a route change is write it on the strips, now you have to go into the aircrafts flight plan, type all the changes in, to which the printer will print out entirely new strips, which then have to be sorted and replaced. If the aircraft then requests an altitude change, again it has to be entered into CAATS and the printer will again spit out entirely new strips. Then the system will get a radar hit on the aircraft, update the time by three minutes, and print out yet another full set of strips.

To top it all off, the system has been unreliable with non-radar estimates, so all times must be checked manually and passed to the next controller for non-radar flights.

Really what it means in that when you start to get busy, you get overwhelmed by strips printing out and bogged down with data entry into the system.

MCA · Post by **MCA** » Sat Dec 09, 2006 11:44 am

management decided to pull the plug in CZUL. Nards version is not compatible with caats, apparently...
few weeks delay before pre-ORD.

Alex YCV · Post by **Alex YCV** » Sat Dec 09, 2006 1:48 pm

MCA: Is that a "full pull" or just a "go fix nards" deal?

if these things are not compatible, how do you think this will get resolved?

Braun · Post by **Braun** » Sat Dec 09, 2006 3:31 pm

So that means there will be no CAATS for YUL in December? Sweet, my course won't be delayed!

Jerricho · Post by **Jerricho** » Sat Dec 09, 2006 6:09 pm

..............

MCA · Post by **MCA** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 10:42 am

no caats in december, that's for sure... it is still sad that they "found out" last week that they were not compatible... we had ground speeds of near M2.0 on the nards!
braun, i would expect your class to get more delays than if caats would have run as scheduled.... sorry about that!

MCA · Post by **MCA** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 10:49 am

Alex YCV wrote:MCA: Is that a "full pull" or just a "go fix nards" deal?

it will be a go fix nards thing, but not as jerricho says. DSC's in YUL found out that QM, QX and WG "workarounded" too many functions, and now they are stuck with resolving them in order to get caats compatible all around the country, in the event that YZ, EG and VR get connected.

Braun · Post by **Braun** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 11:46 am

MCA wrote:no caats in december, that's for sure... it is still sad that they "found out" last week that they were not compatible... we had ground speeds of near M2.0 on the nards!
braun, i would expect your class to get more delays than if caats would have run as scheduled.... sorry about that!

Darn, howcome more?

MCA · Post by **MCA** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 12:15 pm

Braun wrote: Darn, howcome more?

because with that delay, we will have to train again in the sim, just before it goes on, which will delay the class before you, and consequently, your class as well.. those who finished the generic class in november are already off for 2 months, and i suppose it will increase. you might do the generic portion as planned, but be prepared to be sent home for a considerable time before you can start specific sub-unit training.

Braun · Post by **Braun** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 1:18 pm

Damn, that totally ruined my day hehe. So they are going to re-train on you guys on CAATS even though it's not coming? We were expecting delays, we were told we might have the summer off due to vacations and stuff. Hopefully this is what they were talking about!

FamilyGuy · Post by **FamilyGuy** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 4:38 pm

Too many workarounds???? I thought everthing was "good" in Moncton and Gander???

Q: What do you call a workaround to a workaround?
ORD?

Jerricho · Post by **Jerricho** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 6:42 pm

Sorry MCA, I was being more than a little tongue in cheek

Pygmie · Post by **Pygmie** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 7:15 pm

I still love the round-robin "workaround".

Braun · Post by **Braun** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 10:54 pm

Was the old system that bad? I just keep hearing bad things about this!

invertedattitude · Post by **invertedattitude** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 11:40 pm

Thanks for all the info on the YWG stuff folks, QM on 2.2 seems to be going alright now.

Pygmie · Post by **Pygmie** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 11:46 pm

Braun wrote:Was the old system that bad? I just keep hearing bad things about this!

The thing is, for high level controllers CAATS is gold.

And even for low level controllers, it's not THAT bad. (With a couple of exceptions.)

Round-robin training flights and practice approaches confuse the hell out of the system, and destination/significant route changes are a lot more work now that they have to be entered into the system.

The thing is, CAATS was never meant to be used the way it is being used now. CAATS is and was designed as an entirely paper-less system. Well into the process, someone did a study and found that since the system was so radically different than anything the controllers were currently using, it would take each controller 30 days of training to be capable of using the new system.

This was obviously a huge problem since there is no way of putting that many controllers through that much training and still maintain the operation. After CAATS was delivered to Nav Canada, it then had to be adapted so as to only require 5 days of training per controller. As a result, most of the functionality was stripped out, and they adapted the software to print paper strips.

95% of the problems with CAATS are strip-printing related, and since that was never an origional design function, it's not suprising that there are this many problems.

GoHaBsGo · Post by **GoHaBsGo** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 2:17 pm

CAATS at YUL will be in PRE ORD test Dec. 16th and 17th. I do not know if they have filed a date for the official ORD yet, but I do know there are mutiple MRs to be fixed.

the_professor · Post by **the_professor** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 3:32 pm

Pygmie wrote:The thing is, for high level controllers CAATS is gold.

And even for low level controllers, it's not THAT bad. (With a couple of exceptions.)

I hope that you are making that statement as a low-level controller yourself? Over time you get used to the irritants. However, it has permanently increased staffing requirements. When a system produces the exact opposite of what was intended, as CAATS has, it means some severely retarded people were in charge of the development and modifications.

Pygmie wrote:As a result, most of the functionality was stripped out, and they adapted the software to print paper strips.

95% of the problems with CAATS are strip-printing related, and since that was never an origional design function, it's not suprising that there are this many problems.

And why that would seem to have been a reasonable course of action to whomever made that decision is a giant mystery. Any idiot should know that you cannot reverse engineer a "paperless" system to work with paper unless you start again from scratch.

Next on their list is probably to suggest using permanent markers on white boards, because they won't smear as much...

CAATS Winnipeg

CAATS Winnipeg

Re: CAATS Winnipeg