Under the ATCOTS program, the
Federal Aviation Administration
(FAA) and Raytheon are responsible
for ensuring that air traffic control specialists
continue to provide the flying public with
the high level of safety and professionalism
it currently enjoys. A well trained and fully
staffed air traffic control (ATC) workforce
plays an essential role in fulfilling this
responsibility.
The FAA employs more than 15,000 air
traffic controllers. As shown in Figure 1,
they work in various air traffic roles and
facilities of varying sizes, safely guiding
more than 50,000 aircraft through the
National Airspace System (NAS) each day.
These employees provide air navigation
services to aircraft in the U.S. domestic airspace
and in the 24.6 million square miles
of international oceanic airspace delegated
to the United States by the International
Civil Aviation Organization.
During the next several years, 70 percent of
the controller workforce will become eligible
to retire. In order to meet the challenges of
this wave of retirements and the increasing
demand for air travel, the FAA is hiring and training approximately 17,000 new air
traffic controllers during the next 10 years.
The ATCOTS challenge is to continue to
provide current training services while
implementing improvement initiatives
designed to create a more effective, high quality
and cost-efficient air traffic controller
training process. Under this program,
Raytheon successfully transitioned two
legacy training support contracts, one at the
FAA Academy in Oklahoma City and the
other across 159 field locations. In that
60-day process, more than 1,700 instructors
and training support personnel were
brought on board, both at Raytheon
Technical Services Company and with
subcontractor partners. By the end of
2009, all 315 FAA operational facilities
will be supported under ATCOTS.
ATC Training: Current State and Future Needs
There are three phases of qualification training
that a student goes through to reach
Certified Professional Controller status:
academy training, field training, and on-the job
training (OJT). Raytheon develops and
conducts training for the academy and field training phases, while the FAA retains full
responsibility for OJT (live traffic). The current
duration for training averages three
years for an en route and oceanic-services
student and two years for a terminalservices
student.
The FAA has relied heavily on live-traffic
OJT. More recently, it has begun fielding
high-fidelity simulation systems at the
academy as well as certain high-priority
field facilities. The FAA's increased use of
simulation takes pressure off of OJT while
increasing training cycles for the student.
Through visual representation of the complex
ATC environment, these simulation
systems support training of basic to more
advanced ATC competencies and procedures
including those focused on weather
and unusual events. As shown in Figure 2,
the current generation of simulators and
embedded simulators provide realistic
displays and full functionality for the
ATC student.
The importance of success on this program
is underscored by the FAA's efforts to modernize
the NAS to meet future air traffic
demand. These technological enhancements are prescribed by the Next Generation Air
Transportation System (NextGen). NextGen
is a wide-ranging transformation of the
entire national air transportation system to
meet future demands and avoid gridlock in
the sky and on the runways. It aims to
move away from legacy ground-based
technologies to a new and more dynamic
satellite-based technology. The goals for
NextGen focus on significantly increasing
the safety, security and capacity of air transportation
operations, thereby improving the
overall economic well-being of the country.
These benefits are achieved through a
combination of new procedures and
advances in the technology deployed to
manage passenger, air cargo, general
aviation and ATC operations.
Raytheon's ATCOTS: Implementing NextGen Goals
Eight key capabilities are needed to achieve
the NextGen goals:
Network-enabled information access
Performance-based services (now performance-
based operations and services)
Weather assimilated into decision making
Layered, adaptive security
Broad-area precision navigation (now positioning,
navigation and timing services)
Aircraft trajectory-based operations
Equivalent visual operations
Super-density arrival/departure operations
Raytheon is supporting the FAA effort to
incorporate these capabilities into the ATC
training curriculum, evolving ATCOTS
simulation-based training in collaboration
with these initiatives.
Today, student performance during the
conduct of a simulation scenario exercise is
evaluated using checklists administered by a
subject matter expert air traffic controller
instructor. Raytheon is focused on making
this evaluation more objective by taking
advanced radar analysis tools already in use by the FAA and applying them in a new
wave to analyze student ATC performance
in the simulation lab. These measurements
focus on the students' ability to maintain
aircraft vertical, lateral and longitudinal separation
while adhering to required national
and local air traffic control procedures.
Examples of subsequent areas of improvement
for the student may include a better
understanding of aircraft types and characteristics,
including wake turbulence or
adherence to local noise abatement
procedures, among others.
As shown in Figure 3, these tools support
detailed analysis and reporting of aircraft
trajectories. Using this approach to analyze
recorded training exercises promises to
provide near real-time insight into the ATC
students' adherence to aircraft separation
standards and local procedures while
promoting air traffic control efficiency in
vectoring and speed control.
Analysis and reporting tool provides detailed
data for each aircraft trajectory in the
simulation. This directly measures student control of that aircraft and supports
comparisons with other aircraft, e.g., for
adherence to separation standards.
ATCOTS is a metric-driven, performance based
contract. The application of tools
such as these will serve to directly support
the collection of student performance
metrics and drive improvement throughout
the training program. ATCOTS' success is
critical to preparing air traffic controllers for
today's needs and for tomorrow's changing
responsibilities. At the program level, Acceptable Performance Level measures focus
on instructor staffing efficiency, training quality,
effectiveness, efficiency, cost per developmental
student, and time to certification.
Raytheon's technologies, Raytheon Six
Sigma™ processes, and clear understanding
of the customer's needs will support the
Raytheon ATCOTS team in delivering
exceptional training and improving the
overall training process for the FAA.
The importance of success on this program
is underscored by the FAA's efforts to modernize
the NAS to meet future air traffic
demand. These technological enhancements are prescribed by the Next Generation Air
Transportation System (NextGen). NextGen
is a wide-ranging transformation of the
entire national air transportation system to
meet future demands and avoid gridlock in
the sky and on the runways. It aims to
move away from legacy ground-based
technologies to a new and more dynamic
satellite-based technology. The goals for
NextGen focus on significantly increasing
the safety, security and capacity of air transportation
operations, thereby improving the
overall economic well-being of the country.
These benefits are achieved through a
combination of new procedures and
advances in the technology deployed to
manage passenger, air cargo, general
aviation and ATC operations.
Analysis and reporting tool provides detailed
data for each aircraft trajectory in the
simulation. This directly measures student control of that aircraft and supports
comparisons with other aircraft, e.g., for
adherence to separation standards.
