A few things...

Its been a while since I've sent out an email so here's some things going on.

I'm sure everyone knows by now (especially with all the OT) that I am DQ'd for 4 weeks.  The earliest I can submit new labs in September 18th.  I'm hoping things will get looked at in a timely manner and hopefully be cleared to work starting the following week.  I know all the added OT is not ideal and I feel horrible that this happened.  Believe me I talked to 4 different people over the span of 3 days trying to get the timeframe waived or reduced.  For the time being, I'm here M-F from 6:30-3 in QA.  I've been stopping in the unit from time to time to get face time and to also keep my sanity (I'm not an office work type of person).  Please don't hesitate to track me down or shoot me a text if you need anything.

We are currently in negotiations for next years MOU's and it sounds like its going pretty well.  There are going to be a few changes in regards to how bidding will be done since before we weren't completely following the contract.  All the changes and bidding procedures will be thoroughly briefed before it starts but you are always welcome to ask me about it as well.  

Our schedule will be pretty much the same as this year with the exception of there will now be a 0530 shift for each day.  We will be bidding 10 lines again (Emma will be bidding as a CPC).  Emma is supposed to go through DYSIM after Labor Day.  Then she will more than likely be in the A area for a couple of weeks before she starts in TMU.  

I know our staffing has been awful lately.  We currently have Ron Edwards (ZHU) due in the facility January 7th (ish) and Brian Barker (ATCSCC) Sept of 2019.  I'm hoping to find out if that can be made any sooner.  We also have a list of candidates from the recent bid that we can hopefully pick from soon.  

I personally haven't been very happy with how we are getting important info really late.  I will try to keep on management about getting us the info sooner.  We are due for the next PDX runway closure to start Sept 17th (was supposed to start on the 10th but there are more visiting fighters so they pushed it back a week).  The first part of the SEA runway closure started already and will last until Nov 23rd.  Please let me know if there is anything else we are finding out about last minute and I will have another conversation with Randy.

Some other things currently in the works are new LOA with NUW to get rid of event numbers so we don't have to worry about who is MARSA with who, NUW Downrigger airspace (will start only with OLY and W237 airspaces) and Data Comm (training starting around Oct).

I think that is about it.  Again I apologize for me being DQ'd.  Although I have no control over it, I still feel awful about the impact to everyone.  Since I won't be in the unit as much over the next couple weeks, please let me know if there is anything you guys need or anything I can help with. 

Sherri

A couple of things...

First off, I know I briefed several of you in person but I just wanted to get this out to everyone.  Randy and I met at S46 on Tuesday to go over some wake mitigation ideas between heavies going into SEA with an a/c on final for BFI.  They are having issues with mitigating the wake turbulence in a south flow only and asked for our help.  On a trial basis, S46 TMU has been setup with a timeline to show BFI traffic with SEA jets.  We all know that a little math will be involved on their part since the threshold times don't match up.  Basically what they need is in a south flow only, when they recognize that there will be a SEA heavy tied up with a BFI a/c on final, S46 TMU will reach out to us to have the BFI a/c delayed a few minutes to fall further behind the heavy to keep them out of the wake.  There have been a few concerns with our involvement with this, but please understand that first off, this is just a trial to see if this will help.  Second, I was very clear and reiterated to all parties involved that we will not be the ones to initiate this call.  We will only receive the delay request and pass it along.  If this trial works out and this continues, we may look at just having the S46 TMC call the A area and coordinate the delay, leaving us out of the picture.  Again, we are just trying this out for now to see if this even works.  Please give me feedback how its going.  

Also, I will be on vacation starting May 5th and will be unreachable until May 11th.  James will be filling in for me while I'm gone.

Lee Emerick

Hey everyone.  Lee Emerick is due to report on Monday and last night their moving van was stolen in Renton.  All of their stuff is gone.  They set up a Go Fund Me page to help out to replace some of their stuff.  I just wanted to get the links out to you in case you wanted to donate.

http://komonews.com/news/local/couples-moving-truck-stolen-hours-after-they-arrive-in-renton-from-chicago

https://www.gofundme.com/literally-everything-was-stolen

Leave requests

I just wanted to give everyone a heads up that we will now start seeing leave requests actually being denied instead of just left pending.  However, the sups will re-evaluate if circumstances have changed to possibly be able to later approve the shift.  If you have any problems or if you have a shift that has been denied that doesn't get a second look if things change, please let me know.

Sherri

TMU 2018

I just wanted to send out a little update to let everyone know where we are with starting off 2018.

I recently attended meetings with NUW regarding airspace and possibilities for the MRU they want to start operating.  Some key points affecting TMU are:

1.  A temporary fix for the issues A and C areas have with Molson S High is to cap the airspace at FL320.  There has been a memo in CEDAR about this and they already started doing it (although it was ahead of time).  We will revisit this to see how it is working.
2. We also talked about possibly moving the boundary of Molson North to be able to accommodate NUW's need for FL350 but also accommodate the YVR departures climbing out.  Then Molson S high wouldn't exist anymore.  But that was just an idea that may take a while, if it even happens.
3. As far as the multiple event numbers utilizing the same airspace at the same time, pilots are going to be instructed to specify that they are last man out for their specific event.  If they aren't sure (maybe a flight of 5 went as a flight of 4 because one broke), they can tell the sector they aren't sure and the MC can call NUW to investigate.  Hopefully that should help for the few times we've had airspace called cold when there was either another event still in the airspace or if another aircraft departs late.
4. NUW is going to reiterate to their pilots that if they are departing somewhere besides NUW (ie. YKM or SKA), they need to call NUW to still activate their airspace 30 minutes prior.  I had told them we have had that several times that they just call up airborne and want airspace that hasn't been activated.
5. The MRU is looking like a start time around June.  At first, it will only be for Olympic and W237 A-G.  They are looking to operate approximately 40 hours per week, 8 hours a day.  We will be meeting again sometime between February-March to hash out the LOA.  If everything goes well, they may look at operating more frequently and maybe also taking over the eastside airspace as well.

Just to clarify on the spot leave requests in WMT for 2019, beginning January 6th, 2018 we will not be able to request leave in WMT 365 days out.  After all rounds of bidding for 2019 are complete, then WMT will be open to request spot leave for 2019.  For this reason, we hope to start the bidding process earlier so that we are done with bidding 2019 in a timely manner.

For schedules this year, we will now be putting in automatic return to shift requests for shifts that were moved 2 hours or more for coverage.  We figured since we only have 10 people now, people may be moved a hour here or there and that would be a lot of requests being put in.  

I think that's it for now.  I'm looking forward to being your rep for the next 2 years.  If you have any issues or ideas, please don't hesitate to reach out to me.  

~ Sherri