ARW
120-Day Re-Assessment Plan
Site Visits
2.3.15 Roswell Industrial Air Center, Roswell, NM
Background
A team visited the Roswell Industrial Air Center (ROW) located in Roswell, NM, on July 16, 1997. ROW is a Service Level C airport, and weather observations are provided by a FAA LAWRS. The ASOS was commissioned on October 1, 1996.
ROW is served by a Level 2 FAA Air Traffic Control Tower during the hours of 0600 to 2100 daily. Roswell controllers also provide non-radar instrument flight rules approach service. The Air Force built the current control tower several years ago. The new FAA control tower is nearing completion and is scheduled for commissioning in October, 1997. A new radar facility is due to open in January, 1998.
When the tower is closed, the Albuquerque Air Route Traffic Control Center using an ASR-9 radar located in Roswell provides radar approach control service. The Albuquerque Center on a 24-hour basis provides approach control services. Pilot pre-flight weather briefings and Notices to Airman issuance services are provided by the Automated Flight Service Station located in Albuquerque. The Albuquerque Automated Flight Service Station through an RCO on frequency 122.45 provides duplex communications.
Data from the FAA Airport Master Record as of November 15, 1995 indicates a total of 23 aircraft are based at the Roswell airport. Operations for the 12 months ending November 15, 1995 totaled 110,765 including 1,800 commuter, 153 air taxi, 13,052 general aviation local, 35,974 general aviation transit, and 59,786 military.
The airspace is designated Class D during control tower operating hours and Class E when the tower is closed. Non-radar approach control service extends out to approximately 30 miles and up to 10,000 feet. Roswell also provides approach control service to the Artesia Airport that is approximately 25 miles away.
Local daily air traffic consists of a few general aviation flights, approximately 30 air taxi flights, and numerous military training flights originating from air bases nearby, many of which are large, heavy transport aircraft.
Roswell experiences visual flight rules conditions with unlimited ceiling and up to 50 miles visibility over 300 days per year. Although statistics are not readily available, the actual number of days when weather is below visual flight rules conditions is thought to be in the single digits.
Participants
Air traffic control tower manager, manager of local fixed base operation, two local corporate pilots, and FAA/NWS team.
Synopsis of User Comments
This section of the report is a record of the comments received during the meetings, interviews and discussions that took place during the site visits. It is intended to present a summary of the input from the users on a particular subject. These comments may include technical inaccuracies and user perceptions that do not reflect actual conditions.
Comments from air traffic control tower manager -
"Numerous times ASOS has missing information, sometimes completely missing. The OID (Operator Interface Device) has gone down completely and taken 14 hours to get back up. This has happened once maybe twice.
This system has a 24-hour priority one restore time. After the ASOS tech has been on duty eight hours it is hit or miss to reach him. He is not required to carry a beeper or to answer his telephone after his eight-hour day. The hours start counting when AOMC (ASOS Operations and Monitoring Center) gets a ticket for outage.
ASOS creates too many SPECIs (Aviation Selected Special Weather Report).
Ten to fifteen days a year we are IFR (instrument flight rules)."
One of the controllers made the comment -
"I would prefer manual LAWRS (Limited Aviation Weather Reporting Station) rather than using ASOS as a tool." The tower manager stated he did not want to do this.
Various controllers made the following comments -
"Currently there are eight controllers and seven trainees.
When we have weather ASOS creates specials to a point that we go crazy.
ASOS is a low priority with a high liability when we have low weather conditions.
On July 1st or 2nd the temperature was out for 12 hours and the tower gave out temperature after calling a local bank for the temperature.
Weather observation is a full-time job when weather is down. We don’t know if we are supposed to augment when weather is high. When sky is fifteen thousand feet scattered, should we augment? We don’t know."
One controller showed concern that -
"Controllers lack the seasoning needed to act as LAWRS controllers."
One controller stated -
"As a taxpayer I see the theory of saving dollars however ASOS is not a good working answer."
One controller stated that -
"At about 100 degrees we would lose temperature, dew point, and sea level pressure. When they go out its 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. and they may not be back up until 10:00 a.m. the next day.
During bad weather the ASOS changes a lot. We take ATIS (Automatic Terminal Information Service) off-line, because we can’t keep up with specials. Augmenting is tough and creates a bad workload."
The NWS ASOS technician made the following comments -
"The dew point sensor is a problem with design and fails a lot.
I have nine ASOSs to maintain and this is going to 15. Currently, five of the nine are commissioned.
Restore times can’t work if the technician is not on call. I’m never on call."
A corporate pilot stated -
"The airport ASOS won’t give accurate information on weather.
"We used to have (weather) reporters telling us what the weather was; we like the old system better."
When flying to El Paso, we go VFR (visual flight rules), and find out there are clouds present at our altitude, and have to file a flight plan. We need more observers or get control towers to report clouds further out."
Another corporate pilot stated -
"You think an airport is clear from ASOS and get there and find the field is IFR (instrument flight rules).
Albuquerque has no observers, all we get is ASOS data, but no human observer information."
NWS representative stated -
"At Albuquerque, the NWS will be doing observations and adding data to the report, such as thunderstorm movement, etc."
Fixed base operator manager commented -
"ASOS is not accurate in many cases. UNICOM people give better weather information than ASOS. I don’t call it up any more.
What is FAA’s long range goal on this? Are you going solely automated?
More and more pilots are flying today with less and less information on weather.
When flying into this airport after the tower is closed, I get ASOS information from air traffic control center and the report seems to be representative of the weather when I arrive."
Information Provided
The team discussed the capabilities of the ASOS, provided information on ranking criteria and determination of service levels, and explained the limitations of the ASOS sensors.
Issues Identified
The increased workload involved in updating the Automatic Terminal Information Service (ATIS) when the ASOS generated Aviation Selected Special Weather Reports (SPECIs) was the main issue for the controllers at Roswell. ASOS specific issues focused on the failure of the temperature/dew point sensors at high temperatures and the failure of the Operator Interface Device (OID). The frequency of failures brought up questions about call back procedures and the response times of the ASOS technician.