ATC style task completion table

New Year's Solutions! Who didn't make them? Adults usually start the year on January 1st, and that's when they vow to their loved ones and themselves that they will start doing this or stop doing that? Students start the new year right now - in September? but many provisions are identical. So this month I decided to prepare a special help? modeled on the best solutions - straight from big aviation!

ATC style task completion table

When life depends on the correct visualization of the importance of tasks?

Aviation is a field for well-organized people. I remember the description of aviation? Preliminary exam? since the birth of Polish military aviation (probably described by Bogdan Arkt)? when an experienced instructor asked young pilots to borrow matches. Who has been looking for a long time, and in different pockets? failed.

Do air traffic controllers have the same responsibility as pilots today? the life of people in the air also depends on them. I confess that I myself did not even realize the scale of air traffic. How many passenger planes are now in the sky above us - you can see, for example, on the website www.flightradar24.com. They cannot make mistakes or forget any of the planes. Therefore, everything they use should be as functional and practical as possible. Of course, all modern electronics are at their service, however? even the most technologically advanced air traffic control (ATC) centers still use a specific "analogue" of a board with sliding sheets of paper.

Flight progress bars (FPS) are narrow lanes with imprinted details of individual flights that are used to track flights in the control tower. Even though they have been supplemented with more technologically advanced flight tracking methods, are they still used as fast and "malicious" independent? computer systems are a way to visualize a flight simultaneously for many controllers. After use, they are also stored as a record of instructions issued as annotations by the duty controller.

After printing the most important parameters of a given flight, the paper strip is mounted on a plastic plate, which is then placed on the appropriate board (in English “bay”) containing all the strips for flights performed in a given sector of airspace or at an airport and is subordinate to this controller. Of course, the colors of the tiles also have their meaning.

Due to the inclination of the plate with stripes, can they slide freely on special guides (or tubular)? consequently, the lanes of the planes still keep their order according to the landing order (hence the most important lanes are the lowest ones - as opposed to "non-aircraft reminders"). Well, why do we need such a board, if it is possible in a computer or in a calendar? The answer may be similar to the question about the meaning of the use? ATC solutions in the era of advanced electronic systems? analogue is clearer and more reliable!

ATC style home progress boards

The original chalkboard, however, can get in the way a bit on the table. From the very beginning, I was more thinking of a version that hangs in front of the table or next to it, but still retains its original principle of operation.

The actual progress bar plates ("holders") used in ATC are made from polystyrene in injection molding machines. If we don't have our man in the tower? therefore, it will be difficult for us to recreate them in exactly the same form. At home, can they be made almost exactly the same size (usually 1x8 inches, i.e. ~25x203 mm, sometimes 28 mm wide, and narrower ones can be 150 mm long) in a simpler form of citrus plywood? for example, partially doubled to accommodate metal rods. They can also be made even simpler from the foil itself. Of course, gravity is no longer enough to prevent the tile from falling (as it did in the horizontal version). So you have to resort to magnetism. Magnets, of course, can be different. Does magnetic foil seem like a better option? can they be obtained from advertisements or their clippings? I got them completely free of charge from one of the outdoor advertising agencies in Wroclaw. You can also use small coin magnets from long lost chess.

The array (?bay?) should be adapted to the type of lanes? for 3 mm or 2 x 3 mm plywood or PVC foam tiles, it can be any wooden or plastic board. For magnetic foil plates, would steel plates (magnetic) be the most suitable? sheet metal itself is enough, it can be painted or pasted over with self-adhesive foil. Board frames can be made from any material, but of suitable thickness (so that the boards do not protrude too much from the board). Since the original FPS strips were about 20 cm long, the minimum board size is A4. You can also make an A3 board vertically or horizontally (then the strips can be arranged in two columns, or the second part can be used for notes). A board larger than A3 is more likely not useful for home use.

The solution to the board problem for those who don't have the time or inclination to build from scratch is to purchase a suitable pre-made item from an office supply store, online, or even one of the hardware and garden stores. chain stores, their prices start below ten zł (for a 30×40 cm cork board) ), and a good dry-wipe magnetic board of the same size with aluminum frames can be bought for about 30 zł.

Progress bars for boards in magnetic foil design

For the manufacture of strips in this embodiment, in addition to magnetic foil, the following will be useful:

• adhesive paper tape 20 mm wide (available in craft stores)
• smooth, colored self-adhesive films (cut from advertising agencies or in rolls or sheets in paper stores)

While the paper tape may be necessary for the board to work properly, the colored foil is more of an attempt to refer to the ATC style. The illustrations show how to use it.

Modifications and other uses

Will such a board be in a foil-magnetic version? I hope to serve in the house to better organize tasks. Larger versions can also be used for sports or modeling competitions, for example. One option is to use more white duct tape or self-adhesive paper to indelibly record critical data.

Information for eyewear collectors in the AR classification

A prerequisite for obtaining additional author's points for the implementation of this project is to post a video (or links to it) on the Young Technician's Internet forum showing the work of any home progress board, at least a brief report on the construction of the site is also welcome. I don't need to mention that the job has to be done carefully, right?