Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Distraction; Human-Machine Interface; Workload
ATC Issue All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Aircraft; Chart Or Publication; Human Factors; Procedure
An E135 checked on [cleared via] the RYYMN RNAV Star from the northwest. He took the time to complain that the RNAV arrivals were impacting their safety margin as they were continuously heads down in the cockpit working on the complex routing. Spending all your time heads down working on automation instead of flying the airplane has been cited by the FAA multiple times as a factor in incidents. I've had this complaint from multiple carriers about these new procedures and failed to log them. I will try and log more as they come in. I encouraged this pilot to file a complaint with his own safety program as well.These RNAV procedures seem to be a solution to a problem that didn't exist. We are mixing aircraft both on the RNAV and other aircraft off or not capable of the arrival and the different speeds and altitudes can conflict unless you watch it closely.I think it would be better to take just a single post of our 4 post arrivals and reserve it exclusively for RNAV and let the other three posts continue as before. That way we wouldn't run into as many conflicting scenarios.
An Approach Controller reported one of several instances of complaints from flight crews about the complexity of the newer; 'optimized' RNAV STAR procedures into BNA. In this particular instance; the STAR in question was the RYYMN.