Military
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 10.5
Communication Breakdown; Confusion; Distraction; Human-Machine Interface; Troubleshooting; Situational Awareness
ATC Issue All Types; Airspace Violation All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Procedure; Human Factors; ATC Equipment / Nav Facility / Buildings
Sorry; you have seen many of these; but once again. The inaccuracies in the status board and active military airspace is an ongoing issue in Area 3 at ZDC. I've been trying not to file a report every time it happens; which is almost every shift. However; this one was a safety concern.When I took over the sector I was told verbally in the briefing that R5311; The Rock; was hot up to 130. At some point while I was working; R5311 went active up to 160. This was a safety hazard obviously; but more so tonight because RDU was sending more departures than usual our way because of weather out west. Since the Rock was only hot up to 130; I was short cutting the departing aircraft towards CAE. I may or may not have violated R5311 with these aircraft since I thought it was up to 130. I do not know when R5311 changed it's altitude up to 160. Our status board still said 130 at [time] when I asked the Controller in Charge (CIC) to check on it.Another safety issue is the placement of the altitude of R5311. It used to be inside of the restricted area where it was easily seen. It has been moved outside of R5311 for some reason. I told the supervisor; a week or two ago that this was a problem and asked if he could address it with ERAM since we didn't have any SME's any longer. He told me that he didn't think this kind of problem should be resolved through the supervisors. We argued briefly about whether or not it was a safety issue and I said I will just file a report to get it fixed. I forgot about it and never filed. I did tell my Area Rep about it. Because the altitude is outside of the restricted area; someone before me hand typed 130 inside of R5311. Since I was never told it changed to 160; 130 was always showing on the scope. If the altitude label was inside of R5311 there wouldn't have been a need to type 130 and maybe I would have seen it change to 160 and this situation could have been avoided.Yes; you can share this with anyone you want. Identify away. I believe the problem is mainly a supervisor issue. They are lackadaisical in their job too often. They treat airspace notifications as a nuisance and do not give them the attention they deserve. If they worked traffic and violated airspace; or almost violated airspace; because of this problem maybe they would start putting some energy into doing their job well. I'm a CIC and I can tell you that the job is not very difficult. However; it is difficult to pay attention when the supervisor across the aisle is trying to [mess] with you. So I understand why things get missed. However; that's not an acceptable excuse; or maybe it is.
Washington Center [ZDC] Controller reported of a problem associated with notification of airspace hot times and altitudes.