Map Generator Required

[Captain Nomad]

Odd title for a thread I know, but I believe the lack of visual information in SIGMET and NOTAM information is a major flaw in this day and age. Air Services staff apparently manually draw out little maps of SIGMET areas to help fellow ATC staff. Pilots? Do it yourself mate, here are all the coordinates... There are only 9 SIGMETs out currently across the Melbourne and Brisbane FIR at the moment as I write this...

I could go on. Survey aircraft often supply map type information to ATC which certainly must help when they interact over the airwaves about what umpteenth run they are up to now... Pilots are left to make up their own mental picture of the operating area - if they can be bothered.

Not only that but in 'this day and age,' experts everywhere are telling us of the impending drone explosion. So I guess we can expect to see an awful lot more NOTAMs like this one:

MELBOURNE FIR (YMMM)
C7604/13
UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE (UAV) OPERATIONS WITHIN THE AREAS PRESCRIBED
BELOW:
AREA A:
LATERAL LIMITS: S21 20.9 E115 01.5, S21 35.8 E115 02.9, S21 45.6 E114
17.1, S21 30.0 E114 14.8, S21 20.9 E115 01.5.
VERTICAL LIMITS: SFC - 1000'

AREA B:
LATERAL LIMITS: S21 35.8 E115 02.9, S21 41.4 E115 02.9, S21 43.4 E114
53.5, S21 38.5 E114 50.5, S21 35.8 E115 02.9.
VERTICAL LIMITS: SFC - 500'

AREA C:
LATERAL LIMITS: S21 26.4 E115 02.0, S21 28.7 E115 02.3, S21 28.7 E114
57.2, S21 26.3 E114 57.1, S21 26.4 E115 02.0.
VERTICAL LIMITS: SFC - 5000'

CALLSIGN UNMANNED AEROSONDE
PIC WILL MAINTAIN A LISTENING WATCH ON 122.4, 125.9 (ML CEN) & 120.1
(CTAF) DURING FLIGHT OPS. MELBOURNE CENTRE WILL HAVE IFR FLIGHT PLAN
DETAILS.
CONTACT PAUL HERRMANN ON 0438 581 003 FOR FURTHER DETAILS.
FROM 12 042200 TO 12 201000
HJ

How long is it going to take before someone has a close encounter/mid air collision simply because they could not/would not/did not take the time to plot out these sorts of gobbly gook NOTAMs? How hard can it be to supply this information in a small map which can give pilots an instant picture of whether it is going to affect them or not? Even a link provided for each NOTAM/SIGMET (which has coordinates defining its area) to a map website which can show the area boundary would be a great improvement.

I think it is time...

[Capt Claret]

Couldn't agree more Captain Nomad. An excellent idea. :ok:

[Aussie Bob]

Couldn't agree more Captain Nomad. An excellent idea. http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/thumbs.gif

That makes two of us!

[Mail-man]

On jeppfd under the wx button you can see map representations of ice/turbs areas. I'm not sure of the information source, so i doubt they are "approved" but certainly are handy. They appear far more detailed than sigmet dimensions too. I do agree that map representations issued by the BoM would be exceedingly useful.

[VH-XXX]

Idea of the year mate, good call, it's always been an issue.

Perhaps our friends at OZRunways could assist and put the functionality into their product; perhaps automatically might be a stretch but maybe if I put in say 4 user waypoints I could use OZRunways to draw a line automatically between them to build a box, eg a fire zone, storm front, temporary restricted area.

[CaptainMidnight]

Those NOTAMs (survey & UAV) are normally submitted by the operator, and one reason why a contact is usually listed.

Chew their ear - tell 'em next time submit a map when they want a NOTAM. The map can be loaded to AVFAX.

It might sound simple, but adding a map generation facility to any system particularly operational ones like Eurocat, NAIPS etc. isn't cheap, and difficult to justify when the solution is simple: the originators of such NOTAM can - and should be obliged to - submit a map with their request.

[swh]

I have an ipad app called "Aiports" which plots Notam co-ordinates.

[Been Accounting]

There is something called SkyVector: Flight Planning / Aeronautical Charts (http://skyvector.com) that contains sigmets.

Look in the top-right corner under layers ... there is a blue icon at the top of the list

Not sure if it works for Tatooine though!

[josephfeatherweight]

I have long believed these SIGMETs and NOTAMs were a perfect starting point for the "holes in the swiss cheese" to begin lining up. Good to see so many others think the same thing!

[717tech]

OzRunways plots SIGMETS on the PCA which is handy, but can be confusing if they're overlaying each other.

[compressor stall]

You could try Great Circle Mapper but you'd have to be online and delete the spaces between the lats and longs.

Great Circle Mapper (http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=S2135.8+E11502.9%2C+S2141.4+E11502.9%2C+S2143.4+E114 53.5%2C+S2138.5+E11450.5%2C+S2135.8+E11502.9&DU=nm&SU=kts&RS=best)

[Ex FSO GRIFFO]

I guess you could contact the said Mr Paul Hermann on the number supplied and ask him for a copy of HIS map to be sent via PDF....

On the other hand, HE could have taken the initiative and supplied same, as a service, up front..!!

Perhaps IF we 'all' sent a similar request..??

In the 'Ole F.S.' days, we used to draw the areas on the approp. map, and advise pilots that the 'SIGMET' area, or whatever it was, would affect his flight, on his/her track, between 'Points' / positions xxx or whatever....at /up to levels yyy ....

Keep it simple....

:sad:

[Old Akro]

How long is it going to take before someone has a close encounter/mid air collision simply because they could not/would not/did not take the time to plot out these sorts of gobbly gook NOTAMs?

The Aerosonde drones are not much bigger than a model aircraft. About 2m wingspan from memory with a fuselage not much bigger than the diameter of a beer can. I don't think you'd ever see it in the air, however its handlers on the ground are pretty much guaranteed to see you. Its a smart group of guys.

[Shagpile]

I once did a safety investigation for an aircraft who flew through a naval firing zone restricted area (whilst firing taking place) overseas.

There was about 10 pages of 6pt notams for the copilots to read every day. Very easy to miss one area as the notams were for many FIR's and contained a jillion lat/Lon's and restricted areas. No ops support to pick the relevant ones.

Until they move away from CAPS (also terrible for the human eye to read and skim) and embrace technology post 1992, then this will happen forever.

As for auto maps, this is a very very difficult problem. Notams aren't in specific formats that a computer can easily go through. Often things will say "A circle of radius 200nm extending to .....". For a computer to understand that is near impossible. The only reliable way of plotting these is human, which is prone to human error.

There is no good answer. Your options are:
1) Bad computer interpretation
2) Better, but time consuming human interpretation, or
3) Some kind of miracle that the worldwide notam messaging system awakes from the dark ages.

[VH-XXX]

Hey Shaggers, would it be possible to "link" coordinates in OZRunways? If so one could at least manually enter in a series of points (copy and paste perhaps?) and link them to draw a danger area? Easy input would be the key.

[Captain Nomad]

Good to see others would like to see some change in this area also. What about this for an idea? I understand 'auto generated' mapping could be cost prohibitive and complicated. There is currently a 'charts' function which shows SIGWX and other chart style information. What about a ML/BN SIGMET chart/s? Every time a SIGMET is updated the chart can be updated and accessed electronically.

Likewise a NOTAM chart/s where MIL LJRs, drones, survey operators etc can provide a chart for publication (or a basic one can be drawn) and then published. The text NOTAM can be generated as is the case now but there can be reference made to the relevant NOTAM chart. A slightly different version of this is exemplified by the recent AIP SUP H134/13 military TRA. There is a text NOTAM out but it also refers you to the AIP SUP which contains a lovely colour VTC excerpt showing the area concerned.

I for one would be more than happy to take a quick scan of a SIGMET and NOTAM chart information pages in addition to text WX/NOTAMs.

[Ixixly]

Surely this can't be too difficult, once upon a time I could have probably coded it myself, but basically retrieve the relevant NOTAMS, have it recognise any Lat and Longs and then pin pointing it on a map and any others within a certain number of Characters. This shouldn't be terribly difficult for anyone with an up-to-date knowledge of coding and the desire to put it together. It would be kind of like Command Flight Planner, for instance, when you select Area 40 it recognises there are are different areas designated for wind (Today for instance it was NE and SW of a trough) and you can select which one to use for your flight planning winds.

[Check_Thrust]

I have not actually used this online software before so I cannot vouch for its accuracy or quality but according to its description it does map out SIGMETs for Australia.

Product Tour: Weather ? World Flight Planner (http://www.worldflightplanner.com/tour/weather)

It is $10(CAD)/month. I have thought about it but I don't know if I really want to spend $120/year just for the benefit of the SIGMET charts because that would be the only feature I'd be using.

I too feel that SIGMET charts should be produced by either BoM or AsA and made available to us through NAIPS. Would reduce the amount of headaches during flight planning.

[Bevan666]

AvPlan also plots SIGMET's as well, and has done so for a while.

The problems with notam's and determining applicability to flight (basically adding some form of standard referencing to them) is why there is an emerging standard around digital NOTAM which Eurocontrol have been working on for a while.

Unfortunately its taken a while, and will continue to take a while before we get any operational benefit from it.

Bevan..

[Shagpile]

Surely this can't be too difficult, once upon a time I could have probably coded it myself, but basically retrieve the relevant NOTAMS, have it recognise any Lat and Longs and then pin pointing it on a map and any others within a certain number of Characters. This shouldn't be terribly difficult for anyone with an up-to-date knowledge of coding and the desire to put it together.

That is the easy part. The tricky thing is to read all the associated human-readable text to work out what they mean. It's not often the list of lat/lon pairs are just drawing a simple polygon. You need to understand the context of the information.

If the format rarely changes, like sigmets, then you can make assumptions on what they mean. This is how OzRunways, AvPlan and SkyVector draw sigmets presumably. But notams vary widely. The best you could hope for is a tool that recognises the points on a map and allow you to see the points and make up your own mind what they all mean or how to connect them. Even then, something like "10nm north of 12S 123E" wouldn't show up.

The only real solution is a clean sheet look at notams for the 21st century. Good luck with that.

[27/09]

On this side of the ditch domestic SIGMETS were issued with geographical locations until a couple of weeks ago. It was a great system.

However in the interests of ICAO rather than safety the CAA decreed all SIGMETS must now be in Lat and Long. Now no one knows where the SIGNET applies to without taking time to plot it. How silly is that?

[FGD135]

... there is an emerging standard around digital NOTAM which Eurocontrol have been working on for a while.
*Everything* must be as computer-readable as possible. Not surprised that the Europeans are doing this. I am sure that we will soon see ICAO standards for *everything* to become mostly computer-readable.


The tricky thing is to read all the associated human-readable text to work out what they mean. It's not often the list of lat/lon pairs are just drawing a simple polygon. You need to understand the context of the information.
I agree. It is not possible for computers to read the information when it is written for humans. This is where the new ICAO standards will come in.


First, each NOTAM has to become available in two forms: the present human-readable, freeform text one, and the computer readable one, which is sufficiently "coded" to allow the computer to convey at least 90% of the message to the humans.


To Captain Nomad's original post:


For SIGMETs, what you are suggesting is straightforward, and I'm sure the developed world will have such presentations within the next few years. The computer-readable SIGMET of the future will have tightly defined coordinates specifying the area, along with level information and codes to denote the nature of the weather phenomena.


Then, we will be able to easily see the SIGMETs on our screens - during both preflight planning and inflight on our MFD screens.


If this can be done for SIGMETs, then it can also be done for airspace areas involving other activity (e.g military operations, survey operations, balloon ascents, etc).

[Check_Thrust]

I have noticed that there is now SIGMET charts available from NAIPS and the BoM website. Admittedly the resolution of the image from NAIPS isn't great and because it covers such a large area it will only give you a general idea if it will affect you or not but it is better nothing to give a quick idea of areas covered by a SIGMET.

From the BoM on the new charts:

The Bureau of Meteorology will begin issuing graphical representations of their text SIGMETs on 29 May 2014.
The graphical SIGMET is intended to improve situational awareness. The text SIGMET should continue to be used for official flight planning purposes.

The graphical SIGMET product will be issued every ten minutes plus whenever a text SIGMET is issued.


More info here:
http://www.bom.gov.au/aviation/data/education/graphical-sigmet.pdf

[Captain Nomad]

:D :D :D :D :D :D

As I said at the beginning of this thread, "It's time..." So great to see this become a reality!

The Australia wide map with low/high/all levels options is certainly a terrific start. It may get a bit cluttered at times but the instant big picture it provides to help one determine if a closer look/plotting is warranted should really help with quickly forming an overall mental picture.

I wonder if people in high places read PPRuNe after all? ;)

[UnderneathTheRadar]

Hmmm - great to see I can get it in clear, high def and colour from a website from which I am not allowed to use (BOM) but instead need to look a copy which looks like it was faxed via the moon from the 'official' source (NAIPS).

Still, it is a great improvement so kudos to those who made it happen.

UTR

[underfire]

I feel your pain. obstruction/construction NOTAMs are based on ARP with a direction, leaving it up to the operator to determine impact.

With obstruction types of NOTAMS, for the operators who have tailoered RNP procedures in AUS, I convert the ARP distance and bearing to a different NOTAM for each runway end as affected...most of the time it is simply adjusting the DA/MDA.

[Captain Nomad]

A picture paints a thousand words...

https://www.airservicesaustralia.com/naips/ChartDirectory/GetImage/B0F4V49D

Isn't it great that we can sort through the SIGMETS with the benefit of a quick-view map now?!

Would still be great to see a similar map function for temporary NOTAM items...