Update.....
Thank you for the Private Message and e-mail replies received so far. It is good to see that making the Aeronautical Information Service Self Brief web tool as user friendly and intuitive as possible is as high on the agenda as it has always been. In recent months, the forums have been used to feedback information and views from the GA community to the NATS/AIS team, some good, but some, perhaps rightly, more negative in nature. It was clear at the end of the recent visit to AIS at Heathrow that the NATS/AIS team have gone through a sea change and realise the real value in working with the GA community to improve the web tool to meet our specific requirements where these can be accommodated along side the other areas of the aviation industry. This, however, will not happen overnight and a prolonged effort is required to facilitate this change. I am hoping to use this along with other internet based forums in a positive manner to keep commander awareness at a high level and provide ongoing reports of progress in this important area of pre-flight planning.
It is clearly understood that all commanders have an obligation to check NOTAM prior to embarking on a flight. The objectives of the ongoing work are:
a) Work towards a web tool that is as user friendly and as intuitive as possible.
b) Make sure confidence that all applicable NOTAM have been read and acted upon prior to take-off is as high as possible.
There are still many challenges, not least of which is that some view the private flying sector of aviation as small when considering the financial contribution we make. We are swimming in the same pond as large commercial airline businesses. Whilst we cannot realistically inject cash to 'buy' a larger voice, we can use other methods of communication, lobbying and negotiation, to make sure that our voice is heard, acted upon and that our requirements are reflected in the tool.
The immediate future agenda includes further meetings with NATS/AIS to discuss the possibilities of a graphical user interface (GUI). Whether this is part of the existing system or, more likely, provided by third party software developers is all subject to discussion. The current and past popularity of products like ‘NotamPro’ and ‘notam plot’ leads to the belief that further changes should be made to enable these products to function fully and correctly. This requires the release by NATS of certain raw code for every NOTAM, the so-called ‘Q Line’. This ‘Q Line’ provides the key to these and other similar NOTAM GUI products. There are issues surrounding the ‘Q Line’ release that need further discussion between the parties involved. It is hoped that these discussions will commence soon. Whether it is realistic to expect the ‘Q Line’ to be released to third parties outside AIS/NATS whilst enabling AIS/NATS to maintain control over the coding and it’s correct use by some form of licensing, accreditation or certification scheme remains to be seen.
Watch this space…..