Notam meaning

[Maoraigh1]

Q) EGPX/QWELW/IV/BO/W/000/180/5727N00333W014
B) FROM: 10/03/07 07:30C) TO: 10/03/11 16:00
E) CLOSE AIR SUPPORT EXER. FAST JET ACFT AND HEL WILL CONDUCT HIGHENERGY MANOEUVRES WI 13NM RADIUS OF AREA BOUNDED BY5725N 00358W-5730N 00310W-5714N 00334W-5725N 00358W (DAVA, MORAY).CTC 0167 745161. AUS 10-03-0017/AS3.LOWER: SFC
UPPER: 18000FT AMSL
SCHEDULE: 0730-1600

What shape is "13NM radius" from a triangle?

[gpn01]

It's a bigger triangle with blobby corners.

[Whopity]

Surely its triangular with the corners rounded off!

[gpn01]

Thinking about it a bit more, it's simply a bigger triangle with corners every bit as sharp as the inner one.

[Crash one]

Isn't it a circle 13nm radius centred on the geometric centre of the triangle

[Whopity]

You would think so, but 13NM RADIUS OF AREA... really illustrates how we have lost the art of communicating effectively!
Filing a NOTAM is a tick in the box. There is no box for making sure it makes sense!

[IO540]

It's also irrelevant because you can come across planes doing "high energy maneuovers" anywhere :)

The only reason this stuff gets notamed is because the internet makes it easy to do so, and everybody in power has bought into the "duty of care" bollox.

Come to think of it, what would be a low energy manoeuver? I don't think a Cessna 150 doing 100kt is "low energy"; well not if if hits you. Why is every C150 flight not notamed?? A 1400kg TB20 at 150kt has enough energy to raise the temperature of 1kg of water by 147628 degrees C (long time since I did physics and could be out a bit somewhere... maybe it is 147.6?). Anyway that sounds quite high energy to me.

This kind of bollox (along with other earth shatteringly important preflight information like Squadron Commander Booton allocating unverified transponder codes) is what has thrown the notam system into disrepute and is one reason why many (possibly most) pilots don't bother to get notams before flying.

[DX Wombat]

one reason why many (possibly most) pilots don't bother to get notams before flying.And, as at least one idiot learned last year, by not looking at the NOTAMs you can get into serious bother when you then fly through the BAeA competition which WAS notamed, not to mention the fact that it puts the lives of the aerobatics pilots in danger. :*

[24Carrot]

The aerobatics are usually in one place, so it isn't too hard to work out where to avoid.

I do think they could improve the way they report the Red Arrow routes though, you pretty much have to mark out each lat/lon and draw the lines on the chart. Presumably they have already done that on their chart, so why not put it online? I appreciate that the NOTAM's are very telex friendly in a way that charts are not, but many people have moved on from telexes these days.

IO540, I think it might be more like 1000 degrees Celsius, but I take your point.

[IO540]

In this day and age, there is absolutely zero excuse for any actually relevant (i.e. a TRA) notam to not come with a web URL on which the pilot can find a little map.

[DX Wombat]

The aerobatics are usually in one place, so it isn't too hard to work out where to avoid.Exactly Carrot! Which is why it is so frustrating, not to say dangerous when someone does what was done at some of the competitions last year [and other years]. I think the worst one I saw last year was the idiot who did his own aerobatic display along the length of the runway at Elvington - not once, several times and without listening out on any frequency whatsoever. :mad: He got his comeuppance when Church Fenton radar, which just happened to be operating that Saturday tracked him back home and the airfield management and/or CFI was informed of his exploits. The outcome could have been so different as at least one of the competitors was forced to take avoiding action. :mad:

[24Carrot]

Even if he somehow missed the NOTAM, (low-level?) aerobatics over a runway at a busy-looking aerodrome without any contact or prior arrangement is just plain stupid. Illegal too, I expect.

I think we are all agreed there are NOTAMs worth looking at, but some are not, and the presentation is bad.

I have this annoying suspicion that they will never put marked-up charts online in case a few pilots print them off instead of buying the months-old paper ones. Bean-counting trumps safety every time.

[IO540]

It's not illegal if the runway is in Class G and there is no ATZ.

[24Carrot]

Granted, but along the length of the runway made me think he was under 500 feet agl at a busy aerodrome and not landing. Perhaps I read too much into that. Over 500 feet it could be legal.

[Jodelman]

In this day and age, there is absolutely zero excuse for any actually relevant (i.e. a TRA) notam to not come with a web URL on which the pilot can find a little map.

Can't be done. Notams are restricted to characters used by teleprinters (Baudot Code). No lower case letters and other essential characters used by web URL's.

[IO540]

URL (and email addresses) are not case sensitive.

All you need for a URL is WWW.DOMAIN.COM/1234 etc.

[englishal]

They are often doing high energy manoeuvres over Yeovilton and Boscombe (for example, cos I've seen them) well outside or above their MATZs. Are these Notamed (No)....Although they (whoever they are) constantly notam exercises going on in the Bristol channel which I have yet to come across...

[BackPacker]

Notams are restricted to characters used by teleprinters (Baudot Code). No lower case letters and other essential characters used by web URL's.

Lower case or upper case doesn't matter all that much for the web. The DNS portion (server name) of the URLs is case insensitive in any case, and the filename portion can be made case insensitive, depending on the server setting (for instance using Apaches mod_speling or mod_rewrite modules). And furthermore most URLs will just contain slashes, colons, dots and perhaps the occasional dash and question mark as special characters. All of which are available in the Baudot code.

I'm not saying any arbitrary URL can be expressed within the character set of the Baudot code, but that doesn't mean it's impossible to create a valid URL within the limits of the Baudot code.

In the Netherlands, there are several NOTAMs that actually refer to a web page which has more details and a map. The NOTAM about the SRZ Schiphol is one example. Unfortunately such NOTAMs are still the exception rather than the norm.

[fisbangwollop]

Sounds like a standard day outside controlled airspace over the majority of Scotland.....the Airforce's best play ground!! :cool::cool::cool:

[DX Wombat]

It's not illegal if the runway is in Class G and there is no ATZ.Not only was Elvington operating, Air-Ground if I remember correctly, but Church Fenton was also active and Elvington lies directly under the stub, almost on the centreline for the Church Fenton MATZ. The fact remains that the competition was notamed and the box was just to one side of the runway itself. The pilot of the aircraft made absolutely NO attempt to contact Elvington - I know, I had the radio with the Elvington frequency on the table in front of me, it was switched on and working with an appropriate volume set. Elvington, on the other hand, made several attempts to contact him.

[Scott Diamond]

URL (and email addresses) are not case sensitive.

All you need for a URL is WWW.DOMAIN.COM/1234 (http://WWW.DOMAIN.COM/1234) etc.

One would have to offer a correction, of course, as the document root part is case sensitive :ok: (after the forwardslash)

[IO540]

Indeed but the notam originator is free to choose whatever he wants. One could literally have a simple numeric string there like 12345.

If I was the CAA I would force every UK notam originator to submit a map (if applicable) to a specific website e.g. www.uknotams.com/xxxxx and I would allocate an incrementing numeric code for the xxxxx.

Most notams would not need a map but some (e.g. the airshow TRAs) are important yet few pilots bother to plot out the coordinates, or do the other Dark Ages act of looking up an AIC Pink / Mauve / Red / Orange / page 7.5 para 7.99 etc etc (which itself needs going to a less than friendly website). A foreign pilot is least likely to be wading through the AIS website, and it was a foreign pilot who got busted for the Eastbourne TRA a while ago.

[eharding]

Indeed but the notam originator is free to choose whatever he wants. One could literally have a simple numeric string there like 12345.

If I was the CAA I would force every UK notam originator to submit a map (if applicable) to a specific website e.g. www.uknotams.com/xxxxx and I would allocate an incrementing numeric code for the xxxxx.

Most notams would not need a map but some (e.g. the airshow TRAs) are important yet few pilots bother to plot out the coordinates, or do the other Dark Ages act of looking up an AIC Pink / Mauve / Red / Orange / page 7.5 para 7.99 etc etc (which itself needs going to a less than friendly website). A foreign pilot is least likely to be wading through the AIS website, and it was a foreign pilot who got busted for the Eastbourne TRA a while ago.

UK NOTAMs typically already contain a bit of semi-cryptic coding appended to denote the origin of the data - as you say, it would be perfectly feasible to append some other small chunk of data - perhaps a tinyurl identifier or similar, which expands a URL providing an extended depiction of the data.

The fact remains, however, that until the advent of the grand-unified AIXM airspace information model, no individual AIS is going to invest effort into incremental enhancements of this type. You can see the logic, but having seen what can happen when behemoth software projects attempt to unite the world via XML, I think there may yet be mileage in the incremental approach.

In the meantime, there are a number of third-party NOTAM plotting tools available - a quick Pprune search will lead you to many of them, including the ones I've been working on - a beta version of the desktop 48-hour summary map here (http://metutil.appspot.com/labels/beta/20100120_001/maps/48HourWarningRestrictionMap.htm) and the Android and iPhone webapp here (http://i-notam.appspot.com/uk48wr). I've also been looking at a Chrome/Firefox extension that will parse an existing AIS NOTAM briefing result directly in the browser, and generate a map depiction directly from the results of a standard AIS query rather than depending on some intermediary process.

Still, the effort on those projects diminishes to zero on days like to today, when a monster Yak-52 / Extra-300 tailchase (yes, I know, the Extra driver kept telling me how far he'd pulled the power back, but top-notch hooliganism anyway) appeals far more than such geekery.

[Maoraigh1]

I heard a suggestion today that it meant 3 separate13 NM radius circles round each of the three points.

[mikehallam]

This link seems excellent for map of current U.K. Notams.

OpenStreetMap aeronautical map (http://www.hollo.org/flying/maps/)

mikehallam

[Maoraigh1]

"This page may give you some useful NOTAM information, but don't rely on it"
I clicked on your link. It shows a large circle, which bears little relation to the NOTAM data. I passed through part of that circle, on Sunday, while talking to Kinloss and Inverness radar, while remaining well outside the triangle of the original NOTAM.
What bugs me is the peculiar wording of this NOTAM. I prefer to go by the official NOTAMs.

[gpn01]

The way the website has interpreted the data is probably a good example of the limitations of third party software used to interpret the official data. Now, if only the official data could be provided as a map.......

[BackPacker]

I clicked on your link. It shows a large circle, which bears little relation to the NOTAM data.

Actually, what that site probably interpreted is not the blobby triangle mentioned in the free-format NOTAM text, but rather the position and radius given in the Q-line:

Q) EGPX/QWELW/IV/BO/W/000/180/5727N00333W014

Which is the standardized way of describing a circle with a 14 NM radius centered on 5727N 00333W, from FL000 to FL180.

I haven't plotted it but my guess would be that this circle fully contains the blobby triangle.

The reason they have to do it like this is most likely that the Q-line doesn't support blobbly triangles. So they need to use an enclosing circle instead.

[MichaelJP59]

I'm using SkyDemon for route planning - plots all the NOTAMS relevant to the date and if they're near your route you just hover the mouse pointer to see what they are. Much easier than trawling through the text output.

[Maoraigh1]

Thanks Backpacker. I hadn't realised that what followed the Lat-Long was a circle radius. There is a considerable difference between the two interpretations od this NOTAM. The circle would be much more difficult to avoid than the triangle.

[fisbangwollop]

I guess the boys on Ark Royal read pprune....this is the notam off todays brief and I see they have dropped the 13nm radius bit??? :}:}


Q) EGPX/QWELW/IV/BO/W/000/180/5727N00333W014
B) FROM: 10/03/08 13:30C) TO: 10/03/11 16:00
E) CLOSE AIR SUPPORT EXER. FAST JET ACFT AND HEL WILL CONDUCT HIGH
ENERGY MANOEUVRES WI AREA BOUNDED BY
5725N00358W-5730N00310W-5714N00334W-5725N00358W (DAVA, MORAY).
CTC 0167 745161. AUS 10-03-0017/AS3.LOWER: SFC
UPPER: 18000FT AMSL
SCHEDULE: 0730-1600

[vihai]

A 1400kg TB20 at 150kt has enough energy to raise the temperature of 1kg of water by 147628 degrees C (long time since I did physics and could be out a bit somewhere... maybe it is 147.6?).


E=1/2*m*v^2

m=1400 kg
v=77 m/s

E=4.15 MJ = 992 kCal

So you would raise the temperature of water by ~992 K, seems much to me :)

[BackPacker]

I guess the boys on Ark Royal read PPRuNe....this is the notam off todays brief and I see they have dropped the 13nm radius bit???

Maybe they learned how to do steep turns, and don't need the blobby corners anymore.:}

[1800ed]

One would have to offer a correction, of course, as the document root part is case sensitive (after the forwardslash)Without going off topic or massively geeky, it can be made case insensitive :O

[Mike Cross]

As XNOTAM is scheduled for implementation next year you won't get money thrown at short-life projects.

While it's a simple matter for you or I to devise static URL's that only contain baudot code characters it's a different ball game modifying large database-driven sites where major changes to core code will be required. That said, Colin Potter of NATS AIS has experimented with putting URL in NOTAM but pretty quickly came up against the problem of major changes being required to other systems to make it work.

The UK, in common with a lot of other European States does not control its own databases but use the European AIS Database (EAD).

The driver for AIXM and XNOTAM is not what you or I do, it's the need for a standardised form of machine readable information interchange that will enable the database in your navigation system, the FMS, the charts and the paper you carry in the cockpit or on the flight deck to be up to date without the huge expense and scope for error introduced by manual data conversion. In-flight access to updated information via data uplink for example has already been demonstarted in trials.

Mike
AOPA UK representative on NOTAM issues.

[NorthSouth]

They are often doing high energy manoeuvres over Yeovilton and Boscombe (for example, cos I've seen them) well outside or above their MATZs. Are these Notamed (No)Reality check! Yeovilton has an AIAA up to 6000ft. Boscombe has an Advisory Radio Area above FL50 (i.e. only a few hundred feet above the Boscombe MATZ in low pressure conditions) and is in the middle of the Salisbury Plain Area which is well-advertised in the AIP. No-one should need a NOTAM to tell them they're likely to encounter aircraft there which may not be able to comply with the RoA.
As regards the original post, it's quite untrue to say these type of NOTAMs have only appeared in recent years because of a health & safety-obsessed a**e-covering attitude. I've been checking NOTAMs for more than 30 years and I can tell you that the sort of activity notified on Dava Moor - close air support with fast jets whizzing around, focusing on ground targets and with limited capacity for lookout - has always been NOTAMed. And the reason is simple. If the activity is likely to mean inability to comply with the RoA or other aspects such as parachute dropping, they'll NOTAM it.
It will always be possible to pick holes in this or that decision to NOTAM or not NOTAM an activity. But the general tone of this thread - "why not NOTAM everything or nothing" - really doesn't help anyone. Just be thankful that the military are pretty good about notifying particular sorts of activity, but be aware that, by long tradition, the RAF has a great deal of freedom to do a lot of things in Class G airspace which a casual observer might think ought to be notified.
And be thankful also that, in the unlikely event that anyone on this thread will be flying over Dava Moor, it's well within the coverage of RAF Lossiemouth which will happily give you a LARS.
NS

[Maoraigh1]

"As regards the original post, it's quite untrue to say these type of NOTAMs have only appeared in recent years because of a health & safety-obsessed a**e-covering attitude."
That was not in my original post. I only queried the meaning of the NOTAM words.