AIS Consultation Meeting 14 July.

[Mike Cross]

On behalf of AOPA UK I shall be attending the UK AIS consultation meeting on 14 July 2010. This is an opportunity for AIS to brief on forthcoming changes and to receive feedback from users.

AIS is part of NATS and provides the service on behalf of the UK government.

The meeting will cover the data handling and delivery functions carried out by AIS, including NOTAM, AIP and Charting as well as the delivery methods and the European AIS Database.

The CAA's regulator will be present, as will representatives from AUS, who originate a lot of the Nav Warnings and Restrictions of Flying. EAD, who provide the underlying database and the delivery service via the NATS website at NATS | AIS (http://www.ais.org.uk) will also be present and the Military AIS will be represented by No 1 AIDU.

There is a lot going on in AIS on an international basis as Europe moves towards SWIM (System Wide Information Management) and AIXM (the AIS Information Exchange Model) as well as the Digital NOTAM project led by Eurocontrol and the FAA.

If anyone has any input for the meeting they'd like to feed through to me my e-mail is mrcross(at)popmail.bta.com

[WorkingHard]

Good luck Mike and a big thanks for all your efforts to date. I have to ask though, does AIS?NATS/CAA/MOD really listen to GA ever unless it suits some other agenda they may have coming of which we know nought?

[dpo2309j]

Thanks Mike. :ok:

Looking at NATS's website (http://natscareers.co.uk/Working.asp), I found this disgusting:

> ... we will be shaping the future of our industry by setting new standards in safety, service and value to our customers – the airlines

Has it not occurred to the UK government and to its National Air(line?) Traffic Service that there are other planes in the sky?

[WorkingHard]

Mike in view of what dpo2309j spotted on the NATS website will this be on your agenda to discuss? You quite rightly tell us who will be present so perhaps an ideal opportunity to get this into the open and discuss. I am a member of AOPA so should I put this through them or will this do as you are my representative attending. I presume you will be a representative and not a delegate, it was not clear from "On behalf of AOPA UK I shall be attending the UK AIS consultation meeting on 14 July 2010"

Many thanks

[Mike Cross]

I will be there to represent the interests of GA, not as a delegate.

I have a very good working relationship with AIS, which is not the faceless bureaucracy that some imagine. They do listen and a lot of changes have been made based on my previous input.

WRT the complaint by dpo2309j. The quote comes from a page extolling the virtues of working for NATS. In that respect I'd not take too much issue with it. The majority of the work that NATS controllers do is funded by en-route and terminal charges, the vast bulk of which are paid by the airlines.

Like it or not ATC is primarily provided for facilitating CAT. CAT tends to get regarded as "serious" and "commercial" aviation by virtue of the revenues it brings in rather than by any consideration of it's purpose, which by and large appears to be the provision of tax-incentivised leisure travel. A year or two ago my daughter and her cousin were going to rent a caravan in Newquay until they found that the railway companies wanted to charge 85 quid each for return tickets from Portsmouth while Stelios was prepared to take them from LGW to Venice Marco Polo for 69 quid each return, QED.

It's also worth mentioning that NATS certainly do not have a monopoly when it comes to Aerodrome Traffic Control. This (http://www.caa.co.uk/default.aspx?catid=43&pagetype=70&gid=819&faqid=482) from the CAA gives a flavour and this (http://www.serco.com/markets/transport/aviation/index.asp) from SERCO gives their take.

[oversteer]

I guess Digital NOTAM covers this, but some way of safely - and authoritatively - presenting NOTAMs and airspace information on a chart displayed online, within a chosen track or area, would be a great help for GA flight planning.

Yes there is third party software - spine, notamplot etc - they do a good job but there is never the guarantee that they have all information correctly presented. (Yes everyone should check NOTAMs, no they do not always do it properly)

[Ryan5252]

WRT the complaint by dpo2309j. The quote comes from a page extolling the virtues of working for NATS. In that respect I'd not take too much issue with it. The majority of the work that NATS controllers do is funded by en-route and terminal charges, the vast bulk of which are paid by the airlines.

Like it or not ATC is primarily provided for facilitating CAT. CAT tends to get regarded as "serious" and "commercial" aviation by virtue of the revenues it brings in rather than by any consideration of it's purpose, which by and large appears to be the provision of tax-incentivised leisure travel.

Mike,

Apologies for the obvious drift off subject. Whilst I agree with your points and wholly understand the role played by the airlines and CAT in terms of both economics and overall viability of ATC Services/CAS I do feel that GA are often considered (by some) to be an untoward side-effect of air travel which must unfortunately be tolerated. I would draw your attention again, if I may, back to the NATS site and to their Customers & Suppliers page Customers & Suppliers - NATS (http://www.nats.co.uk/customers-suppliers/) wherein they describe the services they offer online i.e. AIS, PIBs, Information for Suppliers and most interesting of all; Customer Information A restricted access website for authorised users only.

Being a curious sole (and not withstanding the fact I consider myself to be a 'customer' of NATS), I decided to look more into 'Customer Information' as the description sounds very ominous, if not elitist. Turns out, little to my surprise, I am not entitled to apply as I must be a member of staff working for an 'airline' (this must be authenticated by way of email from an address relating to the airline).
This is fair enough, men (and women) have enjoyed their secretive and 'by invitation only' clubs and gangs for hundereds of years and the boys at NATS are welcome to do so, but it would appear the information contained on this restricted site for authorised users only relates to Airspace Development, Safety Information, Operations and Performance Information etc etc. Would it not be prudent for the GA community to be aware of developments in the above listed sectors?

Sorry for the ramble and appreciate your effort.
Ryan

[Mike Cross]

The meeting is about AIS, rather than NATS. AIS is a very small part of NATS. Not sure of the current headcount but I suspect it's around the 20-30 mark max. Used to be over 50 under the old pre-Internet regime.

One area that I will be commenting on (again) is AUS, who will be at the meeting. AUS (Airspace Utilisation Section) is part of the CAA's Directorate of Airspace Policy and is responsible for airspace co-ordination, including RA(T), temporary airspace upgrades and Nav Warnings. AUS's work generally does not affect CAT since CAT mainly flies in CAS and events requiring co-ordination are generally not planned to take place within CAS. AUS's "customers" are therefore GA but their liaison with GA is poor and their practices are IMHO not as good as they should be.

Oversteer has it right re plotting. The current ICAO NOTAM format only reliably provides a circle which should enclose the activity. Problem is that if the activity is long and thin it provides a huge circle (e.g. RAF North Sea air to air refuelling exercises) that can cover an entire FIR. The E line, the plain text portion that we read does not have a defined syntax so it's currently impossible to reliably plot any information contained within it. Plotting is one of those things that appears on the surface to be a doddle but has a lot of practical issues. The main one being that small area stuff is easy to plot but bigger stuff may cover your map several layers deep with neither centre nor circumference visible. The end result is you end up with a plot for the small stuff and a list that you still have to read through for the bigger stuff so there's probably not a lot of difference in the ease or speed of interpretation.

The AIS NRB has the great advantage of filtering out a lot of dross by geographic and time filtering. In comparison to the old style paper bulletins there ought to be a lot less stuff to wade through. However, while the timeliness and accuracy of the data is much better, the quantity has increased radically, to the extent that the 4 digit NOTAM numbering scheme has proved inadequate at times! In the old bulletins you got what the compiler thought you ought to have. The current system is automated and rules-based and we need to get sponsors to weed out the dross at source. I gather the latest edition of ICAO Doc 8126, the Aeronautical Information Services Manual, shifts the balance of power more towards AIS rather than the sponsors. Time will tell whether this results in AIS telling the sponsors what to do rather than the other way round.

Mike

[IO540]

A possible little bug on the notam site.

It used to require at least one FIR to be named, so I put in EGTT.

Nowadays it wants none to be named and objects to the EGTT. But each time I delete the EGTT and do a briefing, when I later retrieve that briefing, the EGTT is back in there... I have to delete it each time.

You could also ask them to retire Squadron Leader Hooton and his transponder codes. That will reduce the garbage which I need to speed read from 30 secs to 29.35 secs, but it's an important start ;) What is a "Squadron Leader"? Is it a pilot qualification of some kind?

But seriously I am quite happy with the present notam site. The only time one actually needs to plot coordinates on a map is for a TRA, Class A or equivalent. There should be a mandatory URL for every instance of such a prohibition, at which you can find a map. I know the format is limited to uppercase but you can do numeric URLs e.g. WWW.DOMAIN.COM/20100629-1 (http://WWW.DOMAIN/20100629-1) which are not case sensitive and are not ambiguous.

[Zulu Alpha]

The only time one actually needs to plot coordinates on a map is for a TRA, Class A or equivalent. There should be a mandatory URL for every instance of such a prohibition, at which you can find a map.


Try this
UK 48-Hour Notams : Warnings and Restrictions (http://metutil.appspot.com/static/maps/48HourWarningRestrictionMap.htm)

[Mike Cross]

IO540

Thanks for that, but I'm puzzled. I just did a NRB for EGHP to EGLS FL020, named it "test" and clicked submit. No problem.

I then retrieved it from the Briefing Handbook, clicked "USE" and as you rightly say EGTT had appeared. Clicked "SUBMIT" and it worked no problem.

I then did a new NRB and this time I inserted egtt in the FIR box. It automatically changed it to upper case and it all worked OK. So from where I sit it's all working OK and doesn't care whether EGTT is in there or not.

Can you check again and let me know exactly how to reproduce the failure? EAD will be at the meeting so we can get a fix if it's required.

The reason for the additional crossed FIR boxes is that the software will search for NOTAM in the FIR's that your departure and destination a/d are in as well as the FIR's of any ICAO significant points in your route. However it's quite possible that your route may take you through an FIR that doesn't fall into those categories, e.g. if you were routing direct from UK to Belgium you may well fly through the Paris FIR but not have any significant points from that FIR in your route. Sticking LFFF in the additional FIR box will ensure you get the NOTAM.

[IO540]

Just tried it and it doesn't like it. Screenshot emailed.

This is an NRB for a roundabout route which I run off when doing a local jolly.

It says

At least one FIR could not be found. Please correct and try again

which is meaningless since EGTT is in there.

[Mike Cross]

Thanks for that

I think the problem is that the route syntax is wrong. It should be
DCT SFD DCT LYD DCT DVR DCT MAY DCT GWC DCT NEDUL DCT

but you put it in as

SFD LYD DVR MAY GWC NEDUL

I tried it with the correct route syntax and it worked for me, let me know if you have any further problem.

The software has to parse the route to determine what the waypoints are and it will be looking for the DCT's as the separator between them. Since you don't have the DCT's in there it's probably looking for a significant point called "SFD LYD DVR MAY GWC NEDUL" and of course it's failing. Ill drop EAD a line and see if they can improve the error message to something more meaningful.

Edit........

Weird! I got it to go wrong with your syntax the first time but now I can't make it do it again. However I still suspect the syntax is the problem.

Edit again....

Got it! if you use the wrong syntax AND put EGTT in as an additional crossed FIR you get the problem. If EGTT is not there you don't.

Mike

[IO540]

I'd check that explanation, Mike, because I have been using this for years, and it seems to deliver notams for that route.

If your explanation were correct, that would suggest the site misinterprets all kinds of waypoint names, without issuing an error message. That would be pretty unsafe.

[Sky blue and black]

If the route is being "used" from your saved briefings then the DCT part is not included in your route. If that makes sense!

[Mike Cross]

OK Got it!

I'll forward it on as a bug that needs fixing.

[IO540]

I've just run another briefing as above and at the top it confirms the route as

"Route: F024 DCT SFD LYD DVR MAY GWC NEDUL DCT"

It doesn't look like it is having problems finding these waypoints.

And nothing of relevance turns up, today.

[Mike Cross]

Hi Peter

Nothing wrong with the route, it's a software bug. Put it in as you have or put it in without the DCT's in there and it will work fine PROVIDING the "Additional Crossed FIR's" boxes are empty.

Trouble is if you pull it out of your saved briefings (Briefing Handbook) you'll find the DCT's are NOT there AND EGTT is showing in the FIR's box, that's when it fails.

I'm waiting to hear back from EAD and in any case will be seeing them on the 14th. I'll let you know when the fix is produced.

Mike

[Fuji Abound]

IO540

I am just a little surprised you bother with the AIS for local jaunts (or for that matter) anything in the UK. I gave up doing so long ago, and even with the possible shortcomings use, one of the graphical renditions.

It just goes to prove that even the AIS are not bug free - makes one wonder if you used your route and ran through a NOTAM RA which was not revealed by the enquiry what their response would be?

[IO540]

I use the AIS site for all flights; on a NRB it takes me only seconds to skip over the dross. I have never used any of the graphical tools.

If we were getting loads of airshow TRAs, etc, full of coordinates to be plotted, that would be different.

[Fuji Abound]

Try one of the graphical tools - NotamPlot (which is free) is just brilliant.

It literally takes seconds and is the best way of digesting any relevant activity for whatever area you like. Just superb for taking a quick print for an aimless wander around the coutry side if you also like the comfort of having a hard copy with you. :)

[Mike Cross]

It just goes to prove that even the AIS are not bug free - makes one wonder if you used your route and ran through a NOTAM RA which was not revealed by the enquiry what their response would be?

At the request of CAA Enforcement Branch they would pull the brief that you had taken and produce it as evidence to show the RA was not in your brief and you'd be in the clear. Briefs are kept for 30 days so they can be provided in case an incident ensues.

At the top of your AIS brief it says something like
Bulletin generated: 2010/07/05 16:37 UTC
Report reference no: 3468006

Quote them your user id and the approx date and time you got the brief and they'll find it.

Remind me how you do that with NotamPlot?