NOTAM's Update

[Mike Cross]

This is a copy of my reply to an e-mail I received today. Hopefully the readers of this forum will also find it a useful update.

+++

A few things you may have missed out on.

Downloadable, printable FIR briefings are now available from http://www.nats.co.uk/operational/pibs/index.shtml
These are not yet geographically sorted but NotamPro http://www.notampro.com can use them to provide the geographic plot. The other piece of software, NotamPlot, http://www.notamplot.flyer.co.uk has not yet been modified to work with these bulletins as the author is changing jobs at the moment. There is also an additional site http://www.altais.org.uk which has the briefs available with a geographic sort. Please remember that UK AIS is the authoritative source for information required under Article 43 of the ANO http://www.hmso.gov.uk/si/si2000/20001562.htm#43 for flights originating withing the UK FIR's.

These briefings are suitable for display at an airfield, however they are only intended to provide a backup in the event of non-availability of the main AIS site and as such are only updated twice a day.

Thales IS, the software company responsible for the AIS site software have a team at Heathrow this week. Providing all goes well we should soon see these briefs sorted geographically and also available on demand from the main AIS site.

Once this happens the AIS main site should be used as the prime source as the briefs will be generated on request and so will always contain the latest information. For those without Internet access we should also soon see the briefs available for fax download.

We would like to see all airfields putting the standard FIR brief on their noticeboard. That way pilots will always have a briefing in a familiar format available. This of course does not preclude a specialised briefing to suit locally based pilots from also being displayed.

Discussions on other issues continue. These include making the data available as a database download, improving browser compatibility (particularly for Mac's), simplifying login and improving the usability of the site.

+++

If your airfield does not currently display the standard FIR brief please bring this to their attention - Many Thanks :ok:


Mike Cross
representing AOPA UK on NOTAM issues

[Keef]

Thanks Mike - excellent progress. Congrats, yet again, to the team.

Now all we need is for Ian to make the necessary mods to Notamplot and I'll be a very happy bunny again.

[rustle]

One Click Downloads now available!

Next time you log onto the ais website, have a look at the new one-click area and aerodrome briefs available from the "Notam" menu...

NB: Thales engineers are onsite at AIS until Friday, so make sure you give the system a good workout so that any faults/issues can be fixed quickly, and be aware that there may be outages of these new briefings temporarily if any issues are discovered.

Well done, AIS. Delivered (it would seem) on time :D

ps, can we "sticky" this for a couple/3 days please...

<certainly. Keygrip>

[Aussie Andy]

Nice one rustle - just tried it and it seems to work just fine,


Andy

[Circuit Basher]

I just tried it for a short route from Edinburgh to Perth using a narrow briefing (10nm). I still got the warning that I can't fly to / from Iraq, which was a bit of a bu££er ;) ;) I also got a whole raft of items under RAC / OTH that could not really have been considered relevant to the price of fish between EDI and PTH.

I've emailed Mike Cross with the text that I felt was irrelevant.

I got so excited about that that I forgot to try the 'one button brief'!! :O

[Edited so that I don't sound ungrateful]
Thanks again, Mike, Rustle and all who are putting in the effort behind the scenes to make the world a better place!!

[Mike Cross]

Hi CB

I've passed your stuff on to AIS for investigation.

The Iraq business is a long-standing pice of daftness. It's not the fault of AIS, they only have to publish the stuff. You could in theory file a FP to Iraq from anywhere in the UK FIR's so it will appear in all briefings.

Why they can't just instruct ATSU's that they are to reject any flightplan routing direct to Iraq I don't know.

It muddies the waters and helps to obscure what we really need to see. It's a political thing, and like most things of that ilk has very little logical thought behind it.

Here's a little more detail anyway to flesh out what Rustle has said above:-

Good News!

The UK AIS website at http://www.ais.org.uk now contains GEOGRAPHICALLY SORTED notam.
There are two area briefs and two aerodrome briefs (one for each FIR). Each brief is generated "on demand" and so is 100% up to date.

The FIR briefs are in two sections, the first contains NOTAM with a radius of influence up to 30 nm geographically sorted from North to South. The second contains NOTAM with a wider radius of influence.

The Aerodrome briefs appear in alphabetic order of AERODROME NAME.

If you are an aerodrome operator or flying club these give you the ideal thing to put on your briefing board.

Please try these out as much as possible over the next few days. The software development engineers are there this week so if it can be broken we want to do it before they go back to France!

If you have any problems accessing http://www.ais.org.uk you will also be able to get these briefs at http://www.nats.co.uk/operational/pibs/index.shtml

However briefs from this site will only be updated twice a day and are intended only as a backup. The NATS site has not yet been updated with the new briefs but should be soon.

Addresses for comments:-
On the forums at
http://www.pprune.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=63
or http://www.flyer.co.uk/forum2/list.php?f=1

If you want to comment to AIS or the CAA
[email protected]
[email protected]

If you want have comments for one of us
Russell Howton [email protected]
Mike Cross [email protected]
Rod Bailes-Brown [email protected]


Mike

[Fly Stimulator]

Hi Mike,

The UK AIS website at http://www.ais.org.uk now contains GEOGRAPHICALLY SORTED notam.
Sorry if I'm being dim, but the FIR and aerodrome briefs on the AIS site don't seem to be geographically sorted. Am I looking in the wrong place? I'm just using the 'VFR FIR Brief' and 'VFR Aerodrome brief' links under the NOTAM heading.


Good to meet you at Duxford last weekend - shame it wasn't a drinking occasion since we all owe each of you a beer or two! :)

[david viewing]

NOTAMS - Something amazing happened here!

Perhaps for the first time in history, a group of concerned citizens joined together outside of the central bureacracy to materially change the course of events in a (quasi) government department.

I refer of course to the change of heart in AIS/Nats/CAA whose deliberate stonewalling of pilots has given way to actual change and accountability under remorseless pressure from unconnected individuals.

As a result, we are almost back to where we were in August 2002, instead of being fobbed off with the pup that the bureacrats wanted to stick us with.

All of this happened because of a single engine of change - the Internet, or specifically, Pprune. Of course many others including some excellent MP's have had a hand in it, but it is Capt. Prune who made it possible.

But I don't mean to minimise the dedication and determination that Mike, Russell and others have put in to this grand adventure and wish to add my own sincere wishes of respect and gratitude to those already expressed to them.

I well remember many years ago that during a debate on CB radio that a government minister said that the authorities "would have to think seriously about the implications of large numbers of people being able to freely communicate with each other". Well, he was right, but not for any reason that he or any other elitist could have thought of.

I think that history might well show that this has been a turning point in the affairs of government. Concerned citizens, who happen in this case to also be experts in the field, have directly influenced policy without going through the endless machinations of bureacracy that stifle conventional policy making. (These same machinations, incidentally, force up costs so vastly that administration costs more than actual service in many areas of government).

Perhaps we can see through the courage of Mike, Rusell et al and the frictionless medium of the Internet a new way of conducting public affairs without these suffocating costs.

What has worked for NOTAMs could work for health, education, local government and most other areas presently mired by the dead hand of civil service lethargy.

(It can be no co-incidence that the only part of our public service that actually works well is the military, and that only because they have short lines of internal communication and splendid indifference to the civil service.)

What has been achieved here is unusal, perhaps unique. To my mind, it points the way to a different future where government responds quickly, effectively and above all efficiently to the wishes of the people.

Well done all! You might even have saved a life or two in the coming summer, but you can never know that now...

[Mike Cross]

FS

You need the link under NOTAM worded "VFR FIR Brief - EGTT"

From the brief itself:-
"THIS VFR ONLY AREA BRIEFING CONTAINS NOTAM SORTED BY RADIUS OF INFLUENCE INTO TWO SECTIONS. THE FIRST SECTION CONTAINS NOTAM WHICH HAVE A RADIUS OF INFLUENCE OF 30 NM AND LESS AND THE SECOND THOSE NOTAM WITH A RADIUS OF INFLUENCE GREATER THAN 30 NM.
BOTH SETS OF NOTAM MUST BE STUDIED CLOSELY BEFORE FLIGHT."

The one headed "VFR Aerodrome Brief - EGTT" is sorted in order of AERODROME NAME rather than ICAO indicator, which the feedback from most users called for.

The prime purpose of these briefs is to provide a standardised brief which can be printed out and stuck up on the noticeboard at an airfield.

Some may also prefer to use it for local flying, finding it quicker and easier than the alternatives.

Those planning a specific route will probably find the Narrow Route Brief better. Those flying IFR will want one of the other briefs also as these are VFR only.

Where I think we have a problem is here:-

"THE FOLLOWING SECTION CONTAINS NOTAM WITH A RADIUS OF INFLUENCE OF 30 NM OR LESS, SORTED BY TYPE: AGA, COM, RAC, NAVW AND OTHER AND WITHIN EACH TYPE SORTED GEOGRAPHICALLY FROM NORTH TO SOUTH."

It's the "within each type bit" I'm not sure about. The format was laid down by CAA/DAP. Personally I think the sort should be:-

First by latitude
Then by type

NOT

First by Type
Then by Latitude

which is what it says it is. Any other views?

We'll have the beer on another occaison!

Mike

[Fly Stimulator]

Thanks Mike - that explains that one.

I think that sorting by type within latitude would be more intuitive since it would make all the NOTAM for a given location contiguous rather than potentially having them spread over several pages. Actually you'd have to sort by lat and long and then by type to really do that I suppose, but doing it by latitude alone and then by type would at least keep NOTAM for one place close together.

The temptation when reading through the listing is to assume that once you've found a reference to the spot you're interested in then you've found all the NOTAM for it, whereas there may in fact be others of different types lurking elsewhere in the list.

[Mike Cross]

Clever sorts are a bit tricky. How do you do a sort by lat & long?

If you sort by lat, then by long you might get problems, consider this.

A is at 51.6000 N 001.00 E
B is at 51.6100 N 001.00 E
C is at 51.6000 N 002.00 E

In other words A is 1nm south of B and C is about 50 nm away

A sort by ascending lat then long would put them in the order ACB, separating two places a mile apart with something 50 miles away.

This can easily happen with something like an airfield with a co-located navaid where the positions differ slightly.

Perhaps rounding lat to 10 minutes before sorting might be useful. This would result in a sort into 10 nm wide horizontal bands. (or 20, 30, whatever)

Ideas anybody? This is fairly important. If we are to ask for it to be changed we want to get it right first time.

Mike

[FlyingForFun]

Personally, I'd be happy with item being sorted by lattitude first, as per the old system. The country is narrow enough for this to work. That way I can filter out anything that's well north or well south of my route, which is my main requirement. Of course I'll still get a few spurious Notams in Wales when I'm routing around London (or vice versa) but that's inevitable - and very minor, compared to what we've had to go through for the last few months.

Haven't had a chance to check out the new format yet, but well done to everyone concerned!

FFF
--------------

[Mike Cross]

David

quote:-

"NOTAMS - Something amazing happened here!

Perhaps for the first time in history, a group of concerned citizens joined together outside of the central bureacracy to materially change the course of events in a (quasi) government department."

A little OTT perhaps.

The reality is that AIS, on their own initiative, invited Russell and I to visit them so that they could hear our views.

This developed into an ongoing dialogue in the course of which we used the forums to canvass the views of others and come up with some proposals.

The CAA were already aware of the deficiencies of the new system and it was they who called the meeting of 15 November last at which the proposals were considered and accepted (with the exception of the Q Line which is ongoing).

You paint a picture where we triumphed in the face of an implacable bureacracy. In reality we were invited in, listened to, and action was taken.

The strength of feeling that was expressed by your own efforts and those of others in writing letters, contacting their MP's, filing MOR's and posting well reasoned arguments on the forums undoubtedly strengthened our position and greatly helped us in winning the arguments and ensuring that the necesary funding was made available.

And yes I agree that Captain PPRuNe deserves the thanks of all of us for making it possible to debate these matters and for making that debate visible to others. CAA and NATS may not be allowed to participate in the debate but they do follow it.

AIS certainly got it wrong at first, but they recognised the problem and have worked hard to rectify it. We've had the easy job of pointing out the mistakes:D . They've had the hard job of fixing them.:{

So all credit :ok: to the chaps and chapesses involved for the hard work they have put in at a time when their revenues have been tumbling and they've been coping with a lot of changes.

We're still not quite there but things are infinitely better than they were and we now have a very direct and open channel of communication with both AIS/NATS and the CAA.

Finally:-
It has been suggested by Phil Bate, Manager UK AIS that it might be possible to arrange a visit to the AIS office at Heathrow so I'll start a new thread for feedback on that.

Mike

[gateradial]

I can't get the dark blue drop down menus to work on Netscape 7. Works fine on Explorer 5. Wouldn't normally complain except the AIS home page does say Netscape 4.7 or higher.

Otherwise a fantastic service! Well done all concerned.

[Mike Cross]

gateradial

Could I ask you, and anyone else experiencing browser problems, to drop a line to [email protected] with details of your browser version, operating system, and details of the symptoms please?

AIS are actively investigating these problems, indeed they were on to me today asking if I knew anyone who was experiencing them so they could pass the details to the developers.

They can't possibly test every possible combination of hardware and software so it would be great if you could help.

Mike Cross
representing AOPA on NOTAM issues

[Dusty_B]

I can't get the dark blue drop down menus to work on ...

Could I remind everyone that AltAIS.org.uk (http://altais.org.uk) also provides a 'bookmarks' resource for most pages within the AIS website. This allows people with browsers that don't work with the complicated AIS navigation menu to freely 'jump into' the contents of the UK AIP.
It also provides a way to generate your own Area and Route briefs if you can't use the menu, or have JavaScript disabled.

:ok:

[Courtman]

Does anyone else have any problems using the AIS website on Windows XP? I don't get the grey bar and the drop down menu's are miles away from the menu bar...

I'm looking at work (on NT with IE5.5) and it works okay here, maybe its just my PC which needs a kick at the moment (or re-installing - deep joy). :sad: :sad:

[Tinstaafl]

The drop down menus don't work with Opera 6.04/WinXP home.

How hard can it be to have a standards compliant simple menu system? Christ knows how many other websites seem to manage it...

[BRL]

Mike and Rustle. I do hope you are coming to the forum bash on 3rd May? You won't have to put your hand in your pockets all day/night..... :)