French NOTAMS

[Dude~]

I am heading off into France on Saturday and was wondering where is the best place to get French NOTAMS?

Cheers

[Mike Cross]

The correct source for NOTAM is the AIS of the State within whose airspace the flight originates. So it's UK AIS (http://www.ais.org.uk) up to your arrival aerodrome in France. From there on it's French AIS. AFIK they don't yet have NOTAM available on the web.

You can get French NOTAM on the UK AIS site but they are likely to only International and not Domestic.

Mike

[Dude~]

Thanks.

So if I go to the UK site for NOTAMS for a direct flight to Reims from the UK, is that sufficient?

[Aerobatic Flyer]

Try going to http://www.nav2000.com/ , and click on "Notam" on the menu on the left side.

The NOTAMs will be in English when you finally get to them. The menus are in French.

[Mike Cross]

Dude~

UK AIS have confirmed to me that this is correct.

You can imagine what would happen if a flight to Sydney had to contact the AIS of every state whose airspace was to be transited!

ICAO Annex 15 says
8.1.1 At any aerodrome normally used for international air operations, aeronautical information essential for the safety, regularity and efficiency of air navigation and relative to the route stages originating at the aerodrome shall be made available to flight operations personnel, including flight crew and services responsible for pre-flight information"
NOTAM are part of Aeronautical Information Services.

No doubt ICAO document 8126, the Aeronautical Information Services Manual puts it rather better. Perhaps a friendly ATCO can enlighten us.

Mike

AF

Hadn't come across http://www.nav2000.com/ before.

It does of course carry the warning
NAV2000 ne peut être tenu pour responsable d'éventuelles erreurs dans les informations affichés sur son site et vous êtes conscient qu'avant chaque vol, le pilote doit prendre connaissance de tous les renseignements disponibles, utiles à la bonne exécution du vol projeté et avoir les cartes appropriées à la route envisagée et à toute autre route de déroutement.
Which loosely translated says "NAV2000 will not be responsible for any errors in the information on this site and you realise that before each flight the pilot must consult all available information relevant to the intended route and any alternate"

You have to accept this and that your usage is subject to French Law before continuing.

Looks at first glance to be a very useful site. However you only have the choice of individual FIR briefings or a 40 km wide direct route between 2 points. The UK AIS site will give you multiple FIR's, turning points, height filtering and user-definable route width.

I tried asking it for 40km route width EGHP to LFRK and it's sitting there saying "Please wait, connecting to NOTAM database" (in French) and has been like that for some miinutes already.

Mike

[Andrew Sinclair]

Dude~

I used the AIS tool to obtain a Narrow Route Brief just a moment ago from an aerodrome in UK (I chose Biggin) to Reims-Champagne (LFSR) (when I used the aerodrome search facility two were listed the other being Reims Prunay-LFQA) by direct route DCT with 10nm route width VFR only. I returned a 5 page NOTAM report and IFR + VFR returned 7 pages.

[Dude~]

Thanks, Prunay is my first stop actually.

I have another question now. When I enter my route into the AIS website, for example Elstree to Le2K, I get NOTAMS for Cornwall and the Midlands. Cal me stupid, but how can I narrow down the returns? Is that what a narrow route briefing is for?

Why isnt there an easy to follow set of guidelines? I'm young and no fool, but I dont find it particularly logical, perhaps because there are so many damm acronyms that I've never heard of and cant decipher.

Rant over!

[Andrew Sinclair]

Hello Dude~

Yes intuitively you are right when you say why with a Narrow Route Brief does the system include things that are miles and miles away. Mainly this is because the NOTAM that was originally submitted to the AIS office was given an 'area of influence' by the originator. If the originator feels that their NOTAM could affect people a long distance away then they will increase the 'area of influence'. A similar example came up the other day when a Brize Norton LARS frequency change was included in a Narrow Route Briefing based on flight in the South-East. This happened because the area of influence of the Brize frequency change NOTAM was set at 60nm and at it's closest point Brize was 50nm to the maximum extent of the Narrow Route Brief width so the two areas overlapped. The area of influence is set by the originator of the NOTAM and not by AIS, if I remember correctly.

Hope this explains it.

Concerning guidelines, I am in the process of writing some, from the point of view of a standard GA PPL, which will be a collection of all the things I have learned recently and includes Mike Cross's input and wisdom from his time with the web tool. I am hoping to be able to put these on a web site so that they can be accessed and provide answers to the sort of questions which are very logical but sound daft and result from the less than intuitive nature of some elements of the web tool.

In the meantime please post any questions here or send them by e-mail to me. I will be happy to answer them, or find an answer if one is not immediately known.

[Mike Cross]

The web tool does work well now, but it is not particularly intuitive and requires a little bit of practice if you are to get the best from it.

I recommend printing out a copy of the "FAQ and PIB Help" for reference until you are familiar with the site. A link is on the login page and it can also be found under "Help".

Andrew is right regarding radius of influence. The originator decides what the radius of influence should be. UK AIS may advise but they are the publishers, not the originators. Normally for something like a comm or nav facility it will be the range as published in the AIP. Without knowing what it was you got that you considered irrelevant I can't comment but her are a few navaid examples
LND has a Designated Operational Coverage (DOC) of up to 300 nm
NEW 200 nm
POL 150 nm
SAM up to 150 nm

You can reduce the amount of NOTAM returned in a Narrow Route Brief by selecting "Traffic" to VFR only rather than the default of IFR/VFR (assuming you are going to be VFR) and also by using height filtering.

To make the height filtering work you need to have an "en-route" leg in your route. If you go from A to C via B the tool will assume that you are climbing from A to B and descending from B to C so you will get all NOTAM from surface up to 4000 ft above your chosen Flight Level.

If however your route is A to D via B and C you will get Surface to FL+4000ft on the climb/descent legs A to B and C to D but on the en-route leg B to C you will get FL+/- 4000 ft. This will cut out a lot of the low level stuff if you are flying above FL045.

Needless to say, the defaults err on the side of caution.

Hope this is useful.

Mike

[StrateandLevel]

A point to note is that is a lot of temporary restricted airspace in France around Power Stations and Installations; typically 5 Km in diameter and up to 3500 ft. The fine for infringement is 15,000 Euros.

[Andrew Sinclair]

Just to add a little to StrateandLevel's post. The French Service De L'information Aeronautique have issued AIP SUP 58/03 that lists these temporary restricted areas.

It can be found here (http://neige.fleurb.jmsp.net/dossier/supaipmetro/SUP_2003_58_EN.pdf).

I did a Narrow Route Brief from Biggin Hill to Calais hoping that it would return NOTAM concerning Gravelines and it did..........

General Reference to AIP SUP 58/03:

NAVW: FROM 03/06/24 14:00 TO 03/12/31 23:59 B3520/03
E)SECURITY REASONS (ZIT) :
SETTING UP OF TEMPORARY PROHIBITED AREAS
AIP SUP NR58/03 REFERS
F)SFC G)3300FT AGL

Specific reference concerning Gravelines, which fell within my Narrow Route Brief filter criteria:

NAVW: FROM 03/06/12 13:16 TO 03/09/19 23:59 B3229/03
E)TEMPO PROHIBITTED AREA OVER GRAVELINES
RDL072/6.61NM FROM LFAC AD
1- LATERAL LIMITS :
CIRCLE OF 05KM RADIUS CENTERED ON 510010N, 0020750E
2- VERTICAL LIMITS:
FROM SFC TO 3300FT AMSL
3- ENTRY CONDITIONS:
.CAG IFR/VFR: ENTRY PROHIBITED
.ACFT PERMITTED:
- DEFENCE ACFT,FRENCH POLICE FORCES,CUSTOMS SERVICES, HEALTH
SERVICES, CIVIL SECURITY AND SURVEILLANCE SERVICES COMPLETING
THEIR MISSION
- ACFT WORKING FOR EDF (FRENCH ELECTRIC SOCIETY)
- ACFT IFR WITH CLEARANCE OF ATS SERVICE
- ACFT CLEARED WITH PRIOR NOTICE OF 48HR.
4- AUTHORITIES TO CONTACT FOR PRIOR CLEARANCE WITH 48HR PPR :
CENTRE DE COMMANDEMENT DES OPERATIONS AERIENNES 33 1 30 40 68 95
F)SFC G)3300FT AMSL

I hope this helps.