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ATSU's and NOTAM

Old 15th October 2002 | 16:31
  #21 (permalink)  

Watchdog Delta Hotel
 
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From: here but there in 6 years
notams

i'm afraid it's an airmanship thing

not a flame but

you as pilot in command are duty bound to brief via notam or however

as a controller not my problem computer failure thats down to the caa

(as a nats controller and ex computer prog need to get off that subject)

understand your problem but busy atsu's (some of us still get a8's) quite often don't have the r't time to pass all the info you guys and galls require

catch 22 i guess but hope your efforts come up trumphs

sorry if previously sounded like flaming
but did get narked in the past with what seemed to me requests by some that were clearly notamed a8 to me
thanks for the input and enlightenment but as a final as you said the initial post did come across badly

all the best with your quest
maincoon
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Old 15th October 2002 | 17:08
  #22 (permalink)  
 
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Mrcross
you do me a disservice by your comments. The Web may be the only place you have access to NOTAMs but that is not the only place that you can access them which is my point.

Forgive me if I am unaware of your personal difficulties and as I stated at the start of my previous post if you had been upfront from the start about what you had wanted you would not have had so aggressive a response..

At all major ATSUs there is a briefing office through which you are able to access information, what the response would be from staff I do not know, but better to try that than have nothing at all.
ATCOs however have very limited time to pass on the information over the R/T

The changes that you say have been made do not generally filter down to ATC staff at larger units so most of us would be unaware of them.
However I would think that to a person we would all like to see briefing be made as simple as possible and would support you in your quest.
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Old 15th October 2002 | 17:33
  #23 (permalink)  
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Sorry guys, I must stop being belligerent.

The computer failure was on equipment belonging to AIS/NATS, nothing to do with the CAA. They have a new system at NOF which feeds the notam out on to AFS for you guys. That system didn't go down but the replica server which feeds to us did, and was out for nearly a whole day. As I said this is the fourth failure since mid-August when it went live.

Yes its our duty to brief ourselves but it's NATS/AIS duty to make the information available and yes it is Catch 22 at the moment.

The availability issue is not your problem, it's an issue for us to sort out with AIS.

BTW my info is that you will lose the A8's, we've already lost them

We've strayed a bit from my original suggestion which was that perhaps we have too much stuff being notammed. I don't know whether you guys generate any of that or not.

Mike
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Old 16th October 2002 | 09:16
  #24 (permalink)  
 
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From: England
mrcross

I have read this with interest and the Notam link in the Private flying forum

I hope you are getting a more constructive response from the people at AIS than the arrogant ignorant garbage being dished out on here by niknak and others

Anything to improve the rubbish that NATS have dumped on the users should be welcomed by everyone

All this talk of ATSUs with Notams etc completely ignores the fact that twice you've said you fly from Popham - hardly a major airfield - but perhaps that's the new attitude now NATS is owned and controlled by BA and friends. If they don't use the field they don't give a ****.

Good luck, maybe tell the people on the non-NATS forums and ignore this lot - at least you seem to get a reasoned reply in private flying.
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Old 16th October 2002 | 12:41
  #25 (permalink)  
 
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Niknak,
The change of an elevation point etc is critical to any aircraft making an IFR approach to an airfield
Someone making an IFR approach to EGHH (which is the airfield Mike referred to) knows that it's Cat1 ILS only otherwise non-precision.

So a one foot elevation change to threshold or ARP makes somewhat less that sweet-FA difference to IFR inbounds in this example.

Maybe if there was less defensiveness and more open dialogue things could actually be improved for everyone - on the ground as well as in the air.
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Old 16th October 2002 | 15:46
  #26 (permalink)  
 
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From: Winchester
Mike Cross says " I doubt you'll find a single pilot who would fly without a proper briefing." I hate to disagree here but that simply is not true. I have come across too many who are happy to do just that. I'm the first to admit that changes need to be made to the current NOTAM system but there will always be those pilots who don't bother to read NOTAMs regardless of the information and how it is made available to them. A truly responsible pilot will make the effort to obtain the NOTAMs even in the current situation. I was horrified on my way into North Weald for the Aerofair in May to hear the number of pilots who plainly had not read the associated AIC. The controller was very patient with them.
Rustle seems to think that a one foot difference in the elevation at EGHH doesn't matter because it's only Cat 1 ILS. Are we now going to expect AIS to filter out this sort of information depending on the category of precision approaches at these airports?
This is taking things to the extreme. Personally I would rather see too much information (even if it is a bit annoying to go through) than not enough. I have experienced two notable omissions in the NOTAMs recently and that's far more worrying.
There is no doubt that the system needs to be improved particularly, as it has been less than reliable, but people have to be realistic and reasonable. On the subject of controllers' attitudes I have cringed at some of the things I've heard over the R/T which the controllers have had to deal with and it's no wonder some of them get annoyed. We're talking about NOTAMs (which have been difficult to obtain etc and I'm grateful to all those trying to sort out the problems) but this whole subject is more complex than just the NOTAM difficulties.
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Old 16th October 2002 | 16:03
  #27 (permalink)  
 
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Bpilatus, making an assumption here but I presume you are not a commercial pilot. Subsequently it is unlikely that you have ever actually paid for your Air Traffic Service. In fact you get it for free and the big airlines such as BA pay for you to receive a radar service.

This though goes totally off the plot , ATCOs have very little to do with Flight Briefing ,it does not generally come within our domain and is handled by Air Traffic Service Assistants ATSAs. We have not been made aware of the difficulties that the GA community have been experiencing since the introduction of this new system. let alone know that a new system was in place.
Popham may not have A FBU the suggestions made were that it may be prudent if unable to access the web that day to call the nearest large ATSU.
This is a short term solution and naturally it is vital that whoever is responsible for the web site to ensure that it accessible at all times.

As I reiterate again you may think we are an arrogant bunch of s...ts. But we were responding to incomplete information. Since we have been made aware about MrCross and his intentions you will note that he has infact had our support.

The reason why very few suggestions have been forthcoming is because flight briefing is not an ATCOs domain, I can assure you if it was, if I was able to offer any suitable suggestions I would do so.
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Old 16th October 2002 | 16:58
  #28 (permalink)  
 
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From: Surrey, UK.
gemellus,

Rustle seems to think that a one foot difference in the elevation at EGHH doesn't matter because it's only Cat 1 ILS. Are we now going to expect AIS to filter out this sort of information depending on the category of precision approaches at these airports?
Mike's post said:
My suggestion is that people should think twice before they promulgate a NOTAM, consider whether or not it is essential to do so and if it's not, don't.

Same applies to things like the fact that EGHH's elevation has been amended to 38 feet (couldn't that wait until the next AIP amendment?)
...and I concur - it's not an AIS problem per se, it's the originator.

Flying IFR I would expect my Aerad/Jepp plates to be updated in due course, but a NOTAM about a 1 foot change


Flower,

I am not a commercial pilot but I pay NATS/Eurocontrol charges if I fly IFR. Please do not assume that GA pay nothing and that only commercial operators pay.
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Old 16th October 2002 | 18:40
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From: UK
Rustle,
my apologies i meant to put unless you fly IFR airways as GA you don't pay .

However very few do. so don't have ago at the large airlines they do pay for the vast majority of the radar services
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Old 16th October 2002 | 20:33
  #30 (permalink)  
 
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flower,

you were answering bpilatus' post.

I wasn't having 'ago' at anyone, just pointing out that GA do pay when GA use the service, which is a common misunderstanding because I've had this discussion before...

BTW, you attract charges without using airways too - this is another misunderstanding.

File IFR = incur charges. Even if it's night and there's no VFR because everything (UK) is IFR at night...

Anyway, back to NOTAMs

Last edited by rustle; 16th October 2002 at 20:40.
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Old 23rd October 2002 | 11:44
  #31 (permalink)  
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From: Savannah GA & Portsmouth UK
Meeting with the regulator

Hi Folks

Following the somewhat lively discussion, here is an opportunity for anyone with an interest in getting concise and relevant NOTAM briefings into the hands of GA pilots to put their views to the regulator.

A meeting has been provisionally arranged for 15 November. The attendees are likely to include AIS, their regulator from the CAA, other interested parties from the CAA, a representative from the BGA and Russell and myself.

The regulator is John Gentleman, Manager, Aeronautical Charts and Data at the CAA Directorate of Airspace Policy.

He has agreed that the email address [email protected] can be used for you to make representations and has already received a number of mails as a result of our putting the address on our proposals, which can be found at http://www.telecall.uk.com/ais

Please make your voice heard by sending an email. Don't get upset if you don't get a response, there are likely to be too many to reply to individually but they will all be taken into account.

If you support our proposal please say so but it is equally important for you to raise your voice if you disagree with what we are suggesting.

AIS and the CAA have come forward and demonstrated that they are ready and willing to listen to your views and deserve credit for doing so. Please give them a constructive response.

Mike
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Old 23rd October 2002 | 23:23
  #32 (permalink)  

Watchdog Delta Hotel
 
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proposal to ais changes

congrats mike

very detailed and most of it spot on

as i've said before computer code was my job a long time ago
also my company don't exactly have a good rep on that at the moment(not their fault lockhead martin most)

have looked at the site mentioned when it is running and is woefull

understand your problems better now
have sent an emither also advocating the backup faxback option which any sensible system such as this should have
don't hold out much hope though as sense doesn't hold any clout with my lot these days

hope it works out to some extent anyway you have my support
the maine coon
regrds
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Old 30th October 2002 | 17:21
  #33 (permalink)  
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More Info

For anyone wanting to see more discussion on this subject I have updated

http://www.telecall.uk.com/ais/forums.htm

to include links to all the forums I could find. If you know any more please use the link on that page to let me know where they are.

Mike
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Old 3rd November 2002 | 19:24
  #34 (permalink)  
 
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Ive got to agree with Mr Cross on this one.
The NOTAMS system is a complete mess. Looks more like its run by the legal dept than by an operational department to enhance flight safety. ie If we put absolutely everything in there, then no one can say they didnt know about it, so they cant sue us.
No thought to the fact that there is so much rubbish, you cant find what is relevant to your flight.

The main problem is that there is no good way to filter the information to get what you need. If I am flying a VFR flight from A to B at 1500ft, I do not need to know about 80% or more of the stuff that comes up in the NOTAMS.
Similarly if I'm doing an IFR flight at FL270, I dont need to know about NOTAMS for parachute jumping or tethered balloons.

When Im at work, flying out of LGW, my company has a nice system, such that it prints out the NOTAMS relevant to my route, thus most are applicable and worth looking at. When I want to fly my own aircraft I can look at the AIS web site and spend ages trying to find something relevant in amongst the pages of rubbish!

Mr Cross is exaclty right that a lot of these NOTAMS are just wasting people's time. AS I said I fly out of LGW but it is no use to me to have a NOTAM that stand 11 is closed. If it is closed, then I wont find my aircraft parked there and my company and ATC wont tell me to park there when I return!! Yes, the Airport Authority needs to tell the operators who might want to use that stand and the local ATC, but they are the only ones who need to know!
And the change in airfield elevation of a few feet is completely useless too. I descend to the DA got from the plates or performance book. If the elevation change had that drastic effect on my approach then the plates would have to be changed or a NOTAM issued that the Minima had changed. ( but again only IFR flights need to know this, so I should be able to not get this info if I tell the system that I'm a VFR flight.

Yes, you ATC people are right, there needs to be a NOTAMS system, but it needs to be useable by everyone, in a format that they get the information relevant to their flight, not just to please the lawyers.
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Old 4th November 2002 | 07:07
  #35 (permalink)  
 
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MRCROSS

You stated that you cannot receive NOTAM when the website is down, remembering from my dim and distant past, AIS are able to fax any info you require. It is not a great hassle for them, although it'll probably use quite a lot of your paper up.
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Old 4th November 2002 | 08:31
  #36 (permalink)  
 
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cubflyer,

The "stand-closed" NOTAM is an interesting one, where a degree of 'reasonableness' needs to be applied.

If the stand is the only one that can accept a B767 (for example) then it is quite right to NOTAM it unavailable.

(There is a reference for this, where an operator supposedly would have changed the aircraft type had they known the only B767 stand was U/S at destination - allegedly)

If it is one of many that can accept a B767 (for example) then it is an operational matter, and not safety critical - therefore NOTAM isn't the right way to distribute that info. (Just the easiest way)

It will take a lot of effort and discussion to stop the originators NOTAMing everything, but our point isn't that it's easy, but that it's prudent.
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Old 4th November 2002 | 21:51
  #37 (permalink)  
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A glimpse of the blindingly obvious has hit me:-

How would you define a good briefing?

How about "Information that is relevant to the intended flight, presented in an easily assimilated form"

or whatever your own choice of words might be.

I can't see any evidence that NATS have even defined what they want to achieve, let alone measured the result against it.

Mike
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Old 5th November 2002 | 08:05
  #38 (permalink)  
 
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Exclamation

If it is one of many that can accept a B767 (for example) then it is an operational matter, and not safety critical - therefore NOTAM isn't the right way to distribute that info. (Just the easiest way)

It will take a lot of effort and discussion to stop the originators NOTAMing everything, but our point isn't that it's easy, but that it's prudent.
I think you misunderstand the role of the NOTAM system, rustle. Annex 15 and the AIS Manual say nothing about "safety critical", but rather talk specifically about "operationally significant".

NOTAMs are published when it is necessary to disseminate information of direct operational significance which
(a) is of an ephemeral nature or (b) is appropriate to the AIP but needs immediate dissemination.
I salute your efforts to improve the situation for GA pre-flight briefngs, but fix the system where the system needs fixing -- at point of delivery. Great bark: wrong tree!
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Old 9th November 2002 | 16:23
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Hi bookworm,

I don't want to argue about semantics, but 1 stand of 1 able to accept a B767 is "operationally significant" if it goes U/S, but the thrust of my point was that 1 stand of MANY able to accept a B767 is not...

As cubflyer so eloquently put it:

If it is closed, then I wont find my aircraft parked there and my company and ATC wont tell me to park there when I return!! Yes, the Airport Authority needs to tell the operators who might want to use that stand and the local ATC, but they are the only ones who need to know
Anyway, the meeting's this Friday coming and I'm sure that AIS personnel have read this thread along with the "parent" thread in Private Flying - guess they'll have their own views!

I'll let you know which way they see it...
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Old 9th November 2002 | 18:02
  #40 (permalink)  
 
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From: UK
Post

Rustle

There's a NOTAM code specifically for stand closures: QMPLC. It's used worldwide, not just in the UK. You can petition ICAO if you like... But as you say, it's not the detail of that that is important, it's the principle. Let me try to persuade you one more time.

NOTAMs are not just intended for getting information to flight crew, they are for distributing temporary aeronautical information to everyone with a need. In the example that you cite from cubflyer, if the airport operator wants to tell the aircraft operators and local ATC that a stand is closed, it should do it by NOTAM. The fact that you or any other pilot doesn't want to know is irrelevant.

NOTAMs are meant to be passed from AIS to AIS. It's up to the AIS to provide an appropriate pre-flight bulletin for pilots' use. Different users have different needs -- what you've got on your web site is spot on. A different sort of filter is required for each group. I don't understand how you and Mike can write stuff that is so clearly sensible on the site, and then post a message here that makes it look as if you think the entire NOTAM system revolves around not just flight crew in general, but GA pilots in particular.

Isn't it obvious that the place for filters to be applied is at the point of delivery? It's the classic use of a database: put all the information in in a structured way, and take out only the information that's required at the point of use.

What you should care about is not whether QMPLC NOTAMs go into the system, but whether they get churned out in your PIB.

You have the opportunity to help make that happen right -- good luck on Friday.
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