NOTAM Gotcha!

[Lookleft]

They are numerous and annoying but you still have to read them. It doesn't help that the council workers have NFI what an airport is used for.

https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications...r/ao-2020-056/

[Lead Balloon]

The aerodrome where my aircraft is based is occasionally NOTAMed closed 9am-4pm local time for use by car ‘enthusiasts’. The NOTAM is issued days before the event.

The number of aircraft that nonetheless ‘lob in’ is ‘disconcerting’. And I’m not talking about people who are overflying. They usually comprehend that it would be imprudent to land on a runway with a dozen or so cars on it and a few hundred people standing around, but landing on the ‘cross’ runway over all that activity, while the whole aerodrome is NOTAMed closed, seems to me to be – hmmmmm – imprudent. Talk about fish throwing themselves into the CASA compliance and enforcement boat…

The number of HO NOTAMs doesn’t help, but there’s no complexity in the number of location-specific NOTAMs for places like Gunnedah. Checking prior to departure or when inbound should not be a big challenge these days.

[outnabout]

A set of cones at the start of the taxi-way might have been a good idea, just to make certain sure pilots were aware the runway was closed.

Mind you, I have also seen pilots taxi around cones indicating a closed runway.....just as I have seen pilots ignore that pesky irrelevant white cross by the airstrip...

[43Inches]

Doesn't even have to be GA pilots, one set of domestic Jet pilots ran over the cones onto a closed taxiway not that long ago at Melbourne.

I do find it a bit disturbing that they didn't think some more signage was necessary though. Still, always check those NOTAM just before departure. I get a full briefing for planning and go through it thoroughly, but always just before leaving I'll bring up my departure, destination and any alternate on NAIPS, just the TAF and NOTAMs to remove any other mess. Takes a minute only and easy to read, even if it's just on the phone.

[Fieldmouse]

MOS 139 to the rescue

Thankfully there is a line in the new Mos 8.106 (10)to the effect:
"On a taxiway, an unserviceability marking must be placed:
(b) if a taxiway serves an unserviceable runway or an unserviceable portion of a runway - so as to warn against entry to the etc etc........

Used to be common sense, this generation needs everything spelled out.

[Hamley]

Originally Posted by Fieldmouse

Used to be common sense, this generation needs everything spelled out.

Slack attempt at analysis from the ‘kids these days’ brigade.

The guy that yeeted his twin turboprop on a closed and dangerous runway without checking the NOTAMs was in this occasion what I would describe as ‘middle aged’.

Check your NOTAMs you tired old codgers!

[Capt Fathom]

If the Council was working on a road somewhere, there would be signs, witches hats, hi vis vests and a stop-go person holding vehicles to ransom!

[43Inches]

I've never visited Gunnedah but there also is an AFRU listed on the chart. They should also include some sort of message on the readback saying that the aerodrome is closed for aircraft operations refer NOTAM. I know many other CTAFs include short circuit messages and have heard "aerodrome unserviceablilities exist, refer NOTAM" at a few with hard surface only NOTAM ADs. A few cones on the runway entrance would have done the job, the signage on the gates does not look easy to understand, looks more like some sort of artwork than warning signs. As a minimum on any council work the area would be marked off for safety by tape and cones, road, sidewalk or playground, why they thought an aerodrome would be less of a risk who knows. It sounds like the council had done very few risk assessments around the aerodrome operations and just relied on rule compliance.

[kellykelpie]

The number of NOTAMs being published is out of control - one reason why some pilots stop reading them. Look at Sydney airport! Multiple NOTAMs for one taxiway light out, NOTAMS for trees! Really, this is a safety issue. Important information is lost in the static…..

[43Inches]

I agree with major airport NOTAMs, but country airports will only have one or two, easy to sift through by just NAIPS searching the few you are using.

Major airports should segregate NOTAM into critical areas, such as grouping them into movement area, approach and aid related, tower and ATS related, obstacle, lighting and misc.

[Lead Balloon]

Originally Posted by 43Inches

I agree with major airport NOTAMs, but country airports will only have one or two, easy to sift through by just NAIPS searching the few you are using.

Major airports should segregate NOTAM into critical areas, such as grouping them into movement area, approach and aid related, tower and ATS related, obstacle, lighting and misc.

Yep.

And we should be able to tick boxes in NIS/NAIPS called "Civilian" and "VFR Only" so that ADF Flip and IFR-only NOTAMs don't appear in briefings for civvy VFR ops.

[43Inches]

Meanwhile the new Airservices site looks like a Flowchart that someone thought of by throwing things on the floor and seeing where they land. I just tried to look up Gunnedah on the AIP package and could not make head nor tail of their menu system and arrow boxes. Whoever designed that layout is delving into abstract art....

[jonkster]

Originally Posted by 43Inches

I agree with major airport NOTAMs, but country airports will only have one or two, easy to sift through by just NAIPS searching the few you are using.

Major airports should segregate NOTAM into critical areas, such as grouping them into movement area, approach and aid related, tower and ATS related, obstacle, lighting and misc.

An issue that concerns me with the current NOTAM system is many people are assuming if they pull up the NOTAMs for an aerodrome they will get all they need.

eg if you call up MOUNT ISA (YBMA) today you will get 3 NOTAMs (declared distance, an infringing obstacle and an issue with radio reception).

What is *not* displayed is the following NOTAM which could be of interest to you if you are operating around Mt Isa:

LOW LEVEL GEOPHYSICAL SVY ACFT OPR
WI 74 NM RADIUS OF MOUNT ISA AD (YBMA)
IN AN AREA BOUNDED BY: BRG 338 MAG 50NM FM ARP, BRG 328 MAG 55NM FM
ARP, BRG 327 MAG 61NM FM ARP, BRG 338 MAG 74NM FM ARP, BRG 342 MAG
72NM FM ARP, BRG 344 MAG 59NM FM ARP
ACFT TYPE: AS350 WI UNDERSLUNG ARRAY CALLSIGN: VH-VIM
OPR CTC TEL: [phone]
ACFT WILL MNT LOCAL FREQ
SFC TO 4500FT AGL
FROM 10 292100 TO 12 221000
DAILY 2100/1000

You have to specifically ask for (and scan through) the Brisbane FIR NOTAMs to get that. Basically NOTAMs for half the continent.

(NB this just one example - the specific FIR NOTAM above may or may not be important to you if you are going to Mt Isa but my point is just calling up an aerodrome may not give you everything about that strip.)

The FIR NOTAMs are often pages of data and cover the whole country making it easy to miss the needles in the haystacks.

eg today with Mel FIR you will have info on everything from a swarm of drones in WA to an aerobatic competition at Bacchus Marsh (YBSS) in Vic. (BTW if you call up YBSS by itself, you will be told that YBSS doesn't have a NOTAM service and so no mention of the aerobatic activity).

INCREASED AVIATION ACT WI 3NM OF BACCHUS MARSH AD (YBSS)
DUE AEROBATIC TRAINING EVENT.
AEROBATICS WILL TAKE PLACE OHD AD AND WILL REMAIN CLEAR OF CONTROLLED
AIRSPACE. GND COM STN CS 'BACCHUS MARSH ADVISORY' ESTABLISHED ON
COMMON TFC ADVISORY FREQ (CTAF) 118.8 DURING AEROBATIC OPS.
ACFT CONDUCTING AEROBATICS MAY NOT BE MONITORING CTAF.
ORGANISER CTC TEL: [phone]
SFC TO 4500FT AMSL
FROM 10 292300 TO 10 300900

...
...
UA SWARM (UP TO 200 MULTICOPTERS BELOW 2KG) OPR WI 1.2NM OF PSN
322041S 1154651E (LAKE WALYUNGUP) WESTERN AUSTRALIA
OPR WILL BCST ON FREQ 135.25 15 MIN PRIOR TO LAUNCH AND AT 15 MIN
INTERVALS WHILST AIRBORNE
OPR WILL MNT PH CEN FREQ 135.25
OPR CTC TEL: [phone] OR 0402 577 537
SFC TO 400FT AGL
FROM 08 040000 TO 11 051600
DAILY 0000/1600

It would be great if the NOTAM system could allow you to filter relevant NOTAMs based on route, not everything for Australia.

[VH-MLE]

Yes, & if considering Threat & Error Management, the NOTAM system in this country is a definite THREAT to air safety for the reasons outlined above. I doubt there's a pilot flying that hasn't missed an important NOTAM as some stage of his or her career...

I'm surprised with all of the modern day talk of equality/inclusiveness etc that the term NOTAM hasn't been replaced by NOTAP...

[neville_nobody]

Yes, & if considering Threat & Error Management, the NOTAM system in this country is a definite THREAT to air safety for the reasons outlined above. I doubt there's a pilot flying that hasn't missed an important NOTAM as some stage of his or her career

NOTAMs are all about blaming pilots and a way of every single service provider from avoiding responsibility.
Safety folk already acknowledge that NOTAMs are a threat, it's just that noone actually wants to be accountable for anything so they just write a NOTAM and then they can't be blamed.

[cogwheel]

A set of cones at the start of the taxi-way might have been a good idea, just to make certain sure pilots were aware the runway was closed.

This procedure should be automatic for those that have a work requirement on a runway. As a former ARO, it certainly would have been for me.

The most significant problem in my view is the number of NOTAMs that arrive when you call up a location or route. As indicated above there should be an option to filter what you want and not be drowned in data that is not applicable to your operation, such as all the NOTAMs applicable to capital city airports. eg: VFR, not above A100, class G or D only, etc As also mentioned above activities that occur at or in the vicinity of airfields that are not licenced/registered do not score a mention when the location is nominated. It could be an airshow or just aerobatics etc but the present system does not provide that info for other than registered aerodromes. This problem was raised at the RAPACs some years ago, but ASA said their software could not handle it. Things should have changed and ASA should be held to account for not providing a user friendly system that provides all relevant info.

[rcoight]

Originally Posted by jonkster

It would be great if the NOTAM system could allow you to filter relevant NOTAMs based on route, not everything for Australia.

Spot on. The system is basically set up for pilots to fail. Even the most conscientious pilot can miss things here or there.

Not to mention what is the reason that they are still not in "plain English"?
The way they are presented is surely a hangover from the Fax briefing days, or even DECTALK (remember that?), but these days there is no need to make them any harder to decipher than they need to be.

If it's all about "safety", why is it still done this way?

[Lazyload]

Take a look at this. It’s a world wide issue. https://medium.com/@markzee/what-doe...m-6aa42869c5df

[Lead Balloon]

It would be great if the NOTAM system could allow you to filter relevant NOTAMs based on route, not everything for Australia.

That's what SPFIB was marketed as being able to do. I tried it a few times and gave up.

I think the format of the information is a consequence of ICAO parameters. As Lazyload's links shows, it's a world wide issue.

But the inefficiencies of the ICAO processes shouldn't prevent a plain English and specific route and operation type option being available. Let's face it: Airservices couldn't be bothered spending the time and money to make the system more use-friendly and, therefore, safer.

Meanwhile, YNAR has been YSSY-ised:

AERODROME OBSTACLES AMD
TKOF RWY23:
OBST TREE 554FT AMSL 1590M FM SOT 110M STH C/L INFRINGES TNS SFC
OBST TREE 538FT AMSL 1520M FM SOT 67M STH C/L INFRINGES TKOF SFC
OBST TREE 533FT AMSL 1558M FM SOT 49M STH C/L INFRINGES TKOF SFC
OBST TREE 536FT AMSL 1193M FM SOT 98M NTH C/L INFRINGES TNS SFC
OBST TREE 495FT AMSL 1249M FM SOT 36M NTH C/L INFRINGES TKOF SFC
OBST TREE 529FT AMSL 1450M FM SOT 33M STH C/L INFRINGES TKOF SFC
OBST TREE 544FT AMSL 1287M FM SOT 126M NTH C/L INFRINGES TNS SFC
TKOF RWY14:
OBST TREE 545FT AMSL 2550M FM SOT 42M STH C/L INFRINGES TKOF SFC
OBST TREE 552FT AMSL 2611M FM SOT 144M STH C/L INFRINGES TKOF SFC
OBST TREE 547FT AMSL 2660M FM SOT 22M NTH C/L INFRINGES TKOF SFC
OBST TREE 538FT AMSL 2352M FM SOT 66M NTH C/L INFRINGES TKOF SFC
OBST TREE 502FT AMSL 1996M FM SOT 69M NTH C/L INFRINGES TKOF SFC
OBST TREE 503FT AMSL 1804M FM SOT 131M NTH C/L INFRINGES TNS SFC
OBST TREE 529FT AMSL 2295M FM SOT 116M STH C/L INFRINGES TKOF SFC
OBST TREE 542FT AMSL 2355M FM SOT 37M STH C/L INFRINGES TKOF SFC
OBST TREE 509FT AMSL 2111M FM SOT 123M STH C/L INFRINGES TKOF SFC
OBST TREE 536FT AMSL 2345M FM SOT 72M STH C/L INFRINGES TKOF SFC
OBST ANEMOMETER 503FT AMSL 1516M FM SOT 129M STH C/L INFRINGES TNS
OBST FENCE 472FT AMSL 1841M FM SOT 92M NTH C/L INFRINGES TKOF SFC
AMD EN ROUTE SUPPLEMENT AUSTRALIA (ERSA)
FROM 10 220310 TO PERM

ERSA shows the AD ARP as 474' AMSL.

[43Inches]

None of that information is even relevant to a pilot as there is no way to calculate or correlate the information to a chart without being a master at surveying, so should not even be listed. Are they saying a minima is infringed or take off distance reduced, a displaced threshold needed? That's what is important to me.... I know some airlines might use the info to calculate escape routes, however let that info go straight to the relevant parties. As a pilot I have no idea if they have accounted for x tree or not, I assume they have. I can read and see it infringes take-off surface gradients, but does that mean the STODA is wrong in ERSA?