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Old 8th Sep 2006, 19:30
  #21 (permalink)  
 
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Devil

Blimey how much better is this than the ais website!!!

I put in a route that is very simple, which AIS could not handle, and it came back straight away with no probs. Very cool.

DBB
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Old 10th Sep 2006, 10:45
  #22 (permalink)  
 
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Superb. Well done that man.
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Old 11th Sep 2006, 14:34
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Notams on PDA

This worked fine on the desktop but the map will not display on my IPAQ 4700 just a white space, no idea how to fix it at the moment but a great help as a PPL
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Old 11th Sep 2006, 14:40
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Not sure exactly what problems you're having on your PDA. Certainly the Google maps won't display on it, but the textual information should be fine. I have tried it on a PocketPC and a Blackberry and it works fine on each of those.

If you let me have some more details I can investigate further.
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Old 11th Sep 2006, 14:53
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hi!

drauk, I was wondering what limits you from expanding this system to another FIRs to the east - I mean Scandinavia, Germany, Poland. Is it just a database limit, or there is no good source, as you mentioned?

And I don't know how you measure the reliability of notams source, but is the https://www.notams.jcs.mil/ so bad?

Regards,
Michal
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Old 11th Sep 2006, 15:00
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There is no database limit, it's just about the source of the data. We already get dozens of FIR from the AIS website and it didn't seem wise to burden them still further for FIR that very few users need. However, if there is enough interest I am happy to add them.

As for the source of Notams that you mention, I have no idea how reliable that source is. The trouble with that one is that it doesn't include the Q-line, the mechanism by which we determine the area of influence for any Notam. As such, that particular source isn't much use to me.
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Old 12th Sep 2006, 05:35
  #27 (permalink)  
 
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And I don't know how you measure the reliability of notams source, but is the https://www.notams.jcs.mil/ so bad?
This is the US Department of Defense NOTAM system and there is nothing whatever wrong with using it for briefing for flights originating in US airspace. However I suspect that's not what you are doing.

The trouble with that one is that it doesn't include the Q-line, the mechanism by which we determine the area of influence for any Notam. As such, that particular source isn't much use to me.
Wrong answer. If you select "RAW" rather than "Report" for the output this is what you get.
Y7744/04 NOTAMN
Q) EGTT/QXXXX/IV/NO/EW/000/020
A) EGTT B) 0403191445 C) UFN
D) H24
E) LFA 17, NIGHT SECTOR 3B (W) WARNING. CREWS ARE TO BE AWARE THAT TWO ANEMOMETER MASTS HAVE BEEN ERECTED AT THE FOLLOWING POSITIONS: N5352.26 W00312.09 N5351.36 W00317.40 N.B DURING THE HOURS OF DARKNESS THE TWO ANEMOMETER MASTS MAY NOT BE LIT
F) SFC G) 265FT AMSL
The Convention on International Civil Aviation, to which ICAO member States are signatories lays down the standards for NOTAM. Individual States are able to group NOTAM into series (in the above example Y7744/04 indicates it is Series Y) and decide which series are distributed internationally and which are not. In addition other States can decide which series they want to subscribe to. The whole system works on the basis that each State provides briefing services only for flights originating within its own airspace.

As an example, France, in AIP GEN 3.1.3.2 states:-
3.1.3.2 THE NOTAM
a) The NOTAM series
Depending on the subject, NOTAM are issued in the following series:
Series A: Information of a general international scope and concerning
more particulary long range flights (for international publication).
Series B: Information of a limited international scope and concerning
more particulary other flights (restricted international publication limited
to the European region).
Series D: containing information on other aerodromes used for international
flights. Publication is restricted to the countries involved within the
scope of SCHENGEN agreements (Germany, Austria, Belgium,
Denmark, Finland, Greece, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Portugal,
Sweden, Iceland and Norway).
If therefore you took a NOTAM brief from outside the Schengen countries for a flight within France (e.g. you briefed from UK AIS for a flight to a small airfield in France, clearing customs at Calais) you would not see any of the Series D NOTAM.

If you want to make sure you are covered, your information should originate from the AIS of the State within whose airspace the flight originates. The correct way of briefing in the above example would be to take your briefing from a recognised UK source for the flight to Calais and from a French source for the onward flight from Calais to your destination.

Incidentally, there is EC legislation in the offing that will probably require providers of AIS information to be certified. The CAA's response to the "Common Requirements" in resect of AIS is here.

Mike

Last edited by Mike Cross; 12th Sep 2006 at 05:50.
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Old 12th Sep 2006, 08:15
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Originally Posted by Mike Cross
Incidentally, there is EC legislation in the offing that will probably require providers of AIS information to be certified. The CAA's response to the "Common Requirements" in resect of AIS is here.

Mike
The code writers / programmers of the AIS website in the UK should definitely be certified.
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Old 12th Sep 2006, 08:42
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Actually, asking for raw output does show the Q-line but it doesn't always show the coordinates of the area concerned, so it still remains unsuitable.

Incidentally, there is EC legislation in the offing that will probably require providers of AIS information to be certified. The CAA's response to the "Common Requirements" in resect of AIS is here.
Well that will be the end of my site and all the people who tell me they check them now they're easier to check will presumably go back to not checking them.
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Old 12th Sep 2006, 15:29
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Well that will be the end of my site and all the people who tell me they check them now they're easier to check will presumably go back to not checking them.
No reason why it should be. A simple answer would be for you not to handle the data. As far as I can see you won't need to be certified unless you provide the data, so:-

How about you provide software tools that run on the user's PC rather than on your website? The user then downloads the data and uses your tools to display it. This is the approach used by Ian Fallon with Notam Plot.

Alternatively you "go commercial". The CAA seems to be looking at using a very light hand on the tiller here, the main requirements being conformance to some fairly simple standards and an acreditted Quality System. People like AvBrief and Navbox will have to go this route because they process the data themselves.

As I'm sure you appreciate, this is proposed EU legislation. Some might suggest that some of the commercial concerns whose names can be gleaned by studying Eurocontrol's output could be behind it. I couldn't possibly comment.

Mike
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Old 12th Sep 2006, 15:42
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I've no interest in building an offline version. It would be a huge download because fly.dsc.net uses a large database of waypoints. It wouldn't work on PCs and Macs and PDAs, etc. etc. And anyway, there are others available already.

I'd have no problem conforming to some quality standards if this were a commercial project, but this is resolutely non-commercial, so that isn't going to happen here.

As for it being EU legislation, I can see your point. Perhaps all that fly.dsc.net will amount to then is demonstrating that an acceptable fast and easy presentation of Notams isn't difficult.
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Old 12th Sep 2006, 16:14
  #32 (permalink)  
 
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Mmmm...

Can't see an easy solution to that. My first thought was a Client/Server solution where the user downloads from a certified ANSP (Air Navigation Service Provider) such as UK AIS and then submits the data to your site for processing and you then present him with the output. However I can see that this would cause a problem with threading and increased traffic levels at your end. (Please be aware that I am no programmer).

Perhaps we need to wait for the legislation to develope before we can look at ways of working within its strictures.

Alternatively maybe you could work with an ANSP who would cover the certification requirments in exchange for your traffic bringing some benefit to them. I think this is the thinking behind Avbrief's tie-ups with both Navbox and Notam Plot. I'm sure Avbrief make no profit from acting as the data source but they may get some benefit by association, i.e. it brings their products to the notice of potential customers.

The alternative of course is that a commercial provider just nicks your ideas in order to provide a paid for service, which would be a poor reward for all of your hard work.

Mike
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Old 13th Sep 2006, 12:47
  #33 (permalink)  
 
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Very good system.

Just downloaded the Full UK AIP seems like there are numerous pages out of sequence, not alphabetical, making it difficult to find some details. Anything we can do about this?

For example the entry for Manchester (EGCC) starts at page 185 for a couple of pages, the rest then start at page 571

Cheers
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Old 13th Sep 2006, 17:54
  #34 (permalink)  
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Anything we can do about this?
Yep, I can send you the several hundred documents and you can sort them by hand!!!!

Seriously though, it's an automated process, based on the filename. Perhaps one day we'll add some additional logic so that it's done differently, but it's not really a priority I'm afraid.
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Old 16th Sep 2006, 21:01
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Mike

The whole system works on the basis that each State provides briefing services only for flights originating within its own airspace.

I thought we did this one to death in various places already.

Assuming that you have a plane with sufficient range then any route could be flown with a UK departure.

So UK AIS must deliver enroute notams for any route, anywhere.

You could then land at any airport capable of receiving international traffic.

So UK IAS must deliver airport notams for all airports capable of receiving international traffic.

I know what you are getting at (e.g. briefing a flight from Germany to Spain using an AIS website in Mongolia) are officially frowned upon because everybody would congregate on the one website that is most usable; such is the internet...) but the reality is that the information cannot be restricted in that way.

The only restriction I know of, and the only one which I have ever seen you or anybody else list definitively, is the French domestic (D series) notams which they deliberately do not distribute to non-Schengen states, presumably on the basis that nobody outside Schengen could fly there anyway. But then if you fly to little fields within France, you also have to speak French...


As for the certification of AIS providers, I could get very cynical about this.

The UK Met Office has a good weather model for the UK but it is not made available to GA - except for TAFs/METARs (which you can get from anywhere anyway), MSLP charts (likewise), the famous F215 and similar very basic stuff, of minimal use for IFR. They don't release the really good stuff like the 3D model which would enable vertical profile forecasts to be generated. This kind of stuff is sold to commercial weather briefing packagers, who are obviously not going to stick it on a free website.

The only bits of the UKMO data that "leak out" in various corners of the internet are ones which the UKMO has to supply to other countries, and some of them choose to publish it. Like http://weather.uwyo.edu/upperair/sounding.html which (University of Wyoming) is where you find ascent (skew-t) data for the UK and Europe

So a lot of people, and most of the "unofficial" weather websites, use the American-run worldwide GFS data.

I reckon this certification is something which the weather data industry has lobbied for, to protect the resale of their data in the face of more and more stuff slowly finding its way onto the internet.

I also reckon that this certification is going to be meaningless, in the context of any amateur website, and also in the context of any website hosted outside the EU. They might just have to get their data feed from somewhere outside the EU.

Crude protectionism, that's all it is.

For me, I just love to find the occassional nugget like http://www.meteox.com weather radar (warning: N Italy feed seems to have been pulled, which is why N Italy looks very clean) and http://pages.unibas.ch/geo/mcr/3d/meteo/ which AIUI was just somebody's PhD project but which is the sort of stuff which the UKMO should provide to all pilots.

Last edited by IO540; 16th Sep 2006 at 22:15.
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Old 18th Sep 2006, 13:21
  #36 (permalink)  
 
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No disagreement IO

The French example is just one I know of. If I can't line up other examples It doesn't mean they don't exist now or can't exist in the future. The fact is that if you took a snapshot of the NOTAM database of State A and compared it with a snapshot of the NOTAM database of State B you would find differences. The safest way is therefore to do what the rules expect and take a brief from a service that uses the database of the State within which your flight originates.

WRT the certification of ANSP's, it would be up to a Court to decide whether or not the briefing you took complied with the requirement of Art 52 of the ANO
52 The commander of an aircraft registered in the United Kingdom shall take all
reasonable steps to satisfy himself before the aircraft takes off:
(a) that the flight can safely be made, taking into account the latest information available as to the route and aerodrome to be used, the weather reports and forecasts available and any alternative course of action which can be adopted in case the flight cannot be completed as planned;.......
I'm only the messenger, I don't write the rules, I was just trying to ensure that drauk knows the way the authorities are moving.

Mike
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Old 19th Sep 2006, 19:56
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Fortunately Art 52 is massively non-specific

I would be amazed if somebody briefing from GFS got done; the data from GFS is no more and no less random than the data from the UKMO. But - depending which website you use - it's potentially far more complete and that would make a very compelling pro-safety argument; a good lawyer would make mincemeat of the other side by drawing attention to the data which the UKMO witholds in order to make money.

But not a lot of people know about Art 52; I am sure that most UK PPLs really do believe that you have to brief from the UKMO to be legal. A bit like carrying paper charts - no law (in the UK) requiring that either.
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Old 2nd Mar 2007, 17:38
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la bite d'ane ( to add to the cohones list) (thats french of course - nothing to do with nihbahs)
Anyway can I - as an ex IT man - add my worship tothelist - it si a thoroughly excellent site - very intuitive and summarises stuff in an easily digested way - It is so excellent I can't believe it wont be charged for soon.
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Old 13th Sep 2007, 13:04
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What I find particularly appealing about Druik's site is the graphic NOTAM presentation.
I don't fly every day (in fact since selling my aircraft I don't even fly every week!) but what I do do is take a look at the local NOTAM's most days - just out of interest. It's so easy to see what is going on.
I find that I am getting a 'feel' of what NOTAMs are around and it all seems a lot easier to remember - as opposed to getting a full brief just when I am about to fly. I can understand how 'regular' pilots find it so much easier to take in NOTAM information that us 'irregular' pilots.
This daily routine has not been suggested before and would be impossible using the AIS site, but is an approach that helps me and one I would recommend.
When you check your emails check http://fly.dsc.net/u/Map

P.S. Druik, it looks better without the advert!
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Old 13th Sep 2007, 13:12
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P.S. Druik, it looks better without the advert!
Better without the advert it may look, but I've not asked for nor received a single penny from anyone for running the site 24/7 for several years. You don't seriously expect me not to take up an inch of my screen space with notice of my own aeroplane for sale do you?!
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