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NOTAMS and why they need to be checked....

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NOTAMS and why they need to be checked....

Old 7th Sep 2008, 13:13
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I dont think cost is a significant factor
I do!

plug this into your G1000 or Avidyne
I don't have either.


If you are going to change the system we have, it will cost money and I really do not want to pay for something I get for free at the moment. The present system works plenty well enough.
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Old 7th Sep 2008, 14:01
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Jodelman

Given NATS have an obligation to provide NOTAMS free of charge at the moment how do you think you currently pay?

If EASA / ICAO mandates the promulgation of NOTAMS in a format more adaptable to "modern" communications why do you think you will be expected to pay for those changes any more / less than you do at the moment.

I am just wondering whether we are at cross purposes.

Up loading to glass was not linked to the first part of my reply other than as a musing that it would be a nice option if Garmin or Avidyne were to include this facility.
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Old 7th Sep 2008, 17:14
  #23 (permalink)  
 
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PP

1. The AIS site being a bit impenetrable ?

Agreed. I've been sent a draft of the new user guide and have provided my comments back to AIS.

2. With a small amount of software development the whole site could be much easier to use ?

I suspect you are confusing the data with the software that is used to present it. The content and format of the data is laid down in Annex 15 of the Chicago convention. UK AIS cannot change it. The format is not designed for anything other than a textual presentation. It would in any case be courting disaster to provide anything other than the originator's text (i.e. to change wot he wrote). If you have a good idea please share it with us. I'll be happy to put you in touch with the right people and, with my AOPA hat on to support you if you have something workable.

3. Not having NOTAMs arrive as black text on white background, but with some sort of colour key would help ?

Colour key is a possibility. How would you envisage it working? It's when you get to the nitty gritty that it gets tricky, particularly when you try to cater for briefings stuck on the wall having been printed on a mono laser. The market is of course entirely open to commercial providers to deliver alternative presentations if they want to. The fact that there is no stampede to do so perhaps indicates something.

4. The "golden ones" immediately coming out to criticise ?

You flatter me.

5. Or the bit I was being facetious and mentioned 50 pages of NOTAMs ?!

If you're going to be facetious I do wish you'd warn me. I'm a bear of very little brain. As I said 3 pages is about the norm. Anyone wading through 50 pages has done something badly wrong.


Calling me sunshine doesn't help. I think we had all of 10 seconds of it in Pompey this afternoon.

Mike
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Old 7th Sep 2008, 17:25
  #24 (permalink)  
 
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I'm still only a student just starting XC work but have already learnt to use NOTAM Check it's not free like some of the others mentioned above (it is very cheap) but it certainly works. All you do is paste the AIS NOTAM list into a window in NOTAM Check and it plots them onto a map for you. Then if you see any where you want to go, you click on them and it shows you the text. Easy.

One of my instructors also demonstrated the need to also call the AIS number. We did a XC route one evening. I had checked the NOTAMS and all was clear but the AIS line told him about a BBMF Hurricane doing fly-pasts close to our route which was not in the NOTAM brief.
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Old 7th Sep 2008, 18:16
  #25 (permalink)  
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Well an idea

No, it's not but would people be willing to PAY for a better system?

If the SQL database that is used to pomulgate NOTAM data (I'm presuming it is a SQL database) was made publicly readable then they could "open source" the software.

I'd be more than happy to provide a web interface to it, so that you could click nav points and it would query the database providing appropriate data. Maybe it's already publicly readable ? If so, I'd love to know the details...

You could simply provide the web interface as a "not for operational purposes" and give the disclaimer that the archaic ais web site is used. As the open souce alternative progresses you will almost certainly see it overtake the official outlet. Making NOTAMs easier for everyone.

Although the current AIS system is alright once you know how to navigate it I don't think anybody would deny making it intuitive would help everyone. You could point almost anybody at http://news.bbc.co.uk and they would be able to find the current lead story in asia, without any training. I don't think that almost anybody could be pointed @ ais.org.uk and told to find any NOTAMs for Farnborough and succceed ?


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Old 7th Sep 2008, 20:29
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If the SQL database that is used to pomulgate NOTAM data (I'm presuming it is a SQL database) was made publicly readable then they could "open source" the software.
Not quite so simple.

http://www.eurocontrol.int/ead/publi...tam_index.html
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Old 7th Sep 2008, 21:01
  #27 (permalink)  
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Hmm interesting...


Hmm, interesting. Reading \ writing XML to receive NOTAM information is not outrageous, but if it were possible to pull the whole thing down, say every morning from ais, and cache in a database then the easier, gui becomes more of a reality.

Is that website for international NOTAMs only ? Does the CAA \ AIS provide UK only Notams in database format ?


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Old 8th Sep 2008, 10:52
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Is that website for international NOTAMs only ? Does the CAA \ AIS provide UK only Notams in database format ?
1) Yes 2)No

The European AIS Database evolved out of recognition that it was a tad daft for every Eurocontrol State to maintain its own NOTAM database. The EAD covers not only dynamic data (NOTAM) but also static data (IAIP, SRD, AIC).

Now instead of each State subscribing to AFTN feeds of all other States' NOTAM it's all done at Eurocontrol. The UK no longer has its own NOTAM database. The EAD is populated with UK NOTAM by UK AIS staff at Heathrow House on the Bath Road using EAD terminals.

AFIK there has never been a database containing solely UK NOTAM, it's always been worldwide.

WRT pulling it down each day that's not hugely clever as you'd always be working with out of date data. When you run a brief on the AIS site it's a live query on the EAD. Basically you're applying filters on the data and if something went into the database 5 minutes before you clicked the submit button you'll get it included in the result if it meets the filter criteria.

drauk I believe was pulling down data every 15 mins or every half hour. If you're interested in finding out more then Annex 15 to the Chicago Convention contains the data format.

ICAO Doc 8126 contains the encode/decode for the Q codes used in the Q line but I don't know of an online source for that document.

The filtering and display options currently available are limited by the data format, which is what xnotam is designed to address.

Mike
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Old 8th Sep 2008, 11:03
  #29 (permalink)  
 
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Thread drift!

The original post complained (quite rightly in my view) about pilots, including students, seeking to land at/overfly Conington during a notamed aerobatic competition when they had apparently no knowledge of the event.

So how hard was it on the two or three days of the competition to find this notam?

My own experience was that a narrow route search on the AIS site for an intended flight to Conington on 29 August showed the Notam as the SECOND ITEM on the search results - the Destination aerodrome info.

How hard is that to spot?

Admittedly, anyone seeking to transit or overfly the ATZ would have had to look a bit further down the search results, because their destination would not have been Conington, but for goodness' sake, a narrow route search would have shown a nav warning with the name "Peterborough Connington" in it, not just a series of lats and longs! That should have rung a bell for anyone who had bothered to plot their route on a chart!

However difficult some notams may be to decipher, and however irrelevant some may be (all those transponder code changes spring to mind) the point here is that a narrow route search of the AIS site (which takes a minute or so to input) would have yielded the information in readable form for anyone who took the trouble to read it.

So you can moan all you like about the inadequacies of the notam system in general (and I'd agree to a considerable extent) but it doesn't invalidate what the first poster was saying. People should not have turned up at Conington ignorant of the Notam. And sending students out on solo NAVEXs without apparently having checked Notams just doesn't bear thinking about. Sure, nobody fell out of the sky, but a student who is put into an unfamiliar situation suddenly has a lot more workload to cope with and can make errors as a result of inexperience. Usually good for the soul if nothing serious happens, but on occasion ....
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Old 8th Sep 2008, 14:26
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Its taken me about 20 seconds to find the relevant notam from AIS:

EGTT/QWBLW/IV/M/AW/000/045/5228N00015W002
FROM: 08/08/28 11:00 TO: 08/08/30 19:30
E) AIR DISPLAY/AEROBATICS CONTEST WI 2NM RADIUS 5228N 00015W
(PETERBOROUGH/CONINGTON AD, CAMBS). AUS 08-08-0020/AS2LOWER: SFC
UPPER: 4100FT AMSL
SCHEDULE: 28 AUG 1100-1930, 29 30 AUG 0800-1930
Not rocket science at all
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Old 8th Sep 2008, 14:43
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During my training the most I would have been asked was 'have you checked the notams?' personally I see it as the students responsibility it seems blaming instructors as some have is a bit like blaming PPLs as their 'training' was poor. If pilots (student or PPL) haven't got any clue about these things they should look to themselves nobody else, it was obvious to me throughout my training that one doesn't launch off on a route without checking the notams, it was something that I knew I had to be on the ball about, so why not others?
Fact is it is the instructors responsibility to satisfy himself you have properly briefed for the flight - guess whose neck it is when the stude passes through the Red Arrow display.

.. .. .. imho rightly so, you are a student through out the PPL course, it does no harm when sent out on your very first x-country(s) to be reminded of the planning components - if you have them all covered good on you, if you havent its another lesson learnt. If you fly through NOTAM'ed airspace shame on you, but more shame on your instuctor - unless you told him you had checked, but hadnt really!!
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Old 8th Sep 2008, 15:49
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Emma - yep, I agree, the instructor should also be concerned if the student gets to the x-country and hasnt correctly prepared. Of course the instructor sending the student off on the x-country is usually one and the same that has done the training to date. I have heard at some clubs they get another instructor to supervise the x-country which isnt such a bad idea. It can give the student a different perspective on some of planning elements.
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Old 8th Sep 2008, 16:25
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I think a part of the "notam problem" is that most of the UK GA scene is quite "old" in terms of pilot age, and doesn't have IT skills.

Somewhere around 90% of new PPLs chuck it in for good within a year or two, which leaves only a slow trickle of pilots who will hang in there entering the PPL scene each year. All the rest are much older "residents" who trained, I guess, on average, maybe 20 years ago.

And anybody who trained before c. 2002 will not have seen any notam website at all. In 2003 the ais.org.uk site was crap, missing off vital French power station TRAs which nearly got me busted by the frogs.

And most "older" pilots do not know how to use a PC, never mind the internet.

I do not wish to sound disrespectful to older pilots (I fly with many of them) but what we have here is a WW1/WW2 training scene which in its backwardness stops just short of handing out leather helmets and goggles on your first solo, while the powers to be have brought in a super duper modern bang up to date system for notams, whose ignorance is more or less guaranteed by the majority of currently active pilots because it requires bang up to date IT skills (called the "internet") to use.

To me, this is fair enough, and I have mobile internet so I can check notams anywhere, with a PDA, with a laptop, could even do it in Mongolia using a satellite phone, could even do it when airborne, but currently most UK airfields do not even have public internet access!

When I got my PPL in 2001 I had never been shown how to check notams. The Chief Flying Instructor (note the capital letters - I am showing due respect by writing it as the CAA due in their letters) would pin some local notam printout to the wall each morning, together with tafs/metars, and each instructor would give it a quick glance, and that was it. And I am a relatively recent recruit to flying...

The best thing the CAA could do it mandate a free internet connected PC at every airfield.
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Old 8th Sep 2008, 16:45
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And most "older" pilots do not know how to use a PC, never mind the internet.

Where did that load of arrogant misinformed rubbish come from,I started using PC's in the early 80's,that's 1980 not my age.

A lot of people of my age are PC and internet savvy,so don't be o bl@@dy ageist.
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Old 8th Sep 2008, 21:37
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Isn't being shown how to access and read NOTAM's part of PPL training ? If it isn't then it certainly should be.
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Old 8th Sep 2008, 21:45
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Over all the years including FAA BFR, MEP, SEP and instrument renewals (my goodness do we have to do so many renewals!) I cant recall being asked once if I had checked the NOTAMS.
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Old 9th Sep 2008, 06:07
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Isn't being shown how to access and read NOTAM's part of PPL training ? If it isn't then it certainly should be.
I don't think any use of the internet is on the PPL syllabus, though clearly it should be given that notams are accessible (practically) only via the internet, and so is weather info. But if the CAA made it thus, they would have to mandate its universal provision on the training scene, which they have no power to do. It's a bit like the idea of mandating GPS for the PPL syllabus - they would then have to mandate its installation in the training fleet, which they could do but they would have a war on their hands from the flight training industry.

My guess is that most schools do have internet access and most of them will allow a curious student to look stuff up, but that applies to people being currently trained. The vast majority of the ~ 20,000 numbered UK pilot population gets nowhere near this.

And it's pretty evident that the 2-yearly check flights do not test this.
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Old 9th Sep 2008, 08:46
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"I don't think any use of the internet is on the PPL syllabus, though clearly it should be given that notams are accessible (practically) only via the internet, and so is weather info. But if the CAA made it thus, they would have to mandate its universal provision on the training scene, which they have no power to do."

......I thought that there was an obligation on all training schools to provide access to NOTAM's ? I can't think of any briefing rooms that I've visited that hasn't had them pinned up on the noticeboard (ok, I haven't visited many flying schools!).

" It's a bit like the idea of mandating GPS for the PPL syllabus - they would then have to mandate its installation in the training fleet".

.......No, the CAA would have to mandate that pilots read NOTAMs before flying. I thought that they had and am quite concerned that some pilots don't check that there aren't any NOTAMs that could affect them.

"My guess is that most schools do have internet access and most of them will allow a curious student to look stuff up, but that applies to people being currently trained. The vast majority of the ~ 20,000 numbered UK pilot population gets nowhere near this.
And it's pretty evident that the 2-yearly check flights do not test this."

........Seems a pretty good reason to me as to why they should be included then.

I overheard a pilot recently who was visiting a club/school to do a check flight and NavEx. He didn't have the appropriate map, hadn't checked the NOTAMs, hadn't checked the Met (obviously unflyable because it was raining and the Met Office had issued a weather advisory for the area). Makes me wonder what's going through their minds!
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Old 9th Sep 2008, 09:17
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A few years ago, I came face to face with a large retractable helicopter in the competition box at the UK Nationals. I was so close that I can still recall the number of pens that the chap in the RHS had in his breast pocket. Yet, he still hadn't seen me. I've had gliders run through the box (Fenland) and I've seen a gaggle of microlights landing non-radio whilst the comp was in progress in the overhead.

People make mistakes, we all know that they should not - accept it.

Narrow Route Brief, and a couple of phone calls for PPR have kept me out of trouble over the last 15 years.

Notams are a little clunky but they are the best that we have today. Live with it until something better comes along or you decide to create something better. Frankly they work ok for me.

Stik
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Old 9th Sep 2008, 09:33
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......I thought that there was an obligation on all training schools to provide access to NOTAM's ? I can't think of any briefing rooms that I've visited that hasn't had them pinned up on the noticeboard (ok, I haven't visited many flying schools!).
Well, yes, it's indeed pinned to the wall or somehow there. But since that printout has to include every airfield and FIR where a member might conceivably fly to that day, this is indeed the proverbial 50-page document full of PJEs and stuff. Not fun to read through. Even worse if your geographical knowledge isn't fully up to scratch (if you're a foreigner, say) and you have no idea where Nowhereshire is - you need to plot all lat/long coordinates on a map to see if there's anything that's relevant.

As others have said, there are websites that allow a narrow route briefing which greatly reduces the amount of NOTAMs. But if no instructor points this out to the students, how are they going to learn?

BTW am I the only one who thinks the Eurocontrol PIB interface is crap? You have a choice of the basic view, which is plain HTML and doesn't allow any filtering at all, or you have the advanced view which downloads a seriously big Java applet to do your filtering. It has a number of logical errors as well (it doesn't accept a "local" flight for instance, where DEP = DEST, and if you're not interested in either the snowtam or the ashtam it throws an error.) This in addition to opening at least three or so different browser windows/tabs and hiding the most obvious buttons somewhere in the text.
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