NOTAM timing
 

In the UK, assuming you call AIS Info 0500 354 802 shortly before takeoff, how far in advance of your flight can you read NOTAMS, and still have "read the NOTAMS"?

I'm assuming a few hours in advance is OK, but how about the evening before? Is there a publication schedule, or some official guidance? I couldn't find anything on the NATS/AIS website.

NOTAMs can be issued at any time. There is no schedule. Even in-flight you may be confronted with the effects of a NOTAM that was only issued after you took off.

Usually, if there are significant and urgent things that require a NOTAM to be issued and take effect immediately, the ATC unit you are monitoring/speaking to will also announce it.

And for instance the NOTAMs about airspace closures due to VA are typically issued only about three hours in advance, and updated almost continuously as the situation develops.

But most routine NOTAMs however seem to be published at least some three days in advance.

Just go online and check out with a route brief before you head off.......anything that comes in late and may affect you i.e. TDA's "Temporary Danger Area's" etc if your in contact with Scottish/London Information they will advise you of the latest info ...check out AIS here.

NATS | AIS - Home

Backpacker, thanks. That all sounds very practical.

fisbangwallop, I should have been clearer. I do go online for a narrow route brief before flying, but as I get closer to flight time, internet access is sometimes trickier. After a brief stop at my destination I usually don't go through the NOTAMS all over again before returning. So my NOTAMs might be several hours old when I fly back. This seems to be normal GA practice, but I wondered if there was any official guidance.

24....as I said earlier, just make a habit of talking to the Flight Information service and they should advise you of any thing relevant enroute....I say that because that is what I do to any one that calls me for a service at Scottish Info :cool::cool::cool::cool:

I got told about a TRA for an unexploded WWII bomb, the NOTAM was issued after I'd taken off.

Apart from anything else, right now you could have a NOTAMED flight of a civil contingency research aircraft suddenly change whilst both you and they are airborne.

G

Although, to be fair, almost nobody flying internationally will be checking notams on the morning of the flight.

What matters most is whether the airport is open / has avgas / needs PPR / etc and that is normally established by making contact, and that is normally done well in advance.

During flight, one does to a large extent rely on ATC to direct traffic according to current notams, which ATC units are believed to plot out on some kind of board each morning.

With the AIS Narrow Route Briefing, it's very easy to check the notams the day before, and then on the morning of the flight ask for an "update". You only see new notams take came into existance since you last too the briefing.

It means you can do all the donkey work the day before, and only have 1 or 2 new notams (if any) to look at on the morning of departure.

Very handy feature.

The things that will affect the average VFR flight in the UK tend to be glider comps, aeros comps, air shows, kite and model rocket flying (!?) and the odd temporary danger area. These sorts of things tend to be published quite a long way in advance so as long as you check the NOTAMs when you're doing your briefing you'll be informed. There are obviously going to be the odd occasion when something happens while you're airborne, but that's what the radios for...

Exactly; I think the only likely short term stuff will be airport notams, and one can deal with that by contacting the airport.

One wonders how we all coped in the good old days. Only about 10 years ago or so, PPLs effectively had no means of obtaining Notams full stop, and now we are all paranoid just in case anything has happened whilst we went for a pee before take off...

I can't agree more....

Firstly, the internet has made it possible for every self-important yellow-jacket-wearing tom dick and harry who wants to fly a kite, or everybody with a chimney over 5ft tall which has a defunct red light on it (but whose lawyers have told him he has a "duty of care" :yuk: ) to feed their garbage into the system. This is why at least 90% of notams are total garbage.

Actually it is worse abroad than here. Do a briefing for a flight down to Greece, and you get all the Greek/Turkish disputes; pages of them. And on one flight I got many pages of notams all the way down Italy where some dick notamed every lamp-post along the Adriatic...

The more sinister thing is PPR and I suspect what has happened is that in the past the airport was simply open for traffic, and because they could not stop the traffic (and should not be able to, being a public airport) they had to make an effort. But today it is easy for the yellow-jacket **** to close it if a squashed hedgehog is reported on the runway. Why? Because the closure is very easy to notify to the whole world.

This is why I keep banging on :) about contacting the airport. In the UK, and other reliably English speaking countries, it is just an easy phone call.