Dreadful
 

Not like me to whinge about fellow pilots but as I also posted elsewhere it was just dreaful today. In the space of 20 minutes pilot after pilot managed to infringe the temporary class A around Farnborough - the poor controller was pulling his hair out.

Dont most of us bother to read the NOTAMs any more?

I do, no reason not to. Only take a couple of minutes..

Some lazy people about if you ask me.

People that don't read NOTAMs shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the controls of an aircraft! Wouldn't like to see one of these ignorant arses flying through the likes of a chunk blocked off for SAR operations or high-energy fighter jet training. :ugh:

Notams
 

Might help a lot if they were more user friendly.
Point cursor at map,and the relevant Notams show up.
Is it that difficult to make it easier in these modern times?:confused:

Lister - it is that easy - there are plenty of graphical apps - even including for mobile phones. The temporary class A was clearly shown - the only way you could miss it is because you didnt look.

I have been a huge supporter of graphical interfaces and while it would still be helpful to see an "official" graphical interface, there are plenty of third party products around.

Sorry, but I just dont go with that excuse.

Fuji-I'm not makling excuses,just a valid comment for me.
 

I have tried various sites and found them difficult,maybe I am not au fait with modern technology and need a hands on with a local pal.
I do ask local airfield re relevant Notams before I fly.:)
and I tend to fly localish flights.
Lister

fuzzy it really does depend who it is.

They don't create SID's and STAR's though.

The access to the airspace is very very dependent on who's in the aircraft requiring class A and who is actually controlling at the time and if there is radar or not.

In my limited exerence which is a few years old now.

Any thing to do with American's and the whole lot gets locked down, men in black turn up in the tower and its very restricted even if you are IFR. You have no chance getting a sly SVFR clearance or taking a IFR clearance in the air. At my local field we used to get certain high ranking yanks coming to play golf.

Now Royal flights I won't go into details but they are alot more civilised and sensible in the application of class A and there is minimal fuss for all concerned. If you are on the apron near where the aircraft will park someone will come and have a chat and be very pleasant. If they ask you to do something, you will have no doudt that you will do as your told but they way they do it you really couldn't get annoyed. They are that slick as well any restrictions are done and dusted within 10 mins of the aircraft arriving. Where as a yank turning up can be a ball ache for 40 mins plus.

Olivia is my friend!

The French narrow route NOTAM site is by far the easiest to use in my opinion and she doesn't mind at all whether you are going fom Dunkeswell to Rochester or Le Bourget to Nice.

It is frankly ridiculous in this day and age that the UK doesn't have an official graphic display of NOTAMs.

The abysmal NATS site is an utter pain to use; if you don't use one of your standard routes frequently enough for Big brother's liking, they delete it from the system.... Even when you do succeed in obtaining a list of NOTAMs, the detail is often not in a readily assimilated format.

The requirement needs to be user-defined, not something 'legal but useless' involving strings of lat/long values which people are supposed to plot out on a chart!

As a minimum, a CAA 1/2 mill chart of the entire UK FIR should be provided on-line, overlaid with all current NOTAMs (including a 'click to reveal detail' tab, a 'save to scratchpad' feature and an ability to print out the scratchpad). Even better if one could add pushpin waypoints to define a track, then specify the 'route width' within which NOTAM information is sought.

No doubt there'll be NATS-apologists along to say how good their system is, or to plead poverty, but the simple fact is that this is the 21st Century and that user-friendly graphic interfaces are the norm.

I'm sure that there are third-party applications which do this sort of thing; however, unless NATS provides an official system (or contracts the requirement to an official service provider), there will always be doubts about the accuracy of the information presented.

Lister

Try Googling Griffin Helicopters, I like the graphical stuff they do online for free but there are loads of others.

Here it is:

Griffin Helicopters | Notam Map

I am not keen on the Griffin rendering.

It is slow to identify the NOTAM and does not really show the oeprative area.

Products such as NotamPlot do the job far better, are quick and easy to use, more the pity that they only cover the UK.

Not seen the Griffin site before..very good.
I have been using this for a few years now.
Download
Other free software is available.
Any good apps for the iphone?

I know dozens of local PPLs at my base airfield who don't read NOTAMs prior to flight. I suspect the reason for this is that they perceive it as a dull, time consuming waste of their time that was perhaps only an activity to satisfy during their PPL training.

I agree with BEagle that if NATS presented graphical online access it may lessen how many ignore the system, but, without wanting to sound ageist, there are those I know of later years who "haven't checked them in the last 30 years and I've been ok so why should I start now? I only fly round the houses and back."

There are times I trawl through a narrow route brief off the NATS site and find it's mostly all guff about unlit cranes up to 100 feet etc. which is highly unlikely to affect my flight; it takes some repetition of reading NOTAM briefs to be able to filter out the less important stuff.

Remember, NOTAM briefs used to be a sheet of paper that hung off the flying club noticeboard; with more people flying privately and not being members of a club poor discipline can creep in and the process (or the online facility) is long forgotten.

I think the NATS system is fairly simple to use; it's just the lack of graphics that let it down.

Every morning I stick a pin in my 1:500,00O chart where every bit of notamed activity is taking place for that day.......so if your flying over Scotland give me a call " Scottish Info 119.875"and I will advise if anything is going to affect your route......after all thats what were here for......the service is free so for those that dont bother next time just give it a try..:cool::cool::cool:

When the NATS site flags up: why isn't there an associated help feature? And what the heck is 'parsing a route'. No speako geeko!!

Also, why won't it accept, for example, SWB (Shawbury) as a waypoint? It knows about the SWB in Louisiana, but not the one in Shropshire, it seems. So you have to enter 5247N00239W.....or was it N5247W00239?

A UK route 'string' should be able to understand any published UK navaid included as a waypoint.

fishbangwallop - "I will advise if anything is going to affect your route......after all thats what were here for.." Are you really an ATCO? That kind of talk is a bit unusual to an awful lot of pilots.

Beags,

Because SWB VOR is a 'terminal' rather than 'en route' beacon (I've heard that as an excuse)? Playing around with that NATS app, it doesn't seem to recognise either the BZ or LA NDBs, or any of the TACANs, so maybe it's a Mil vs. Civil thing... I know you can't use ICAO references for airfields (if you insist on planning through airfield overheads).

No I am a "FISO Area" just here to help you boys in your toys to safely get from A-B....is that unusual??? :cool::cool::cool:

Nope he is Scottish information and an AreaFISO.

Although I don't agree with his current comment about calling them up to get the notams. Notams Briefing is a preflight requirement.

Scottish information does exactly what it says on the tin. Be you at FL's needing wx actuals up north or a spam can enjoying life. They are nearly always a happy voice on the RT. They put student pilots at ease, as you see here encourage pilots to use the service. And I think pretty much all GA pilots use scottish info as a matter of course and I have never really heard a moan about the service in its area.

And to be honest its not unusal in the scottish FIR to have helpful ATCO's in my experence. Some times they get thier backsides bitten by being to helpfull and we end up with the thankfully rare situation that occur when biggles landed in a tree in Dundee.

Another thing that needs done to the notams is all the ones that have been active over a year get shot of and documented in AIS.

For example the one about the lack of high intensity lighting on Mount Eagle Mast has been active for longer than I have been flying.

Can we not rename you to Basic Information Service Traffic Officer then you can be a BISTO area? FIS

MCT207036 is marginally easier than the Lat/Lon.

I agree that SWB would be easier still...

No excuse...
 

I agree its not the most user friendly system, but depending upon what I'm doing that day I either just use a point brief (25 miles) or a narrow route brief....both of which are saved in my briefing handbook.

By doing it myself, I can know what, if anything, awaits my students or hirer that wants to discuss them. I will often 'red pin' the wall mounted chart so at least people know there is something up...they then have to go find it for themselves.

Never an excuse for not looking...

True, but that is a measured position, rather than a published position. Is the 207 in degM - or defined using the published declination for MCT?

When the NATS system fist started, I created an easy, roughly square area brief for middle England by specifying a fictitious route from EGVN via VLN DCT SWB DCT CTM DCT MID DCT VLN back to EGVN. Route width of 40nm, so the information for legs on opposite sides of the rectangle overlapped, meaning that there was no 'hole in the middle'. I used this dozens of times, with top level of FL60 - or FL060 in NATS-speak...:rolleyes: It was saved as a route and was very simple to use. A circular 'point brief' would not have been as useful.

However, NATS later erased the route as I didn't use it for some weeks..... Thanks a bunch.

Now I have to specify DCT 5100N00238W DCT 5247N00239W DCT 5244N00039W DCT MID DCT 5100N00238W DCT which is far more error-prone and cumbersome.

If NATS really wants to cut down on airspace infringements, then they need to produce a web-based 'red pin wall chart' and update it every time a new 'red pin' is created. I would also suggest a 'lower level' filter, so that people didn't have to wade through all the 'training of birds of prey' and unlit chimneys etc....

Good question, and I couldn't find the answer in the NATS "Help". I assumed it was the radial, like the Flight Plan waypoints. So presumably the published declination.

A graphical interface would remove the need for all of this.

Mad Jock..Bludy hell MJ you will be wanting free roast beef then as well!!.....thanks for your kind comments though......hope you keeping well and dodging the sandstorms ..:cool::cool::cool::cool:

in Germany the DFS has a great NOTAM site. You can register with them for free. This link may not work since it's under my registration name, but give it a try:

VFR-Bulletin by DFS Deutsche Flugsicherung GmbH

You just put your mouse over the "i" (for info) and the notam appears.

Two points arise from this discussion.

First NOTAMS aren't hard, a narrow route brief and a phone call will tell you all you need from NATS and there are numerous reasonably reliable graphics sites if you need them. There is no excuse, if an old f@rt like me can cope so can anybody else.

Second what in heaven's name are our authorities doing setting up temporary controlled airspace for Americans, let alone permitting them to take some sort of official role in an airport control tower on British soil? Have we gone completely nuts?

Whilst there might be any number of 'reasonably reliable graphics sites' available, only official sites should be relied upon. Westie's DFS site shows the sort of thing which NATS should be able to provide.

Don't forget how that simpering little nuLabor poodle Bliar would lick GeeDubya Bush's backside at each and every opportunity!

Because it's not in the bleedin' AIP that's why. It's a mil navaid and not calibrated to ICAO standards.

So what. The hell with 'calibrated to ICAO standards' - it's a published UK navaid and it is the location which is used.

I can guarantee that if I told some air-trafficker that my next turning point was 'Shawbury' or 'SWB', he/she wouldn't sniffily reply that he/she didn't know where that was, because...Told you so! NATS needs to help, not hinder.

Maybe if there were a few high profile prosecutions then they'd change their attitude?

I accept completely points made elsewhere about NOTAMSs being difficult to read/analyse/interpret, etc. and that an official means of plotting them graphically (instead of relying on Spine, NotamPlot, etc) would make them more 'user friendly'. Meranwhile rules are rules and pilots really should be aware of what's happening in their bit of sky. To not check NOTAMS smacks at best of lazyness and at worst arrogance. Either of these attributes in aviation are likely to result in tears.

For all iPhone users out there, add the appropriately titled NOTAMS app. You enter the start and destination airports and all the relevant NOTAMS appear within a 20 mile radius of each airport and 20 mile buffer either side of track. Also gives a map of your route. Takes seconds.
Absolutely brilliant.

How does that work, then, given that location information is not required to be encoded in any particular machine readable format in NOTAMs, and all the other NOTAM plotting applications have to guess a bit. Which is why none of the others claims to plot "all the relevant NOTAMS", just that subset that they can interpret.

How does your iPhone application invent information that isn't there? Is there a human being sitting at the other end doing the plotting for you (that would work, if you were willing to pay for it, but nothing else can)?

Gertrude,

The NOTAM Q) line does contain the position, radius and vertical extent of the area in a well defined format which is amenable to automatic transcription - this is what gives you the big red circles you see on third party plotting tools.

This is also the circular extent of the NOTAM which is used by route briefing reports (including the AIS).

Some third party tools (such as mine) also parse co-ordinate data within the free form E) line text and interpret it as route or extent data. Whilst for complex NOTAMs containing multiple routes or extents this may not be entirely sufficient, it does immediately flag up gross errors in the NOTAM preparation, particularly where the free-form co-ordinate data clearly doesn't correspond to the stated centre and radius data in the Q) line.

Take for example, this initial attempt at a NOTAM for a Red Arrows' transit for today, 19th June:

H2186/10

Q) EGTT/QWVLW/IV/M/W/000/030/5115N00120W020
B) FROM: 10/06/19 10:57C) TO: 10/06/19 11:52
E) FORMATION TRANSIT BY RED ARROWS ACFT ROUTING:
5121N 00121E (MANSTON AD, KENT) 1107 HR
5114N 00118E (BETTESHANGER, KENT) 1109 HR
5114N 00108E (BISHOPSBOURNE, KENT) 1110 HR
5107N 00114E (WEST HOUGHAM, KENT) 1112 HR
5112N 00123E (KINGSDOWN, KENT) 1113 HR
5124N 00125E (MARGATE, KENT) DISPLAY 1115-1139 HR
5121N 00121E (MANSTON AD, KENT) 1142 HR
FORMATION PLANS TO TRANSIT AT 2000FT AGL. TIMINGS, HGT AND ROUTE ARE
APRX AND MAY CHANGE DUE TO WX OR OTHER REQUIREMENTS.
SEE SEPARATE NOTAM FOR THE RESTRICTED AREA (TEMPORARY) FOR MARGATE
AIRSHOW. AUS 10-06-0452/AS1
LOWER: SFC
UPPER: 3000FT AMSL

A simple plot of the Q) line and E) line data show a gross error:

http://metutil-test.appspot.com/NotamData?type=KML&ids=H2186/10 - Google Maps

...which was corrected after a few hours, but it does raise a couple of points (which arguably have been done to death, but since the problem is clearly recurring, aren't quite dead yet)

1) Why wasn't the data verified before publication? - there is a recurring problem with NOTAM source from this particular origin. The NOTAM for the reciprocal transit had the same problem

2) The Narrow Route Brief for a route passing through the actual track of the Red's transit would not have returned any details of the NOTAM, since the extent of the NOTAM used by the NRB was on the other side of the country.

The XML-encoded NOTAM format which will be with us in a few years - probably - might catch this sort of problem earlier, but until then we're stuck with the system we've got. Make the best of it.

It is worth having the AIS recorded info line stored on your mobile which details Retrictions to Flying and Airspace Upgrades for the day. I usually dial this on the way to the flying club just to get a picture of what's happening as often one chum or another will suggest an impromptu flying jaunt (and we happen to be v close to Farnborough).

AIS: 0500 354 802 (and 0044 20 8750 3939 from abroad)

Obviously for pre-planned trips I do review the NOTAMS, in my case on the Skybook site which is the best one I have come across (Europe's most integrated pre-flight briefing service for the General Aviation (GA) pilot). This is generally a highly tedious experience (on any site) because even with a narrow route briefing the filtering is so crude that one ends up with 95% of cr*p. Even if you exclude enroute airports you still have to read about all the taxi lights that don't work (and cranes, although the base of flight has been set at 3000' :eek:). Most sane people would do their best to avoid this junk. My answer would be to heavily fine someone for entering a NOTAM in the first place without bothering to set realistic parameters. Kite flying should not appear on a route set at FL50 !! I'm convinced they deliberately chuck in everything to absolve themselves of any possible liability . . . . but by doing so they heavily degrade the effectiveness of the system. . . ..

Another incident - last Saturday I was flying out of Stapleford then doing aerobatics over northern Kent (the nearest I could find enough headroom!).

Crossing the route of the Queen's birthday flypast and subsequently, I had a Basic Service from Southend. I'd guesstimate that at-least half of the GA they were handling had to be specifically told that the flypast route airspace was closed to them, and on one occasion a pilot seemed to be asking the controller to read and interpret the NOTAM to him !

A very large proportion of GA pilots who should have known better!

(Incidentally, full marks to the staff at Stapleford who seemed to be reminding every pilot entering or leaving the door of the clubhouse about the flypast NOTAM.)


Thanks for the Griffin link by the way - quite useful.

G

We had a Notam'd aerobatics competition yesterday at Little Gransden.

Three aircraft flew through the overhead in the middle of our aerobatic box at between 1500 and 2500 ft. None of them responded to calls on the Little Gransden frequency. We had to stop 2 flights and delay a 3rd because of them. They didn't even notice an aircraft doing aerobatics!

We normally get 2 or 3 doing this at a competition.

ZA

“Notams Briefing is a preflight requirement.”

True, but you can do that by phone.

Zulu Alpha

Did you have an RA(T)? If not then the aircraft were operating perfectly legally (outside any ATZ)…

Rod1

I don't disagree with that rod.

I was sort of hinting that it should be done before you speak to scottish by RT.

B) FROM: 10/06/20 17:50C) TO: 10/06/20 18:41
E) FORMATION TRANSIT BY RED ARROWS ACFT ROUTING:5121N 00121E (MANSTON AD, KENT) 1800 HR5144N 00123E (OVER THE SEA) 1805 HR5222N 00041W (BURTON LATIMER, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE) 1820 HR5314N 00037W (SKELLINGTHORPE, LINCOLNSHIRE) FLYPAST AT 1829 HR5318N 00033W (SCAMPTON AD, LINCOLNSHIRE) 1831 HRFORMATION PLANS TO TRANSIT AT 2000FT AGL. TIMINGS, HGT AND ROUTE AREAPRX AND MAY CHANGE DUE TO WX OR OTHER REQUIREMENTS. AUS10-06-0478/AS1LOWER: SFC
UPPER: 3000FT AMSL

I went on a local bimble this afternoon after reading the above. I entered their co-ordinates into my gps to veiw their track between Burton Latimer and Skellingthorpe as I figured they would pass close to where I would be, I was back on the ground long before they passed o/h but I'd say they were 3 or 4 miles west ofthe intended track and at 500ft. Whats the point of publishing a route and planned transit height and not adhering to them, I know they use the words 'approximate, and may change' but seems a bit ambiguous to me, Though I think the timing was about right!

BEagle

The NATS NOTAM system works by applying filters to the raw data. In the case of a NRB it filters based on the route you input.

The database of waypoints is maintained from the AIP's of all of the ICAO contracting states. The process for notifying new waypoints and deleting obsolete ones is set out by ICAO and quality assured to ICAO Standards.

If you introduce non-compliant data into the database you compromise data integrity. If it's not an officially notified reporting point then it's a matter of fact that there will not be any notification if it were withdrawn. Neither, in the case of SWB will there be any notification of inaccuracy or unserviceablity.

The routing in the NRB follows the same conventions as the routing in a Flight Plan. If you file a FPL stating that you were routing via SWB you'd get the same problem The only SWB that ICAO recognises is the Sawmill VOR/DME which is near David G Joyce Airport at Winnfield Louisiana.

There was a case some years ago of a fatal CFIT in Wales where the COM was found tuned to the Lands End VOR, which had been NOTAMMED as out of service, leading to the suggestion that the pilot might have been unwittingly following a wandering needle into the mountains. At least in that case if he had read the NOTAM he would have been aware. If it ain't in the AIP you get no notification.