Okay, now I am REALLY p'd off with this.

Read this: http://www.ais.org.uk/aes/en/image/N...11-09-2002.pdf

What a bunch of arrogant so'n'so's they are...

MOR AIS, fax CAA, ring your MP, fax the newspapers/TV/Radio anyone who will listen and understand the problem!

How are the GA community supposed to take these jokers seriously??

Ridiculous

Well that makes me feel really warm.

I'm sticking to circuits. much safer.
Walt,,

P.S. What if there is a NOTAM for my home airport? DOH!:p

Making it work...
 

The NATS statement is signed "MANAGER" - why not give their names, like any other commercial organistion does?

I think that the outages are unforgiveable, and the way in which the transition from the old system has been handled was, at best, amateurish from the end user perspective.

Having said all that though, I think I am coming to grips with the system. I've been able to obtain relevant NOTAMs for planned my flight to Blackpool this Saturday using the "narrow route" function, and while there was some extraneous stuff in the resulant print-out (as before), I have been able to find the relevant stuff including a PJE, a couple of Air Displays and some Kite Flying on or near to my track, as well as several relevant navaid outages etc.

But have I got all the NOTAMs? Before we could tell for sure as by reading A1 and A8 you knew you had all of them... This is a weakness in the new system, so I've saved a copy of the output into a text file for safety sake - in case I blunder into something that was not mentioned in the report generated and need to defend myself.

Anyway, I am now starting to think that we will get used to the new system - even though its not as useful or as good from our perspective as the previous system, and requires that we become accustomed to its weaknesses. But I suppose that we will learn how to make it work for us - we're smart people after all :).

This is not to excuse the failings I've mentioned above, nor my ongoing concerns over the system outages we've been seeing over recent days, but what's done is done...

I have just received a printout of 34 pages of Notams, for a flight that crosses 3 FIR's. Then I happened upon a part of the NATS site that gives responsibilities in that "organisation" - possibly a misue of the word.

The manager of AIS is one Phil Bate (presumably know to his friends and servants as Master !).

His e-mail address is [email protected].

I guess he might just be receiving an abnormally high load of e-mails from now on!

Skua

Action needed
 

Can I ask you please to take a look at the post on this subject at http://www.flyontrack.co.uk/comm.asp
dated 12/9/2002 at 12:46

This post is signed by the three pilots running the OnTrack project on behalf of the CAA and proposes action that we can take in order to force improvements.

Mike

Thanks Mike - I was just logging on to make the invitation to any of you who want to use the system properly to make your voice heard.

NATS must listen to you, their Customers and incorporate the improvements being demanded on Safety grounds alone, and we give practical advice on how this can be achieved.

It's at: http://www.flyontrack.co.uk/comm.asp

While you're visiting the site, please take time to look around the home page and let us have any ideas or suggestions you may have on reducing airspace infringements........... That's our real aim, but we have provided a useful forum for highlighting the AIS problems, which is fine by us - we hope it all helps.

After a couple of hours trying to submit my wife's tax return on the inland revenue's website the AIS Notam pages suddenly don't seem so bad... :rolleyes: :)

Evo,

Even in today's economy I don't think the death penalty applies if you cannot file IR (Inland Revenue) stuff online...

Still comparable?

Evo

The best advice I had was "Don't even bother trying with the Inland Revenue online submission."

I did try, nevertheless, and it proved to be a waste of a half an hour or more of good core lifetime.

Do the paper one, and post it - you've got to get it all together on paper anyway, to be sure you're happy with all the details.

Anyway, as soon as you need any of the "extra forms", you find they don't have them yet so it's back to the paper form.

Meanwhile - I've been able to get into the AIS site every time I've tried this past two days!

Keef said:I think they may have replaced the "Commodore 64" back end with a 386DX...

Either that or it can cope when there's only you online ;)

Sadly, nothing to add. Just wanted to keep this thread up the top as its too important to let it disappear

Going against the grain somewhat, can I just say that I've had no problems at all with the site, nor with getting NOTAMS sorted out for whenever I've wanted to go flying, but I did have to spend an hour jotting down the ICAO codes for every one of the airfields I was going anywhere near 'cos just putting in the name would be far too easy, wouldn't it....

Continuing the positive theme...

Having spent a large part of yesterday (Friday 20/9) with AIS I think things are going to get better, and quite soon.

I'm just putting together some "words" around our discussions yesterday, and when I have done so will post them here...

Have now written some "words" about my visit with AIS on Friday.

I have posted them on PPL/IR website.

http://www.pplir.org

Thanks for your efforts Rustle.
Was anything mentioned with regard to Notamplot or a similar capability to plot Notams on a map for easy visual reference?

Yes, rustle, thanks for your efforts, but as far as I am concerned the new system has effectively disabled the only truly useable means of accessing NOTAM info -- Notamplot. What are they doing to either:

a) Provide an interface as good.

b) Restore the information feed so Notamplot functions once more.

QDM

Rustle

Can only echo QDM and also gratitude for your efforts. I am persevering with the new site and experience is helping illicit the information I need but I know of people flying without checking the notams first. Crazy I know, but a fact of life post-Notamplot.

-bcfc

Re NotamPlot:

I think we realistically couldn't expect AIS to comment favourably or otherwise about NotamPlot: if they said it was good it becomes an endorsement, and if they said anything negative that becomes a problem too - so saying nothing seems sensible...

Some perspective:

The A1/A8 data via Internet became available Q1/1998.

NotamPlot became available Q1/2002.

It's probably fair to say that enhancements and "value-add" will happen much quicker now, post NotamPlot, than the 4 years it took prior to NotamPlot because there is so obviously a market for such enhancements.

Whether or not these are from AIS or others I wouldn't like to guess.

I know Ian (of NotamPlot fame not fortune) is looking into this even as I write.

To my mind there are two "action lists":

Phase I - must have:

Sorting by Lat/Long, better communication about changes, perhaps a structured "transition" period, better "POH" for the site etc.

then,

Phase II - nice to have:

Graphical representation of NOTAM data, WAP availability etc.

There are a myriad extras that could be done, but my thinking would be make sure Phase I is correct prior to embarking on Phase II.

QDM, to answer your question more directly, I think if a transition period was to occur that would enable you to use the tool you are comfortable with whilst enabling them (or a.another) to develop new tools you would be comfortable with.

Sort of a win-win.

I have asked :)

There have been some good changes made to the site.

More information available from the front (login) page.

Worth another look :)