AIS NOTAM briefing and unlicensed a/d

Mike Cross · Post by **Mike Cross** » Tue Aug 31, 2010 2:23 pm

The change to allow training from unlicensed aerodromes has led to a number of a/d deciding to go unlicensed. Since the AIP only includes licensed a/d it has also resulted in them no longer appearing in the AIP. As no information about them is published in the AIP it follows that there will be no NOTAM to advise of changes. EAD took them off the database, which meant that they could not be used as Departure, Arrival or Alternate in a brief.

However, even if they are unlicensed and don't appear in the AIP they still have ICAO indicators and it would be useful if they could be used. Following a request from me to AIS they have now been re-instated in the database so you can use them in a brief, although you'll never get a NOTAM for them.

The a/d in question are EGHU (Eaglescott), EGML (Damyns Hall), EGNU (Full Sutton), EGPJ (Fife Glenrothes), EGSJ (Seething) and EGSN (Bourn)

John Brady · Post by **John Brady** » Tue Aug 31, 2010 6:18 pm

Mke,

What is the point of including them in a brief if you can never get a notam for them?

If one of these aerodromes held, for example, a young aviators day and wanted to place a notam, would they be able to do that as an en-route warning?

John

Mike Cross · Post by **Mike Cross** » Tue Aug 31, 2010 10:36 pm

John

If I can put EGHP in as my departure then it means I don't have to fiddle it by choosing another a/d dependent on which direction I'm heading in, e.g. Southampton if heading north or Blackbushe if heading west.

Since EGHP does not have an ATZ the airspace round it is Class G. You can indeed get a Nav Warning issued for Class G, as we do when we have the Starlight day. What you won't be able to do is get an a/d NOTAM saying your opening hours are changed, a runway is out of service or you've run out of AVGAS. A NOTAM is issued when the info in the AIP is incorrect, if it's not in the AIP it can't be incorrect!

Mike

Dave Hall · Post by **Dave Hall** » Tue Aug 31, 2010 11:31 pm

That's good to know, Mike, but I wish they would respond as positively over using the ICAO identifiers as route identifiers for a narrow route brief - yes I know, they don't conform to identifiers on a flight plan so can't be used. In these days of clever programmers, that isn't really an excuse.

Sadly even when you fill in all the details accurately, there are still numbers of notams for places miles off the specified route. No one seems able to explain why when flying from Bristol to Newquay you still get notams relevant to the East Coast. I suppose someone has been over-enthusiastic (or lazy?) in allocating a radius of effect.

The other major contribution to aviation safety would be to offer notams as a visual representation. I'm convinced that rather than wade through reams of reports on screen, some don't bother to look. If that was presented simply (and there are some sites that offer this, but "not for aviation use"), that too would be a great help - probably even more worthy of an award than the work done by Charles Strasser for free diversion airfields.

Mike Cross · Post by **Mike Cross** » Wed Sep 01, 2010 8:08 am

Congratulations Dave, Colin Potter, the NOTAM Team Leader at AIS wrote to me yesterday

What time for the first "Well why can't they do a graphical display" request?

I think you've won!

Without a specific example I can't comment on the "miles off route" stuff. If you'd like to send me an example I'll be happy to look into it. One of the common ones is the North Sea refuelling exercises. They follow a long straight track down the North Sea so when you draw a circle to enclose them it covers the entire FIR. Not a fault of the person drafting it but a consequence of the ICAO system that only provides for a centre point and radius for use in selecting which NOTAM to include in a brief. We used to have a problem with significant points included in a route where the user would use something that was not an en-route aid, such as SWB or something that had been withdrawn such as IW (the old Bembridge NDB). The result is that the route goes via SWB (Sawmills VOR/NDB) or the IW (Idlewild) Marker Beacon at JFK, both in the USA, pulling in US NOTAM.

At my request the AIS site was modified some time ago to flag up a warning when something way off track was included in a route and this seems to have dealt with the problem.

WRT graphical display, the problem is that the ICAO system does not provide a NOTAM format that is designed for graphical display. What you would get is a series of overlapping circles, which would include ones where they were so big that neither the centre nor any part of the circumference would appear on the map. For example a typical NOTAM for an air display might include three identical circles, to three different heights for three different heights (Air Display to 3000', Red Arrows to 8,500' and PJE to 10000'.

A number of very able people have written software to provide a graphical display but none of them claim 100% accurate plotting and all advise that the graphics should be used as an aid, not as a substitute.

The new xNOTAM format, currently a joint Eurocontrol/FAA project will open the way to a reliable graphical presentation when it is adopted by ICAO but I anticipate there will be a bit of confusion until a standard way of presenting the data appears. You'll appreciate I'm sure that UK AIS has to provide a briefing that covers the whole world and that meets the ICAO standard presentation so that it's familiar to any pilot of any nationality. It would be a tad difficult if you found the NOTAM, TAF and METAR presentations different in every country you visited.

Any presentation over and above the standard ICAO one is not currently funded by CAA but the way is of course open to anyone who wishes to provide an alternative presentation to do so.

Mike Cross · Post by **Mike Cross** » Wed Sep 01, 2010 10:09 am

Dave

If you're at Sywell this weekend find Colin Potter on the CAA stand, he'll be happy to talk to you about NOTAM. (Same of course applies to anyone else)

Mike

Dave Hall · Post by **Dave Hall** » Wed Sep 01, 2010 11:56 am

Thanks Mike. I'm sure they do all that is feasible within the funding they have. It's meant as a wish-list rather than a condemnation. The easier something is to check on, the more likely it is to be checked.

mikehallam · Post by **mikehallam** » Wed Sep 01, 2010 1:29 pm

FWIW a very good, free, NOTAM derived site which has a mapped depiction you can select, is to be accessed via

http://notaminfo.com/localmap

Dave Hall · Post by **Dave Hall** » Tue Sep 07, 2010 1:38 am

I had a long chat - well, a few, with Colin as NATS were in the same marquee as the YES stand.

He says a new Notam format is on its way that can be digested by computers and will lend itself to reliable visual representation. That's good news. Meanwhile sites like Mike Hallam's recommendation and UKGA.com offer a visualisation to the official text notams.

Nigel Hitchman · Post by **Nigel Hitchman** » Tue Sep 07, 2010 10:07 pm

Mike,

thanks for the info. I wonder why Notams cant be issued for these airfields that are no longer licenced. Surely it would be a good idea for say Popham to be able to Notam that there is no fuel on 31st Dec, or that runway 06/24 is closed for two weeks.
This is far more useful than some of the other things we see in the Notams and they dont all seem to be ammendments of the AIP- yes Im probably talking about the wrong type of Notams now!
For example on a narrow route brief from Hinton to Sywell VFR, I get two Notams telling me of squawks being used by certain military aircraft.
I also get another Notam telling me that some LJAO London mil console numbers have changed!!! Whatever they are!
All of these are of no use whatsoever to a pilot, but are admin notices for air traffic controllers. Cant they have their own admin system??

It is improving though!

Mike Cross · Post by **Mike Cross** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 8:25 am

Hi Nigel

The ICAO definition of NOTAM is "A notice containing information concerning the establishment, condition or change in any aeronautical facility, service, procedure or hazard, the timely knowledge of which is essential to personnel concerned with flight operations"

The issue with a/d like Popham is that their data is not published in the AIP and therefore there's nothing to change. In such cases it's up to the a/d concerned to publish their a/d information wherever they want and to update it when required. When using an unlicensed a/d the pilot cannot usually rely on published data because, unlike licensed a/d they have no reliable method for updating data. A phone call is often a good idea if you are intending to rely on a facility being available.

We do get NOTAM issued occasionally for Popham, but they are for airspace issues, not for ground facilities. If you have an event at an unlicensed a/d (or anywhere else for that matter) that will result in a concentration of aircraft then you can get a NOTAM issued.

Re your other point, the relevant bit is "personnel concerned with flight operations" an assumption that NOTAM are only for pilots is incorrect.

The ICAO system is what it is and has to be complied with. There is of course no problem in anyone producing a subset of the information, filtering out information that is not relevant to a pilot. The difficulty lies in dealing with potential liability issues and the user having a clear understanding of exactly what is not included.

Nigel Hitchman · Post by **Nigel Hitchman** » Fri Oct 15, 2010 9:02 pm

Hi Mike,

thanks for the explanation, havent been on here for a while, hence the late reply!

Your last paragraph is interesting:
"The ICAO system is what it is and has to be complied with. There is of course no problem in anyone producing a subset of the information, filtering out information that is not relevant to a pilot. The difficulty lies in dealing with potential liability issues and the user having a clear understanding of exactly what is not included."

SO why cant NATS do this filtering for the Narrow route brief, maybe call it the "Pilot's narrow route brief" and state that all ATC and Mil admin notices have been removed. After all the narrow route brief already filters the information by IFR/VFR, height flown etc and thus some NOTAMS are not included due to this filtering. Perhaps there could be an additional box to tick if you want ATC and Mil admin notices or not.
Thanks!

Mike Cross · Post by **Mike Cross** » Mon Oct 18, 2010 11:18 am

Hi Nigel.

The difficulty is as I stated. The classification of NOTAM is not as simple as "ATC & Mil Admin". For example lack of radar cover is definitely an ATC issue but is also something that pilots might want to know.

NATS is funded by CAA to provide the breifing service required by ICAO. it's not funded to provide briefings tailored to any particular sector of aviation. That's seen as the province of the commercial briefing services, which can provide tailored briefings on request, and at a cost.

However if I were running such a company and was asked to provide a reduced subset of the data I'd want to be very satisfied that my customer understood exactly what was being left out as a result of his request. Otherwise the door would be open to some very expensive litigation.