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Which notam source - NOAA or Eurocontrol and bizzare notam time span issues

US Notam sources no longer carrying some European airport Notams

I have access to two private weather sites (both optimised for satphone use, delivering data in a very compact manner) and both stopped delivering some notams from a few days ago. The notams come from NOAA in the USA.

The result was me flying EGKA-EGBJ and while the notams for EGKA showed OK, EGBJ showed nothing so I thought their new ILS is working

A few days later it is still the same.

This is a big departure from the normal distribution of notams which will also affect the airlines, etc. OTOH I see big places like Gatwick are still included. Biggin is gone, Lydd is included!

Or it could just be a cockup...

Also, the ADDS weather site (used by most aviation software) was broken this morning.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter,

This is pretty much in line with what I see generally. The US is moving away from Europe and concentrating only on their own turf, or rather make sites which were public no longer available to the same.

The most prominent and the one which I regret most is the site of the weather squadron at Sembach, which had excellent charts and very helpful models, which have ceased to be accessible a few weeks ago.

I would not be surprised it it was true that this is a consequence of EASA intervention, who want a monopoly on European aviation message propagation. The other possible reason is the new policies in the US, where the FAA is basically in a closing down mode. A lot of things there donĀ“t work anymore and it is increasingly difficult to get data. So I would not be surprised if the US decided that Europe is no longer important enough to them to cover than on a minimal basis.

Comes to that that Europe and the US are in a long conflict over aviation and both are trying to show the other whose genitals are bigger. In such an atmosphere, it is not surprising if the US pulls support of Europeans, who were profiting from their free information without being entitled to do so. (Freedom of information is by law only for those who pay taxes in the US)

It is more and more difficult and it will become more so in this horrible political climate.

Best regards Urs

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

My guess is that the NOTAM data is not being sent to the FAA. I checked NOTAMS on the two airports listed and as Peter said, there were NOTAMS for EGKA, but not for EGBJ. I seriously doubt politics has anything to do with it. I used the following site: https://pilotweb.nas.faa.gov/PilotWeb/

I selected both airports and set ICAO format for the report.

GKA SHOREHAM [Back to Top]

C2911/13 - VDF U/S. 18 MAY 09:27 2013 UNTIL 24 MAY 19:00 2013 ESTIMATED. CREATED: 18 MAY 09:35 2013 C2623/13 - RWY 07/25 DECLARED DISTANCES REDUCED - RWY 07 TORA/TODA/ASDA/LDA-682M RWY 25 TORA/TODA/ASDA-682M LDA-599M. 01 MAY 11:48 2013 UNTIL 01 JUL 12:00 2013 ESTIMATED. CREATED: 01 MAY 11:53 2013 C1227/13 - PILOTS MUST NOT TOUCHDOWN BEFORE THE DISPLACED THRESHOLDS DUE TO MOBILE OBSTACLES, INCLUDING TRAINS CROSSING BELOW SHORT FINAL RWY 02. PAPI'S WILL ASSIST. 26 FEB 12:44 2013 UNTIL 26 MAY 18:30 2013. CREATED: 26 FEB 13:12 2013 C1208/13 - LOCAL TRAFFIC REGULATIONS - TRAINING - CHANGE TO READ: REPLACE LINE (A) WITH THE FOLLOWING: CIRCUIT TRAINING (FIXED WING AND ROTARY) IS NOT PERMITTED SUNDAYS. IT IS PERMITTED MONDAYS 1000-2000(LOCAL) AND TUESDAY-SATURDAY 1000-1800(LOCAL)

AD 2-EGKA-SECTION 2.20 PARA 7 REFERS. 04 MAR 00:00 2013 UNTIL PERM. CREATED: 25 FEB 13:25 2013 C1160/13 - AD OPERATING HOURS CHANGE TO READ: OPERATIONAL HOURS WINTER: MON-SUN 0800-2000 SUMMER: MON-SUN 0700-1900 AD 2-EGKA 2.3 LINE 1 COLUMN 3 REFERS

ATS COMMUNICATION FACILITIES - APP (SHOREHAM APPROACH) WINTER: MON-SUN 0800-2000 SUMMER: MON-SUN 0700-1900 AD 2-EGKA 2.18 LINE 1 COLUMN 4 REFERS

ATS COMMUNICATION FACILITIES - TWR (SHOREHAM TOWER) 123.15 MHZ WINTER: MON-SUN 0800-2000 SUMMER: MON-SUN 0700-1900 125.4 MHZ AS DIRECTED BY ATC AD 2-EGKA 2.18 LINE 2 COLUMN 4 REFERS

ATS COMMUNICATION FACILITIES - A/G (SHOREHAM RADIO) DELETE CURRENT TIMES AND LEAVE BLANK AD 2-EGKA 2.18 LINE 3 COLUMN 4 REFERS

ATS COMMUNICATION FACILITIES - ATIS (SHOREHAM INFORMATION) WINTER: MON-SUN 0800-2000 SUMMER: MON-SUN 0700-1900 AD 2-EGKA 2.18 LINE 4 COLUMN 4 REFERS

RADIO NAVIGATION AND LANDING AIDS - NDB WINTER: MON-SUN 0800-2000 SUMMER: MON-SUN 0700-1900 AD 2-EGKA 2.19 LINE 2 COLUMN 4 REFERS. 22 FEB 13:16 2013 UNTIL PERM. CREATED: 22 FEB 13:54 2013 EGBJ GLOUCESTERSHIRE [Back to Top] No active NOTAMs for this location.

Number of NOTAMs: 5 End of Report

They have a contact email and phone number, I would use it and see if there is a reason.

KUZA, United States

My guess is that the NOTAM data is not being sent to the FAA

Yes; that's most likely.

The precedent for that is the old case of French airfield notams for non-Customs airfields, which were not sent to the UK, presumably on the basis that no UK pilot can legally fly there direct!

That particular stupidity was rectified ~ 2 years ago when all European notams went to Eurocontrol, which distributes them to all of Europe. I checked this very carefully with the authorities at the time.

So perhaps Eurocontrol is not sending some notams to the FAA...

I've emailed them.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Just heard (good response!) from their email address:

Hi Peter,

I just check with Notams office. We checked under DINS and NES for both EGBJ and EGKB there no Notams for those airports. The data in Pilotweb is correct.

NAIMES Customer Support

866-466-1336

[email protected]

They seem to think they are right, but they are not...

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

A further response:

First not all International Notams are going to show up in Pilotweb. Pilotweb gets its NOTAMS from the US NOTAM system. In order for International NOTAMS to be seen in Pilotweb, the country's NOTAM office must coordinate with the US NOTAMS office and have these NOTAMS be registered under the US NOTAMS system, then and only then, the Notams will show up under Pilotweb. Yesterday we checked with the US NOTAMS systems and their system displayed the data as shown below that the Airports exist. Seems UK Notam office need to contact the US NOTAMS Office to register your international NOTAMS to the US NOTAMS System. Please contact your country's Notam Office to coordinate this with the US NOTAMS office.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

This touches an interesting point. Let's say you bust a restricted area which was NOTAM'ed and you claim you have obtained a NOTAM briefing and there was nothing about it.

The authorities will tell you:

  1. You did not obtain that briefing, you just made that up. Prove that you did obtain it!

  2. Your method of receiving the briefing (US NOAA site) was inappropriate for a flight in country XYZ

The only way to be on the safe side in my view is to use the NOTAM briefing of the country's AIS and either download and store the briefing or make sure the system records all briefing requests with your name and/or aircraft registration. For IFR flights, RocketRoute sends me a PDF with everything which I keep but for VFR flights I use the AIS site which takes my aircraft registration and stores it in a database.

The only way to be on the safe side in my view is to use the NOTAM briefing of the country's AIS

Well, yes, but the "reality of the world we live in" is that very few people who travel to Country X are going to seek out X's national briefing office, and then upon flying to Country Y are going to seek out Y's national briefing office.

To reinforce this point, an international airline flying from Gatwick to Jo'Burg is obviously not going to brief from UK, France, Libya, and my African geography runs out after that (the Belgian Congo is enroute somewhere, along with the Peoples' Republic of Upper Volta) because I have never flown there "GA" but you get my drift.

ICAO drew up that "must brief locally" scheme but nobody operates that method today.

This little NOAA incident illustrates how you can get your fingers burnt...

I wonder where say RocketRoute or EuroFPL get their notams from?

It's a fact that much flight planning software does brief from US sources, because they are free, relatively stable (in terms of web interfaces), etc.

Normally I brief from the UK NATS site which gets its stuff from Eurocontrol and should therefore be good for all of Europe. This is because I do things in a simple way; I print off the terminal charts, use FPP for the route development (and nothing else), use EuroFPL for FP filing (and nothing else), etc. Most of these are free so I am not throwing money out in every direction (which would be easy to do in flying).

But many "modern pilots" use integrated briefing/planning tools and they are vulnerable to this kind of thing. For example the latest entry - Skydemon - is aiming to offer everything under the sun, and no doubt many pilots will be relying on it 100%, because the program is absolutely feature-packed, and integration is ever so seductive.

and either download and store the briefing or make sure the system records all briefing requests with your name and/or aircraft registration.

The NATS website claims to store the entire text of every briefing, but that will be of little use if you get picked up for something outside the UK.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I wonder where say RocketRoute or EuroFPL get their notams from?

Just checked RocketRoute, they get NOTAMs from Eurocontrol.

But many "modern pilots" use integrated briefing/planning tools and they are vulnerable to this kind of thing.

How would the use of "integrated" tools make me more vulnerable than you with your personal selection of a few separate tools? I would argue that when faced with prosecution, my use of RocketRoute as an established supplier of integrated flight planning with a business relationship with Eurocontrol (even their launch customer), loads of clients up to the airlines etc. puts me in a much better position justifying my assertion having well prepared/briefed. It would take you considerably more effort to demonstrate that FPP/EuroFPL are suitable tools... (not saying they aren't, just taking a legal argument).

On the NATS UK chart, at the bottom somewhere (near the UK/France boundary) there is a message that says "Users are reminded that aeronautical information outside the UK FIR is not subject to UK NOTAM action. Such information should be checked against the aeronautical information package for the appropriate area".

Which is a bit of a pain.... For L2K I always trusted the NATS NOTAM site, but can I really trust it, or SkyDemon for that matter for La Rochelle? I have the link to the SIA site, but would prefer to centralise things.

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