+x[quote]

 

adhawkins - 5/15/2020 11:13:45 AM

+x

 

Hamish Mead - 5/15/2020 12:57:46 PM

+x[quote]

 

adhawkins - 5/15/2020 11:13:45 AM

Andy, thanks. After reviewing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOTAM#Example I do now finally see what Tim was talking about, when I raised the topic some time back: the limitation of the codification possible in a NOTAM's Q) field.

Nevertheless, two points:

1. The following NOTAM, for Manchester Airport today, has an effective radius of 5NM without 'by default' a 10NM diameter ring being depicted – so SD does already implement some sort of filtering in the 'depiction engine' as it only appears in SD in textual form:
   Q) EGTT/QLXXX/IV/M/A/000/999/5321N00217W005
   
   B) FROM: 20/03/23 16:40C) TO: 20/06/20 23:59
   E) TWY DELTA UNLIT DIVERTED CENTRELINE BETWEEN HOLDING POINTS D2 TO
   D3 AND P4 TO D3 DUE WIP. FOLLOW ME SERVICE IN DAYLIGHT HOURS
   PROVIDED UPON REQUEST FROM CREW OR ATC. FOLLOW ME PROVIDED FOR ALL
   MOVEMENTS IN HN AND LVP CONDITIONS.
   
   
2. What's to stop SD using a little Regex to extricate the finer detail from the NOTAM E) 'free-text' field  – particularly when this info is so frequently provided in very consistent form, at least within national boundaries? In the case of those few PJE NOTAMS using a different phraseology in the free-text field E), then continued use of the current depiction would of course suffice.

I appreciate there'd be some work involved, however I can't help feeling it would make a worthy contribution to flight safety by further assisting in enhancing pilot SA; especially as PJE zones occupy a not-so-inconsiderable extent of airspace, and often during those days on which the weather is forecast to be particularly good for VFR/VMC ops: SD's target market as I understand.

Hamish

+x

 

grahamb - 5/15/2020 1:16:51 PM

+x

 

Hamish Mead - 5/15/2020 3:40:46 PM

+x

 

grahamb - 5/15/2020 1:16:51 PM

grahamb, Your point about 'misprints, lack of standard english and missing info' could be adequately handled by the current 'standard depiction'. It is my firm impression however, that the NOTAM'd description of PJE zones of conical form is very much standardised, at least in the UK; and that ought to make the machine translation into graphical form of a significant number of PJE drop zones very much more straightforward.

That in turn, might even encourage other jurisdictions 'guilty' of issuing poorly worded NOTAMS to up their game. Especially as the NOTAM system itself has come under considerable flak in recent times including at least one high profile NTSB incident report: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOTAM#Criticism This in fact suggest to me that it's the issuance of poor quality/ non-standardised NOTAMS that should be tackled, rather than waiting until the next incident in which the wording of a NOTAM is deemed a contributing factor. But I digress...

In your second point, you appear to be implying that we should also be checking the accurate plotting of all NOTAMS already depicted graphically. Beyond a gross error check, I leave it to the software. After all, this task is exactly what the computer does best – otherwise, why delegate it to any extent to a graphical NOTAM plotting tool? Even UK CAA/NATS long ago came out in favour of using moving maps as a tool for substantially improve SA in avoiding airspace, so why should a drop zone – a temporary airspace as it is, already with a reasonable but significant safety margin built in – be considered any different in the accuracy by which it is depicted?

We can (by-and-large) train people to avoid doing the stupid, but lazy types, well trained or otherwise, will eventually return to flight planning in a lazy fashion. SD can never prevent that, but it would be great to see it improved upon in areas pertaining to its primary function: facilitating and improving SA. It can only takes a small distraction to loose SA in a busy aviation environment – especially so for the less experienced pilot – however getting one's SA back once lost (what, or who ever may be the cause) is made substantially less daunting, if not child's play, by having accurate, easily interpreted visual data immediately to view, as SD so well provides.