Primarily for general aviation discussion, but other aviation topics are also welcome.
By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1885635
Tim Dawson wrote:I’d like to get rid of this stuff in SkyDemon but need some good examples to work with. What route brings up lots of those obstacle erected NOTAMs right now?


7 in this one:

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Talking of NOTAMS... is there a way of setting the default NOTAM display to include only today's?
By Ibra
#1885639
Tim Dawson wrote:I’d like to get rid of this stuff in SkyDemon but need some good examples to work with. What route brings up lots of those obstacle erected NOTAMs right now?


Thanks Tim, I did generate this with EGSG + 50nm around rather than route breif, there are +76 “Obstacle Erected” maybe more as some were hide/unhide …

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By GAFlyer4Fun
#1885642
Tim Dawson wrote:I’d like to get rid of this stuff in SkyDemon but need some good examples to work with. What route brings up lots of those obstacle erected NOTAMs right now?


A point brief within N miles of base where that radius clips Greater London and get loads of stuff about cranes in Greater London.
A route brief that has Greater London within 10 miles ish even if the route has no intention of going over Greater London.

Maybe have a filter to exclude London CTR for a specific altitude band would suit many VFR GA that have not explicitly planned a route inside London CTR.

A useful filter would be to exclude notams about distant countries when a brief is being sought clearly within UK airspace by a wide margin. e.g. a VFR brief for a flight within the UK is not interested in restrictions in the Middle East, Eastern Europe etc.
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By Tim Dawson
SkyDemon developer
#1885648
Thanks. Only 7 in a route all around the perimeter of London, that’s pretty good actually. Presumably it’s just the obstacles around your takeoff and landing points that are included?

An area brief is trickier. Different parameters. We can’t really make assumptions about your altitude, whereas we know that for a planned flight.

Regarding NOTAMs about foreign countries, there’s no such flag in the system to exclude them. They may be about foreign countries but they are published explicitly for flights in UK FIRs, presumably by the CAA.
By JodelDavo
#1885700
mick w wrote:Tim
All the irrelevent stuff encourages me to just log on before a flight , and take whatever pops up on my route , am I dangerous ??. :?


No, exactly what I do.. :thumleft:

I'm not interested in the political situation in Belarus, or what COVID arrangements are for inbound flights from Ethiopia etc...
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By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1885712
Tim Dawson wrote:Thanks. Only 7 in a route all around the perimeter of London, that’s pretty good actually. Presumably it’s just the obstacles around your takeoff and landing points that are included?

Not really. 4 are near Denham (so arguably near a potential diversion), one each at Ascot, Slough and Hillingdon.

The thing is, I'd like the option to suppress all NOTAMs with 'Obstacle erected'.

I absolutely get that you can imagine scenarios whereby a crane near short final at an alternate in bad vis could pose a problem on a diversion, and that helicopters or pipeline inspections might need that stuff.

But I'd like to make that call for myself, for my own flying. In my judgement, it's a greater risk having to sift out the chaff to find the important ones, than knowing about a hypothetical crane that in reality, I would see.
By Ibra
#1885715
I think grouping the NOTAMS by type (cranes, navaids, aerodromes, warning, navigation, RA/RAT) could be useful for quick briefing, when I fly IFR off-route, I tend to read every bit there but on VFR on sunny days? I clearly give no hoot about NDB U/S or 50ft obstacles...

I just started playing with the link that @matthew_w100 shared and it looks neat for this purpose

https://notaminfo.com/ukmap
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By Dominie
#1885808
pullup wrote:
Ibra wrote:
I am curious who is interested to look at these


Air Ambulance pilots when landing anywhere.
Police, when low level.
Pipeline inspection helicopters.
Low level electricity line inspections.

Surely the Vauxhall Helicopter crash hasn’t been forgotten already?

That crash was almost 9 years ago... but I am getting quite old!

More importantly, the crane in that crash was "at a height of approximately 700 ft amsl" (according to the AAIB report) and so is clearly not in the parameters mentioned here.

There should be a filter on NOTA for height <250ft (or some figure like that) as most of us have no intention at all of flying at that height, and if I have an engine failure, the contents of a NOTA will be last on my list of actions!
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By flyingearly
#1885811
Ibra wrote:I think grouping the NOTAMS by type (cranes, navaids, aerodromes, warning, navigation, RA/RAT) could be useful for quick briefing, when I fly IFR off-route, I tend to read every bit there but on VFR on sunny days? I clearly give no hoot about NDB U/S or 50ft obstacles...

I just started playing with the link that @matthew_w100 shared and it looks neat for this purpose

https://notaminfo.com/ukmap


The problem will come - I think - when NOTAMs (NOTAVs?) are incorrectly categorised. Or, more accurately, there is ambiguity over what something should be categorised as.

Laser shows, fireworks, paragliding, tethered balloons all tend to get grouped together or misclassified quite often; the one that causes me confusion most frequently is 'Exercises will take place'.

I definitely DO want to know if the military are planning something in my neck of the woods, but equally near to me I can see this:

SEARCHLIGHT DISPLAY. WI 1NM RADIUS. 511113N 0000650E (HEVER
CASTLE, CHIDDINGSTONE, KENT). FOR INFO 07860 165264. 2021-11-0631/AS1

....and it's only because I'm local that I know it's a Christmas light show - on the ground.

The devil is in the detail; I would love to filter by type, but it would be hard to trust it without someone manually reviewing the data to check it's not CARP.
By Ibra
#1885822
Dominie wrote:More importantly, the crane in that crash was "at a height of approximately 700 ft amsl" (according to the AAIB report) and so is clearly not in the parameters mentioned here.


I don't know the exact circumstances of that flight nor the rules for helicopter flying but I recall it was a cold winter with low clouds and poor visibility (99.99% of Helicopters can’t fly in those conditions anyway, especially when the only way is to climb into clouds, they just literally fall out of the sky even with 2m$ cockpits as they touch cold IMC)

For fixed wings, min altitude for VFR/SVFR transits in London inner area is 1600ft (it’s understood to be twin only between Canary Wharf to Vauxall Bridge), ATC VFR/SVFR transit clearance is not above 1400ft, even if you fly that it’s up to you to keep 500ft laterally/vertically from Shard tower (it’s antenna is 1100ft)

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By Tim Dawson
SkyDemon developer
#1885862
Categorising them into a collapsible section is a great idea. I’ll play with that over the next few days and report back.
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By Ibra
#1885875
flyingearly wrote:The devil is in the detail; I would love to filter by type, but it would be hard to trust it without someone manually reviewing the data to check it's not CARP.


Not a programmer but in the screenshot I posted earlier load of them, +70 were tagged with "EGXY Obstacle Erected", the other NOTA may need more work though...
By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1885891
Tim Dawson wrote:Categorising them into a collapsible section is a great idea. I’ll play with that over the next few days and report back.

A collapsible section would be ok - that stays permanently collapsed until you un-collapse it, though, please!
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By Tim Dawson
SkyDemon developer
#1886093
The trouble with that, and any setting I implemented that let you hide all NOTAM relating to obstacles being erected, is that I start imagining the accident report. Something about the software the pilot was using allowing them to suppress notifications of obstacles being erected. It doesn't look good.

I recreated your route around London - though it wasn't clear which airfield was your takeoff and landing point - and managed to get 4 such obstacle NOTAMs in my briefing. That's a lot less than a NATS AIS brief would include because we skip NOTAMs that you'll be flying above. Also by tightening up the horizontal distance parameter on my narrow route brief to 3nm I've just managed to cut that number in half, and the ones remaining are at my planned takeoff airfield.

A much bigger problem is all the notices about overflying far-flung countries that I'm not planning to go anywhere near, and covid stuff. There were 8 long bulletins like that for the same route. Also a page-long NOTAM about the B737. Unfortunately the system lacks any flag that we could rely on to filter out such things.