ESGC NOTAMs
It is the pilot's own responsibility to check the NOTAMs before flying cross country.
Some useful tools are listed below. Each has advantages and disadvantages. SkyDemon Light is the only one which has been "awarded NATS’ compliance mark for pre-flight planning", according to their web site.
SkyDemon Light
Google Notams
Spine
NotamPlot
If you want the hammer and tongs method, you can get the raw data from the AIS web site as follows:
- Go to AIS NOTAMs web site, which should open in a new window. It is possible to use old briefing templates and also to get updates from the "Briefing Handbook", but this describes the process of making a completely new one
- Opposite the fourth bullet point, click "NOTAM"
- Opposite the first bullet point, click "Existing Users" You should probably register yourself as a user prior to this, rather than use the ESGC User ID, because accesses to the site are tracked and it is better to show you tried to get the NOTAMs, if you have any problems in the air such as accidentally penetrating an air display, even if you did something wrong on the site which made it give insufficient output
- Log in with user ID "esgcnotams" and password "glider", or better still your own user details
- Choose from the NOTAM menu a "Narrow Route Brief"
- The departure and destination aerodromes can now be looked up by clicking on the magnifying glass, and should when selected automatically populate the appropriate boxes
- Select the dates and times which are much more intuitive than on the old site, (though when you read the NOTAM output be aware the dates are still in YY/MM/DD format)
- Select VFR Flight Rules
- Enter Flight Level FL195 - they have now stolen everything above that, and are working on everything above FL100 if the Mode S idiots get their way
- Select the Narrow Route Width, appropriate to your task
- Leave Route DCT (it means "Direct" - as we all know, glider pilots fly in straight lines everywhere)
- Leave Additional Crossed FIRs blank, unless you declare Scotland
- Hit the "Submit" tit at the bottom
This spews out everything within a rectangular area either side of a straight line joining your chosen departure and destination aerodromes. It includes all the things like runway maintenance, kite flying, cranes, birds of prey, rockets, model balloons, large bumblebees, etc. etc., but buried in there somewhere is the occasional important NOTAM.
Then...
- Select all the NOTAM text, copy and paste it into Notepad, or any other text editor.
- Remove everything irrelevant to gliding (i.e. most of it), then print out what is left.
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