ICAO Notameter

If you have been in this industry for a while you might remember in 2009/10/11 sUAS News used to have a count down ticker on the right-hand navigation menu.

This was counting down until the FAA was due to sort out regulations for RPAS, the dates came and went and I eventually called it the miss-o-matic.

I am loving a new tool from ICAO, it’s a tool that highlights an issue UTM’s have. The team that came up with this is to be applauded.

The old computer maxim, rubbish in rubbish out applies. If NOTAMs are not properly formed then how can a digital system properly promulgate them?

I was the YITL (youth in the loop) in the early ’80s having to go into the ops room on a Sunday morning and pull metres of paper off the printer, cut out and then plot on a map NOTAMs to affect our flight ops for the following week. This was the supposed to be the point issues were found and then Monday morning would include telephone calls to find the fix.

#VertiportAfrica is in South Africa so best I check the system here and the tool throws up this as the worst NOTAM in South Africa with only 24% of NOTAMs overall meeting quality standards.

Manned and unmanned aviators should be pushing for more from Authorities only too happy to take fees, other than better biscuits on the 13th floor, what are those fees from drones and GA for?

Come on manned aviation, it’s 2020 (nearly)

Try the system here

Worst NOTAM in South Africa

F0134/19 NOTAMN Q) FACA/QOAXX/IV/BO/A/000/999/3133S02840E005 A) FAUT B) 1910161319 C) PERM E) REF AIRAC AIP SUP S025/19 DATED 18 JUL 2019: LETDOWN PROCEDURES, PAGE 80 FAUT RNAV (GNSS) COLUMN 5 – PROCEDURE TO READ AS FLW: HOLD USUNI: HOLD ON A LEFT-HAND RACECOURSE PATTERN OVER USUNI INBOUND TRACK 051 DEG M. DESCEND IN THE HOLD TO 4800FT ALT. CREATED: 16 Oct 2019 13:19:00 SOURCE: FAJNYNYX

More from ICAO

If one thing was clear from the Notam Summit in Washington, it was that the focus of ‘Fixing Notams’ has to be on the quality of the source data.

Notameter is a research tool that takes a look at NOTAM Quality.

In a futuristic (not too distant, we hope) vision of Notams, that data is a beautifully structured digital dataset of fixed objects (like airports, runways, airspace), and dynamic objects (availability, status, times), available as a REST API. That’s the back end. And that allows for a great front end to be built.

But what about the dataset we have right now? Notams live on the AFTN, and the ICAO Format is the standard template. How can we measure the quality of Notams, to see how we are tracking according to the current rules? Well, we build a Notameter, that’s how.

Weʼve set criteria – like the length of the NOTAM, timeframe, format, Q-codes -and use these criteria for a simple pass/fail. A NOTAM Quality score can, therefore, be seen for the country, showing the percentage of satisfactory Notams (all criteria met). The scores are updated every 4 hours.