NOTAM Watch

A LITTLE HELP FROM Q

IF you brief from the AIS website at www.ais.org.uk you may have noticed the recent addition of a line to each entry in your Pre-Flight Information Bulletin (PIB). This is the "Qualifier" or "Q" line containing data used to sort and select NOTAM data for inclusion in your brief.

Here's an example:- Q)EGTT/QMRLT/IV/NBO/A/000/999/5227N00145W005 So what does it mean? Q) identifi es it as the Q Line, EGTT is the London FIR and towards the end we have a position 52.27N001.45W. Immediately after that we have three digits 005 which is the Radius of Infl uence (RoI) so it's telling us there's something at a position within the London FIR aff ecting the airspace within 5nm. Immediately before the position we have 000/999 which represents the height band aff ected, expressed in Flight Levels. In this case Surface to FL999 or all Flight levels.

It's easy to see how this can be used by a computer program to decide whether a pilot needs to read this NOTAM, and indeed this is the way the AIS site selects the items for inclusion in your brief. If you get something that seems irrelevant an examination of the Q Line should reveal why it was included. We're left with QMRLT/IV/NBO/A to translate. The translation of QMRLT can be found in ICAO Document 8126, the Aeronautical Information Services Manual and some of the more common codes can be found on the AIS site at: http://www.ais.org.uk/aes/en/qline.pdf

The first letter is always Q, the remainder divides into two pairs of letters, the first pair indicating the subject and the second the status. In this case MR indicates that it concerns a Runway and LT indicates "Limited To". IV indicates it is of interest to both IFR and VFR flights, NBO indicates selection for immediate attention of aircraft operators, for inclusion in Bulletins, and Operationally significant for IFR flights. A is the scope, in this case Aerodrome. (E if present would indicate En- Route and W a Nav Warning). The whole text in the Bulletin in this case is: EGBB (BIRMINGHAM): AGA : Q)EGTT/QMRLT/IV/NBO/A/000/999/ 5227N00145W005 FROM 05/10/03 15:09 TO 05/10/30 01:00 C3715/05 E)RWY 15/33 NO ENTRY/EXIT VIA T1 DUE WIP, MON-THU 0500-2200 AND FRI 0500 UNTIL SUN 2200

SPECIAL SOFTWARE

THE Q LINE opens the way for designers to produce software to select, sort and display information from the AIS site in innovative and graphic ways. Here are some software/web resources for GA pilots: Aviation BRIEFING www.avbrief.com Weather and flight briefing information.

NotamPlot www.notamplot.fl yer.co.uk Software that downloads and plots NOTAMs on a map (see screenshot above - the observant will notice it works on a Mac as well as a PC, not the case with all these). NavBox ProPlan www.navbox.nl Flight planning software which prints route specifi c METARs, TAFs, SIGMETs and NOTAMs. Requires current ProPlan database and internet connection. NotamCheck www.notamcheck.co.uk Software which checks and plots NOTAMs on to a map. NotamPro www.notampro.co.uk Software which checks and plots NOTAMs on to a map.