On Fri, 20 Aug 2010 22:19:56 -0500, brian whatcott wrote:

On 8/20/2010 8:04 AM, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Thu, 19 Aug 2010 18:19:24 -0700, Darryl Ramm wrote:

BTW I don't want to get sidetracked here but the current USA rules
have not kept track with technology and as a result are strange in how
they do not for example strictly prohibit an ADS-B traffic receiver
(since it is not a "two-way communication device"), but by banning
"two-way communication devices" they do currently prohibit Flarm based
devices.

I'm realising there is another passive collision warning system that we
use in the UK but I think may not be used as such in the USA - NOTAMS.

Whenever there's something happening here that raises a significant
collision risk such as a balloon festival, gliding competition or
microlite rally it will be NOTAMed, giving the base airfield, number of
participants and the area where significant numbers of participating
aircraft may be found. This at least warns other pilots to be more
vigilant in that area.

I've noticed that NOTAMs seem to be much less used in the USA than they
are here, so I'm wondering if your Regionals and national competitions
are routinely NOTAMed.


Anecdotally....a preliminary flight plan I did a month or two ago for
Corpus Christi from Altus (SW Oklahoma) as depicted on sectionals using
that handy service fltplan.com showed up with a flag because it crossed
close by an airfield south of Dallas marked for an air display via a
NOTAM.

This approach beats paper modems easily - the planning service shows
only NOTAMS relevant to the track...

Fighting through a wad of paper is a nightmare. I'd be lost without my
copy of NOTAMplot though I still have to read the unplottable ones. These
days AIS, our official NOTAM source, manages to weed the stack to a
mangeable size, but still doesn't plot them, and in consequence doesn't
really help us glider drivers because you can only anchor its route
briefings to licensed airfields, when we really need something like
NOTAMplot, which understands turnpoints.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
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