NOTAM!

On Feb 20, 10:10*am, "Jay Honeck" wrote:
02/062 (A0038/08) - AIRSPACE CARF NR. 90 ON EVELYN STATIONARY RESERVATION
WITHIN AN AREA BNDD BY 3145N 17012W 2824N 16642W 2352N 16317W 1909N
16129W 1241N 16129W 1239N 16532W 1842N 17057W 2031N 17230W 2703N 17206W
SFC-UNL. 21 FEB 02:30 2008 UNTIL 21 FEB 05:00 2008. CREATED: 18 FEB 12:51
2008

Ah, communication. * Who *writes* these things? * I can't even tell you what
state(s) this thing is talking about, without donning my pilots decoder
ring.

I still remember flying in the desert Southwest, far from home, and having a
briefer read a forest fire NOTAM to me in this sort of language, over the
radio. *No reference to landmarks. *No reference to cities. *Just LAT/LON.
Useless.

Almost as bad are the ones that say "13 miles from the Blather VOR, on the
178 radial" -- leaving you to figure out where in hell the Blather VOR is....
Good luck finding it on your sectional chart, in flight, in the dark.

Is there some reason these things can't use commonly known landmarks
(cities, national parks, rivers, etc.) to communicate their message? * Or
are we back to that "In the olden days, computer disk space was very
expensive, so we developed cryptic shorthand codes to enable us to deliver
lots of information" excuse -- even though I can now buy a terabyte hard
drive for a couple of hundred bucks at Best Buy?

The only worse example of communication in aviation (IMHO) is the IFR
student practicing approaches who announces their position to a full VFR
pattern by saying "I'm on the published missed for the GPS 25 approach".
Those words convey nothing to VFR pilots.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

It is to separate the men from the boys Jay. g

Wil