Charting out NOTAM coverage areas and other challenges…

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CerroTorre

Pre-takeoff checklist
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CerroTorre
Is there anywhere that charts out/displays notam coverage areas (specifically like the one below - I know some NOTAMs are displayed visually in ForeFlight and I’m sure other EFBs)? It’s very difficult or at least time consuming to carefully determine when/if any NOTAMs formatted like this ever potentially impact my flight. Any thoughts on how you deal with this? See below for example.

Second question, this NOTAM comes up for a flight that never gets within 200nm of the affected area. Is there a way to limit the coverage zone in an automated briefing so these don’t clutter up the information feed? Some flights contain 10 pages of inapplicable NOTAMS. What tactics do you use to limit it to only useful information? Or how do you improve efficiency when scrolling thru these in a briefing?


ZSE AIRSPACE RDO ALTIMETER UNREL WI AN AREA DEFINED AS 440306N1220009W (DSD230032.4) TO 444217N1205330W (DSD015032.4) TO 441959N1201337W (IMB210029.1) TO 433458N1211810W (DSD162040.2) TO POINT OF ORIGIN SFC-5000FT AGL. HEL OPS REQUIRING RDO ALTIMETER DATA TO INCLUDE OFFSHORE INSTRUMENT OPS, HOVER AUTOPILOT MODES, SAR AUTOPILOT MODES, AND CAT A/B/PERFORMANCE CLASS TKOF AND LDG NOT AUTHORIZED EXC FOR ACFT USING APPROVED ALTERNATIVE METHODS OF COMPLIANCE DUE TO 5G C-BAND INTERFERENCE PLUS SEE AIRWORTHINESS DIRECTIVE 2021-23-13 2211010401-2411010401.
 
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The FAA website has a crappy graphic display for TFRs and some NOTAMs.
https://tfr.faa.gov/tfr_map_ims/html/index.html

As for restricting search area….welcome to low-bid Government contracts for this stuff. It really is worth the low end (cheaper) ForeFlight or WingX to get a good graphic display.

There are some graphic utilities in Google maps that may help, but I haven’t used them in years.
 
Copy. I do use ForeFlight actually. That’s what raised the questions above. Even ForeFlight doesn’t limit (to my knowledge) the search area all that well. I do understand that it’s because the NOTAM system is a mess. I’m just hoping there might be a resource out there that has started to figure some of this out.

And the above notam is part of a group of NOTAMs with no graphic display available to my knowledge - unless someone here can point it out.

Anyway,it’s a messy system. Any suggestions for improved efficiency in preflight planning appreciated. Thanks.
 
That specific NOTAM is tied to the 5G thing that came out about 6 months ago. It is now in the very useless category for GA along with all the just barely over 200 foot towers 5 miles from the airport. The clutter buries the important ones.
When I see "RDO ALTIMETER UNREL", I stop reading as I have no RDO Altimeter. Same with obstructions, just read the heights. The risk is there will be a 1,500 agl unlit tower mixed in with the 205 agl ones. Reading the heights helps find those.
 
If I were worried, I would punch DSD into sky vector to know if I am in the ballpark. Or just realizing that the lat/long is somewhere off in the distance if you are making a local flight.
Looking for key words so you know to skip the entry as mentioned above helps you get past a lot, but it still takes time.
Pages and pages of worthless, irrelevant, information.
 
NOTAMS are a FAA CYA - "See, we TOLD you there was an issue there!" I don't think anyone much believes the intent is to be truly informative.
 
CerroTorre said:
Copy. I do use ForeFlight actually. That’s what raised the questions above. Even ForeFlight doesn’t limit (to my knowledge) the search area all that well. I do understand that it’s because the NOTAM system is a mess. I’m just hoping there might be a resource out there that has started to figure some of this out.

And the above notam is part of a group of NOTAMs with no graphic display available to my knowledge - unless someone here can point it out.

Anyway,it’s a messy system. Any suggestions for improved efficiency in preflight planning appreciated. Thanks.
Click to expand...

I scan the NOTAMS almost daily. When I see one like that that I think I need to know more about, I'll just read it like this: " in an area from about 32 miles southwest of the Deschutes VOR, to about 32 miles southeast of the Deschutes VOR, to about 29 miles southwest of the Kimberly VOR, to about 40 miles southeast of the Deschutes VOR and back to the origin." I can find that pretty quick on the sectional. If Im not familiar with the navaid or waypoint described in the NOTAM, I'll punch it into FF to see where it is.

I don't need to do that very often.
 
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