5 ms·

100%. As a GA pilot who mostly flies under IFR, the NOTAM system is borderline useless to me. For every warning about an approach being altered or a runway cl

by maxcan 4y ago

100%. As a GA pilot who mostly flies under IFR, the NOTAM system is borderline useless to me. For every warning about an approach being altered or a runway closed, there are 100s of "birds invof airport" or "unlit crane 50' AGL 5 miles from the field" NOTAMs. And even for the relevant NOTAMs, Foreflight will highlight them for approaches etc and ATC won't send you to a closed runway or taxiway.

bombcar 4y ago
Yeah, NOTAMs come into play when the shit hits the fan; radios are dead and you can't reach the tower kinda thing, but in that case just be sure you declared emergency, then they (probably) won't get you much for landing on a closed runway or a taxiway.
- azherebtsov 4y ago
  It works in both directions. If someone hits a crane in the fog they will present a NOTAM and you cannot argue that you have not been warned.
- Scoundreller 4y ago
  What if the tower’s radio goes down?
  - t0mas88 4y ago
    They have backup transmitters and if everything fails (tower evacuation has happened) you talk to the overlying approach / tracon / center frequencies to check. And then after that, land anyway and self announce positions for other traffic. It's basically the same as landing at an airport that doesn't have a tower. Happens every day at hundreds of airports.
ineedasername 4y ago
Seems like it's the sort of thing that's borderline useless right up until the moment it's absolutely essential. Like the smoke alarms in my house, which are actually wired up to mains so don't technically need a battery, but they still have to have a battery in them and will give high pitched chirps ever few minutes when the battery is dead. And since there's so many in the house, and the chirp only comes every few minutes, it's a PITA to find the exact one that needs replacing. So annoying, and again it's wired to mains so it worked without batteries! Except in a fire the fire might fry the house's magic box of energy delivery leaving only the batteries as the power source and then I really really really want them to work.
- bombcar 4y ago
  I wish those mains-powered ones would just shriek continually if the battery was low AND mains power failed; then you could kill the breaker and find it easily.
  - devmor 4y ago
    I wish they just had a steady LED from the mains power on them when the battery was dead. Seems much easier to me.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      Yeah, I bet one somewhere has it, but most just flash-when-chirp which is kinda annoying: This alarm has a low/missing battery monitor circuit which will cause the alarm to “chirp’” approximately every 30 - 40 seconds for a minimum of seven (7) days when the battery gets low. The chirp will be accompanied by a flash of the Safety Light. Replace both bat- teries when this condition occurs. Some of the newer ones come with a built-in Lithium battery that supposedly is good for 10 years.
- pixl97 4y ago
  We recently had a house burn in our neighborhood during a power outage that was running on a generator. Generator itself caught fire, so pretty much would cover that exact situation.
  - ineedasername 4y ago
    Yes, it wasn't like this in my house until some years ago when we had a small expansion constructed and the contractor installed these in the new portions just as a standard thing he does, and said he was retro fitting the rest of the house that way too. ( We know him, friends, so we know he wasn't just trying to get extra $ out of us) For a few minutes I thought it seemed a needless detail, until I realized that often enough people forget to change their stand-alone unit batteries and maybe deal with the the occasional chirp in an "I'll get to it" mindset until it runs down completely. Having it tied to the mains solves that because it's relentlessly annoying to hear that chirp at random intervals, and the battery is a nice backstop failover from the mains going unexpectedly molten.
azherebtsov 4y ago
I think you’d not argue that if you flight to the airport without ATC (there are plenty of those), reading NOTAMS about that airfield is kind of essential exercise before flight.
mike_d 4y ago
It's all fun and games until you have an F-16 head butting you because you didn't pay attention to NOTAMs and the Vice President happens to be visiting your town.

by maxcan 4y ago

bombcar 4y ago

Yeah, NOTAMs come into play when the shit hits the fan; radios are dead and you can't reach the tower kinda thing, but in that case just be sure you declared emergency, then they (probably) won't get you much for landing on a closed runway or a taxiway.

azherebtsov 4y ago
It works in both directions. If someone hits a crane in the fog they will present a NOTAM and you cannot argue that you have not been warned.
Scoundreller 4y ago
What if the tower’s radio goes down?
- t0mas88 4y ago
  They have backup transmitters and if everything fails (tower evacuation has happened) you talk to the overlying approach / tracon / center frequencies to check. And then after that, land anyway and self announce positions for other traffic. It's basically the same as landing at an airport that doesn't have a tower. Happens every day at hundreds of airports.

ineedasername 4y ago

Seems like it's the sort of thing that's borderline useless right up until the moment it's absolutely essential. Like the smoke alarms in my house, which are actually wired up to mains so don't technically need a battery, but they still have to have a battery in them and will give high pitched chirps ever few minutes when the battery is dead. And since there's so many in the house, and the chirp only comes every few minutes, it's a PITA to find the exact one that needs replacing. So annoying, and again it's wired to mains so it worked without batteries! Except in a fire the fire might fry the house's magic box of energy delivery leaving only the batteries as the power source and then I really really really want them to work.

bombcar 4y ago
I wish those mains-powered ones would just shriek continually if the battery was low AND mains power failed; then you could kill the breaker and find it easily.
- devmor 4y ago
  I wish they just had a steady LED from the mains power on them when the battery was dead. Seems much easier to me.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Yeah, I bet one somewhere has it, but most just flash-when-chirp which is kinda annoying: This alarm has a low/missing battery monitor circuit which will cause the alarm to “chirp’” approximately every 30 - 40 seconds for a minimum of seven (7) days when the battery gets low. The chirp will be accompanied by a flash of the Safety Light. Replace both bat- teries when this condition occurs. Some of the newer ones come with a built-in Lithium battery that supposedly is good for 10 years.
pixl97 4y ago
We recently had a house burn in our neighborhood during a power outage that was running on a generator. Generator itself caught fire, so pretty much would cover that exact situation.
- ineedasername 4y ago
  Yes, it wasn't like this in my house until some years ago when we had a small expansion constructed and the contractor installed these in the new portions just as a standard thing he does, and said he was retro fitting the rest of the house that way too. ( We know him, friends, so we know he wasn't just trying to get extra $ out of us) For a few minutes I thought it seemed a needless detail, until I realized that often enough people forget to change their stand-alone unit batteries and maybe deal with the the occasional chirp in an "I'll get to it" mindset until it runs down completely. Having it tied to the mains solves that because it's relentlessly annoying to hear that chirp at random intervals, and the battery is a nice backstop failover from the mains going unexpectedly molten.

azherebtsov 4y ago

I think you’d not argue that if you flight to the airport without ATC (there are plenty of those), reading NOTAMS about that airfield is kind of essential exercise before flight.

mike_d 4y ago

It's all fun and games until you have an F-16 head butting you because you didn't pay attention to NOTAMs and the Vice President happens to be visiting your town.