back to article Aviation overhaul bill passes US House... for the third time

The US House of Representatives has voted overwhelmingly to advance a bill that would create a task force to improve the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system that was at the heart of the nationwide flight grounding earlier this month. Don't go thinking that NOTAM Improvement Act of 2023 will guarantee action, though. The bill …

  1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    An obvious solution

    These notices need publishing on a daily basis

    Distributing them electronically seems to be subject to fsck-ups and/or super-ninja-global-state-sponsored-hyper-cyber-something threats

    Meanwhile the print journalism industries have been facing a sharp decline leaving a largely unused capacity for printing daily news sheets

    1. usbac Silver badge

      Re: An obvious solution

      Way back when I learned to fly, before the internet was widely available to the public (before Al Gore invented it, I mean), we didn't have easy access to electronic versions of the Notices To Airmen (NOTAMs). They were given to you when you called in for your weather briefing. You had to write down any pertinent information on your notepad along with the weather information. Granted, I'm sure they were electronic on the FAA's side, we just got them over the phone.

      At one point, there was an FAA contracted system (DUATS) that you could call with a modem and a terminal emulator. From there you could print the NOTAMs. But, as people have mentioned, there would often be a long list of NOTAMs, most of which may not affect your flight, and they would all print together leading to a big stack of paper. So it was better to just take notes anyway.

      The NOTAMS are specific to your route of flight, yet they can be many pages long even for one short flight. Printing all of the NOATMs for the entire US would be like printing an 800 page phone book everyday.

      1. Michael Hoffmann Silver badge

        Re: An obvious solution

        Hang on, I was nodding along in a "me too" fashion until the bit about getting ALL NOTAM in DUATS. Admittedly it's been years since I've flown in the US, but I would have sworn that I could provide my flight plan (by waypoints and dept/arr airfields) and it would choose only the applicable NOTAM for my route and immediate area?

        Is my memory that bad? :'(

        1. usbac Silver badge

          Re: An obvious solution

          No, your memory is not bad. As I mentioned, DUATS could print out NOTAMs just for your flight plan. The OP above was suggesting publishing all NOTAMs in something like a daily newspaper.

          That is a bad idea for many reasons: the sheer volume, needing up to the minute data, etc.

          1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

            Re: An obvious solution

            >That is a bad idea for many reasons: the sheer volume, needing up to the minute data, etc.

            Obviously broadsheet NOTAMs would be unweildly for all but the most spacious of flight decks.

            So perhaps a continuous linear form which matched the route and could be unrolled as the flight progressed, TOpological Relavent Air-mission to Hand ( TORAH ),

            Or for long transpacific flights into Hawaii you would have a multiply redundant system TORA-TORA-TORA

        2. An_Old_Dog Silver badge

          DUATS - now in zombie mode

          An FAA resource webpage (https://www.faasafety.gov/gslac/onlineresources.aspx?categoryId=5&masterId=1) provides a link to DUATS (www.duats.com), but while that address is DNS-resolvable, it times out on http requests, on pings, and on traceroutes.

    2. Cav Bronze badge

      Re: An obvious solution

      A daft solution...

      Never mind the reams of wasted paper and resources to distribute them, they will be out-of-date half way through a flight. Electronic submission means they are up-to-the-minute relevant.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: An obvious solution

        >they will be out-of-date half way through a flight

        NOTAMS are issued upto 7days in advance

        NOTAMS must be consulted BEFORE filing a flight plan

        Pilots contact ATC or FSS for any change during flight

  2. Martin Gregorie

    On this side of the Atlantic...

    .. The UK CAA publishes NOTAMS on their website from where they can be scanned, printed or copied before you fly.

    In addition there's a rather good graphical application, SPINE, that displays NOTAMS on a map. This makes selecting the NOTAMS relevant to your planned flight rather easy to do before you read their description and active times.

    In addition you can download them as a file that is loaded into your onboard electronic navigation system. I've been flying with this setup for the last 15 years.

    1. NeilPost Silver badge

      Re: On this side of the Atlantic...

      Maybe they need a US Sales Person.

      1. Strahd Ivarius Silver badge
        Trollface

        Re: On this side of the Atlantic...

        And also a "simplified English" version

  3. T. F. M. Reader

    Naively...

    I can't emphasize the "naively" bit enough, but a pub/sub system with a web (or not web?) interface that airports, meteo services, FAA, and other authorized parties would feed and pilots would be able to access even from their phones before or even during the flight seems to fit the requirements. Linking it to the (planned?) flight path seems doable, too. By now humanity has learnt how to make these things quite performant, reliable, and secure. Scalability is probably not a big factor (the article mentions 11K flights grounded when it all went down - that's 11K consumers, right?). I suppose the threat of DDoS can be addressed, too. What am I missing?

    I certainly may be missing something as I have no experience in the intricacies of NOTAM requirements. If anyone can post enlightening comments i, for one, will be very grateful.

  4. NeilPost Silver badge

    Phew - scapegoats found !!

    “ The FAA said in a letter to lawmakers seen by the newswire that all Spatial Front employees directly involved in the deletion had their access to FAA buildings and systems terminated.”

    1. KarMann Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: Phew - scapegoats found !!

      'Scapegoats'? That's an odd way of spelling 'next month's Regomised Who, Me? submitter'.

    2. Fonant

      Re: Phew - scapegoats found !!

      I spotted that. Those people are worth keeping on, as they now know which files can't be deleted!

  5. Strahd Ivarius Silver badge
    Facepalm

    The next bill

    will require the FAA to apply security updates to their systems.

    Of course, the is a need to make a new bill every month...

    Why don't the FAA updates its systems without waiting for Congress to make the update mandatory?

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