NOTAM Upgrade Coming, Possibly In Your Lifetime

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Pilots have long been frustrated by the FAA’s Notice-to-Airmensystem, which conveys vital safety-of-flight information formattedfor teletype machines, cluttered with archaic acronyms, distributedvia hard copy and lacking graphics. Now the FAA says that by 2009, NOTAMs will be reorganizedinto a single federal system that is compliant with internationalstandards. It will take another decade for the system to incorporatefull digital and graphic capabilities, the FAA said on Monday. Thosecapabilities will be required for the Next Generation AirTransportation System, FAA officials said. Accordingto the Aeronautical Information Management (AIM) unit, which is partof the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization, NOTAM users have complainedthat the notices include too much data with not enough meaningfulinformation, they should be easier to read and to find, they use toomany data formats, local NOTAMs are not electronically distributed,and the messages are not always distributed in a timely manner. BarryDavis of the AIM unit said there is “a lot of work” to do, andappealed for continued customer feedback. He can be reached at (202)267-9201.

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