Q) VOMF/QCTXX/I/B/AE/000/999/1523N07350E080
A)VOGO B) FROM: 11/12/15 00:00 C) TO: PERM
E) ASR (PRI) WITH COVERAGE OF 80NM OPR. ALL FLY TRANSITTING AND OVERFLYING VAR-44A AND DEV FM ATS RTE TO POSITIVELY CTC DABOLIM APP ON 199.7MHZ FOR PSN REP
Did you spend several minutes decoding? Did you scroll straight past to here? Well, before I give you the answer, I invite you to just read on a bit more.
Cryptic crosswords are really exciting to me. They are like a secret code. Sometimes a solution is almost there, lurking at the back of my head, but I can never quite work it out. Eventually, I give up, read the answer and “POP”, it is like a lightbulb in my brain - the answer is really obvious.
Here’s one for you to try - ‘Damp fog hides nothing’ Now take a moment to think about how we receive information in Aviation. Metars, Tafs, Snowtams - they are all made up of codes and acronyms that need deciphering. Sigmet charts are basically big picture puzzles filled with symbols and ciphers.
Some older aircraft types (I flew the Avro RJ85) had enormous ‘Abnormal/ Emergency’ checklist books and when you had a failure, you pulled the book out and opened to the relevant system section. You then had to try and match up the failure lights with the patterns in the book to find what had actually broken, and what to do about it (usually turn it off then on, and then give up on it).
And then, there are Notams. If you ever fly long haul, your Notam pack can be a hundred page novel, filled with critical information you need to scour for relevance pre-flight. So, let’s give this one another go:
Q) VOMF/QCTXX/I/B/AE/000/999/1523N07350E080
A)VOGO B) FROM: 11/12/15 00:00 C) TO: PERM
E) ASR (PRI) WITH COVERAGE OF 80NM OPR. ALL FLY TRANSITTING AND OVERFLYING VAR-44A AND DEV FM ATS RTE TO POSITIVELY CTC DABOLIM APP ON 199.7MHZ FOR PSN REP
OK, I apologise... I lured you in with the promise of exciting puzzles, and then threw a rather convoluted and uninteresting Notam at you... Bear with me.
For those who aren’t familiar with Notams, (and for those that are but perhaps not as well as you should be), here is a super duper quick little lesson in them.
The way Notams are put together is quite interesting when you get into it. They condense down everything that could, would, should happen into a 5 digit (well, letter) code.
All Notams are give a Q code. Q as in ‘Q’ code, because back in Ye Olden Days everything was Q something or other. The next two letters form the “What” of the Notam. In this case CT stands for Terminal Area Surveillance Radar. Then you have the 4th and 5th letters. These form the “Why’. As in “why have they put a Notam out for this?” XX is rather boring - it means ‘other’, but you might see something like a CA (C for change, A for activated), or AN (A for available, N for night only). In fact, the most common Notam code for the year was QRTCA, RT for Temporary Restricted Area.
Excellent. So we know something ‘other’ has happened to the Terminal Area Surveillance Radar, and now we can read on for some more information.
They are there for the safety of operations. They are there to ensure people know things when they need to know them, and they are designed so that every Notam is understandable by every person reading them. Pilots are responsible for making sure they have read any Notam that might affect their flight (which is a bit tough when you’re face with a 100 page pack of seemingly pointless ones). But, more importantly, just like a cryptic crossword, you cannot just read a Notam and discover its full meaning. The riddle of a Notam is not just in working out the codes and acronyms, but it is in working out what they actually mean for you, and for your operation. Just as a cryptic crosswind requires you to “read” a bit deeper, so a Notam needs you to really dig into what it is telling you.
Take this exceptional piece of Notamatry Notam C3642/20 for VTBB/Pran Buri Airport in Thailand
Q) VTBB/QFAHX/IV/NBO/A/000/999/0807N0981E005
B) FROM: 20/10/20 03:40 C) TO: 21/01/22 10:00
E) BIRD CONCENTRATION IN THE VICINITY OF AD
TYPE OF BIRDS: ASIAN OPENBILL, CRESTED SERPENT EAGLE BIRDS, CROW, INTERMEDIATE EGRET, LITTLE EGRET, CATTLE EGRET, BARN OWL, BLACK KITE, BRAHMINY KITE, CHINESE POND HERON BIRDS, RED - WATTLED LAPWING, SPOTTED DOVE, COMMON M YNE, ORIENTAL PRATINCOLE, KENTISH PLOVER, PACIFIC SWALLOW BIRD WEIGHT: UP TO 2000GRAMS
MAX FLOCK SIZE: 5-50 BIRD
Now, I know what you are thinking. You are thinking “What on earth does a Crested Serpent Eagle bird look like, it sounds terrifying!” But once you have googled that (it is a little disappointing to be honest), then take another look. Aside from the unnecessary list of birds present, what is it actually telling you? It is certainly very informative about what sort of birds you might see. What’s more, some are 2,000 gram birds. Big, fat feathery chunks flying around in flocks of up to 50... To me, what it is actually telling me is that there is a potentially BIG impact on SAFETY. Birds are hazards. They can cause delays on the ground, smack into windscreens, get smooshed on runways. Worst of all they can really damage an airplane engine. We’ve all heard about Captain Sully on the Hudson... So, deciphering that Notam is not just about reading birds are present. Nor is it about working out which you might see on the approach because you are really into bird-spotting. It is about understanding what the impact (excuse the pun) of the birds are, and considering just how critical that might be for you.
Criticality - Pretty darned big if you hit some of them
So, the next bit is up to the pilot. It is up to you. How do you use that information? If you know the risk, how do you mitigate it?
This is a two part puzzle. Give it a read, get talking about it with friends, colleagues, or on here. What would you do? What are you thoughts on it? Have you ever experienced something similar, and if so, what happened?
You are reading this Notam before departure, what are the risks this makes you think of, and what might you do to mitigate against them?
You are on the approach, short final, when you spot a flock of Red-wattled Lapwings heading right for you. What do you do?
Good luck (and the cryptic crossword answer was ‘Moist’ because damp fog is mist, and ‘nothing’ is ‘0’ so whack that into mist and you get moist).
Continue the conversation at www.airside.aero/community
welcome aboard the new airside
We took our community to the next level with an elevated look, innovative features, and new tools.
