n5lp
fugio ergo sum
It is getting hot where I live, 99 degrees yesterday and summer isn't here yet.
Two places I thought would be nice places to RV to are Durango and Telluride. Both are interesting towns with good airports and they are convenient and cool.
A few days ago I was driving in the area and decided to take at look at the Telluride Airport, KTEX (don't know why none of you Texas folks got that identifier). It is in an area where it doesn't look possible to fit in an airport catering to business jets, so I thought it would be interesting. It was. There was lots of bustle and lots of cars in the lot but one very surprising thing. Here is the photo.
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/VhkWGORk3fMuwhxpp7vivA?feat=directlink
I have never found decoding NOTAMs to be particularly difficult, in fact I have issued quite a few myself, so recent changes in the system have snuck up on me. I can look at all the KTEX NOTAMs and not realize what was going on.
!TEX 04/020 TEX Runway 27 PAPI Out of service until Nov 02 2009 23:59 UTC
!TEX 04/019 TEX SVC AWOS Out of service until Nov 02 2009 14:00 UTC
!TEX 04/021 TEX NAV Runway 9 ILS LLZ/DME Out of service until Nov 02 2009 23:59 UTC
!TEX 09/003 TEX Runway 9/27 DIST RMN SIGN Out of service
!TEX 04/022 TEX AD Closed Except HEL Prior Permission Required 970-728-8603/CTAF 123.0 until Nov 02 2009 14:00 UTC
It looks like several things are out of service, but nothing that would affect me in the RV. I don't care if some navaids and lights are not working or if the distance remaining sign is not there. That one about AD though. What is an AD. Well it is airworthiness directive but what else could it be?
I knew that French had come to weather reporting in a big way but was unaware that we are now using French for NOTAMs. With weather, at least it is a small number of things, but there are huge possibilities in NOTAMs. When I first figured out that something strange was going on I went to a whole bunch of sites to find out what AD is, and couldn't, although I did guess. Finally I did find a site that had the current abbreviations and there it was.
The thing is, with weather, if there is doubt, you can get the decoded version. With NOTAMs the only possibility I see is to get a booklet with the entire list of abbreviations, and carry it around, or is there a better solution someone has found?
Even if there is some sort of solution, this seems like a huge step backward in safety, to me. I don't see why we couldn't make such a basic thing understandable and in English, like it used to be.
Two places I thought would be nice places to RV to are Durango and Telluride. Both are interesting towns with good airports and they are convenient and cool.
A few days ago I was driving in the area and decided to take at look at the Telluride Airport, KTEX (don't know why none of you Texas folks got that identifier). It is in an area where it doesn't look possible to fit in an airport catering to business jets, so I thought it would be interesting. It was. There was lots of bustle and lots of cars in the lot but one very surprising thing. Here is the photo.
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/VhkWGORk3fMuwhxpp7vivA?feat=directlink
I have never found decoding NOTAMs to be particularly difficult, in fact I have issued quite a few myself, so recent changes in the system have snuck up on me. I can look at all the KTEX NOTAMs and not realize what was going on.
!TEX 04/020 TEX Runway 27 PAPI Out of service until Nov 02 2009 23:59 UTC
!TEX 04/019 TEX SVC AWOS Out of service until Nov 02 2009 14:00 UTC
!TEX 04/021 TEX NAV Runway 9 ILS LLZ/DME Out of service until Nov 02 2009 23:59 UTC
!TEX 09/003 TEX Runway 9/27 DIST RMN SIGN Out of service
!TEX 04/022 TEX AD Closed Except HEL Prior Permission Required 970-728-8603/CTAF 123.0 until Nov 02 2009 14:00 UTC
It looks like several things are out of service, but nothing that would affect me in the RV. I don't care if some navaids and lights are not working or if the distance remaining sign is not there. That one about AD though. What is an AD. Well it is airworthiness directive but what else could it be?
I knew that French had come to weather reporting in a big way but was unaware that we are now using French for NOTAMs. With weather, at least it is a small number of things, but there are huge possibilities in NOTAMs. When I first figured out that something strange was going on I went to a whole bunch of sites to find out what AD is, and couldn't, although I did guess. Finally I did find a site that had the current abbreviations and there it was.
The thing is, with weather, if there is doubt, you can get the decoded version. With NOTAMs the only possibility I see is to get a booklet with the entire list of abbreviations, and carry it around, or is there a better solution someone has found?
Even if there is some sort of solution, this seems like a huge step backward in safety, to me. I don't see why we couldn't make such a basic thing understandable and in English, like it used to be.
A great example of harmonization improving things...
