Focus on Competition
By Greg Hahn
Working with FAA NOTAMs
Since January 2008, our beloved hobby has been affected by VIP (very important person) movements in and around the contiguous US in the form of flight restrictions. Most of these restrictions have to do with the Presidential entourage as it moves from city to city for visits and functions.
These temporary restrictions are announced in the form of an FAA NOTAM or notice to airmen. If you are a full-scale pilot, you are immediately made aware of these because they restrict your freedom as a pilot and must be adhered to or consequences could be waiting. Often breaking restricted airspace can lead to being escorted to the nearest airport by a pair of F-16s followed closely by answering many questions or worse.
I'm not saying that these consequences are destined for us as modelers, but you should know that the FAA and Homeland Security take NOTAMs seriously and we should as well. Realize too, that we aren't being singled out because nearly every aviation-related activity including free ballooning, skydiving, and others are also prohibited in the restriction.
At AMA Headquarters, we have developed a procedure to share the pertinent information with our affected members and clubs in as timely a manner as possible, and sometimes that can be a challenge. Normally, the NOTAMs are sent to Rich Hanson and me directly from the FAA information office two days ahead of the restriction time, so getting the information out can be done immediately.
We take the latitude and longitude from the NOTAM and plug them into a formula we developed to query our AMA database for the clubs and members affected in that specific area. We prepare the appropriate statements and links to the FAA and post this information on the AMA website and send push emails to the district vice president(s), district associate vice presidents, club presidents, and on down to the members. We're trying to ensure enough overlap so that few, if any, do not have access to the information needed.
The membership response we've received from our efforts has been positive and we hope you understand that as users of the airspace, we now are recognized as a pertinent player, which is a good thing. This also plays along with AMA being recognized as an integral part of the FAA rulemaking process that has received much press within our ranks. It's a part of staying ahead of the game and abreast of issues, presenting ourselves (modelers) as responsible users of the airspace, and making safety our first priority.
To clear up many questions, I'll include a list of the most used acronyms that you will see in the email notices that we send.
- TFR: Temporary Flight Restriction
- FAA: Federal Aviation Administration
- NOTAM: Notices to Airmen (that includes model airmen)
- TACAN: Tactical Air Navigation
- VORTAC: Very High Frequency Omnidirectional Radio Beacon with TACAN
- ATC: Air Traffic Control
- FDC: Federal Document Center
- EST: Eastern Standard Time
- CST: Central Standard Time
- MST: Mountain Standard Time
- PST: Pacific Standard Time
If you have other questions or would like to know more, feel free to email me at [email protected].
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
