UK AIS announced changes in the system for processing and delivering NOTAM on 30 May 2002 (AIC 54/2002 Yellow 85).

At that time Pre-Flight Information Bulletins (PIB) were compiled manually by AIS and made available for download from their website. These PIB were routinely displayed on the self-briefing boards at UK aerodromes.

The new system, known as ADIMS relies on two software products supplied by Thales Information Systems called ANAIS and AES.

ANAIS is a system which can provide a PIB by extracting NOTAM from a core database. AES (Aeronautical e-services) is an application which delivers PIB’s to external users of the system (Pilots, Aerodrome Operators, Flying Training Organisations etc) on demand via the Internet.

The new AES system went live on 19 August 2002. At the same time the provision of the old A1/A8 PIB was withdrawn. There appears to have been little or no consultation with the anticipated users of AES and there was very little pre-implementation publicity in the form of press coverage or written notification to aerodrome operators, flying training organisations, gliding clubs or representative organisations.

Notification was given in the form of an AIC but these organisations are not on the distribution list for AIC’s. The AIC gave no warning that the withdrawal of the old PIB would require users to devise their own criteria for briefings and no guidance has been given to aerodrome operators on the criteria that should apply to the production of PIB for display on self-briefing boards.

The immediate result was that PIB’s were no longer available at aerodromes.

Most aerodrome operators have now managed to produce some form of PIB for display but in the absence of any central guidance these are not standardised.

The new PIB contain considerably more information than the old, contain duplications, and there is no logical order to the data.

A typical London FIR briefing runs to around 37 pages. This is partly due to non-compliance with Cap 493 (MATS) Part 1, Section 7 Chapter 3 para 5.2.2

The original A1/A8 briefings relied on the skill and judgement of the compiler, who would select what to include and reject and sort the entries into a geographic order.

The system purchased from Thales cannot in its present form produce bulletins of a comparable standard.

User reaction has been vociferous.

Publicly it has taken place in three main forums:-

Privately it has taken place in correspondence from users direct to AIS, the CAA and the filing of Mandatory Occurrence Reports with the CAA’s Safety Data Department.

AIS have made very few public statements to users although they have responded to individual enquiries.

AIS invited two users, Russell Howton and Michael Cross, to visit their offices at Heathrow.

This paper results from our work and proposes a way forward which, in our view, should meet the reasonable expectations of the users.

There are a number of issues:-

1. The site is unreliable.
2. The site as designed does not do what it is supposed to do.
3. The delivery system, even if working as designed, does not produce a satisfactory PIB for pilots self-briefing at aerodromes. As a result, the new system has increased the level of risk and complexity when compared with the system it replaced.

In addition there is widespread dissatisfaction among the user community with many aspects of the site and its operation.

AIS have not communicated to users any plans or time-scales for corrective action. Minor improvements to the user interface and default settings have been carried out but the site is still far from providing a satisfactory service in terms of its design parameters, let alone in terms of user requirements.

We suggest that three actions have to take place as a matter of urgency.

1. The site should be made to operate correctly as designed without further delay. Known problems are listed in Appendix A.
2. A standardised briefing must be made available for display on self-briefing boards at aerodromes. Details are given in Appendix B
3. A download of raw UK NOTAM data must be made available so that users may devise their own systems for selecting, sorting and display of data to cover activities whose requirements are not met by the current site design. Details at Annexe C

A process of continuous improvement should then follow, during which AIS will consider the views of users and make such enhancements as might reasonably be required to meet the needs of the user community.

At some future date, and following implementation of the enhancements, AIS should hold a meeting, attended by the Regulator and user representatives to report on progress and take further feedback.

Suggestions for future enhancements are contained in Annexe D

We believe it reasonable that UK AIS should complete the three urgent actions within one month and that the progress review should take place within six months.

Key Problems of the UK AIS Website as implemented

Outline Specification for a Self-Briefing Bulletin

Outline Specification for Downloadable Raw NOTAM

Future Development of the UK AIS Website

Minor problems requiring attention

Distribution

Servers are unreliable. We appear to be suffering outages every week and there is no backup system (e.g. fax-on-demand). Servers have been rebuilt only to subsequently crash again.

Both the Web Servers and the Replica Server have crashed.

System is slow. A long time elapses between a user request and a response from the system. This is not linked to the user’s line speed as it happens equally with modem and broadband connections. Neither is it related to the time taken to run a query on ADIMS as the same delay is experienced when a query is not being run.

We suggest that consideration should be given to splitting the site over two servers. Static data, such as the AIP, AIC’s etc could be kept on the main server. When a user selected dynamic data requiring server-side processing he could be passed to the AES server.

This would reduce the load on the AES server and would also greatly reduce the amount of work done on the server by NATS/AIS staff. The reduction in changes made to the AES server might well improve reliability and would lessen the risk of problems being caused by updates.

The new main server could be a "public access" server with users only being required to log in when they go to the AES server. UK AIS has experience in maintaining this type of server.

Many users will require to print PIB’s, e.g. for display on the self-briefing boards at airfields and flying clubs. There are a number of problems with the current design.

When reading a briefing it should be possible to see all of the parameters that were used in extracting it. At the moment Flight Level information does not appear in Narrow Route Briefings.

The header of a PIB should include a note of the number of pages, otherwise a user has no way of checking whether all pages are present in a printed copy – this page numbering should be done at source (AIS) for consistency and not on the user’s browser

Where the PIB runs to more than one page there is no printed document identity on each page allowing it to be identified with other pages forming part of the same briefing and no page number.

For example if a flying club printed a briefing for the local training area and another briefing for the whole FIR it would not be possible to determine which briefing a particular page belonged to. This could be simply solved by incorporating a page header or footer containing a date/time stamp for the briefing and a page number.

The above problems may not be solvable using the current method of simply printing the web page. It may be necessary to format the text into a downloadable document in order to achieve page headers or footers.

AIS have suggested that users can adjust their web browsers to print page numbers but this requires user action before printing and can therefore only be regarded as a workaround.

This issue could be solved if the proposal in Annexe B is adopted.

Route Briefing is of little use.

You get NOTAM for the whole FIR so it is the same as an area briefing with some of the aerodromes filtered out. Radius field appears to do nothing and Lower and Upper FL fields appear to do nothing. First FIR field is mandatory and so should be tinted yellow for consistency of design. (webmaster - cell needs class of "mandatory" applied to do this). The whole line of fields covering date, time, departure and arrival AD's does not contribute to the result and should be removed.

Selected Flight Level does not appear on results page.

Page 3 suggest using Narrow Route Briefing. Should read "Route Briefing" and returns the whole FIR so it does not work anyway.

"Briefing Handbook" is inappropriate terminology. Most people would expect this to be a handbook on how to get a briefing. ("My Briefings" or "Saved Briefings" are suggested as alternatives.)

The Briefing Handbook page incorporates a control that obscures the dropdown menus. If this control MUST be always on top then it should be moved to a position where it does not affect other controls (e.g. to the right of "Briefing Handbook")

Auto-saving of briefings can lead to unwanted information being retained. Suggest that a "Save this Briefing" option on the results page might be more appropriate.

A delete option is required under "Selected Briefing"

Every time a briefing is re-used a new copy of it is created, to no good purpose.

An Aerodrome Bulletin and an En-Route Bulletin for each of the UK FIR’s should be compiled each day and made available for download by users from AES. It is anticipated that this would be an automated process.

A user would obtain a briefing by checking the aerodrome bulletin for each of the aerodromes he intends to use, checking a geographically ordered section of the En-Route Bulletin covering his intended area of operation and then checking a wide-area section of the En-Route Bulletin.

Instructions for use of the bulletins should be available as a printable download from AES.

Bulletins should be made available for download by 06:00 UTC each day.

Bulletins should include all NOTAM which are valid from 06:00 UTC on the day of issue to 12:00 UTC on the day following. This overlap allows a six hour "window" for aerodrome operators to download and display a new briefing with no loss of data.

NOTAM should be extracted from the core database no earlier than 02:00 UTC on the day of issue. This allows UK AIS a four hour "window" and ensures that the PIB contains the latest available data.

Duplicates should be avoided, e.g. by filtering out U Series En-Route NOTAM, which tend to be repeated in the A Series.

Two versions of En-Route Bulletins should be available. One covering flight up to FL120 for non-pressurised operations and one covering all flight levels. Bulletins should include VFR and IFR information and include "Miscellaneous". Data not required by operators of Light Aircraft (e.g. Stand information) and that can safely be filtered out should be omitted.

Bulletins should be in a format that will allow printing by the widest range of users without unduly increasing the time taken to download.

Each page of a bulletin should be numbered. It should be possible to determine by inspection of any bulletin page which bulletin it belongs to, its page number, and the total number of pages.

Each bulletin should contain a header showing its title, the date and time that the data was extracted from the AIS database, the period of validity, and all the criteria that were used to extract the data, for example:-

Aerodrome Bulletin Format

En-Route Bulletin Format

There is currently no way for a user of the AIS website to obtain raw NOTAM data.

The ICAO NOTAM message includes information regarding the period of validity, geographic centre, radius of influence etc. This information is used by AIS to filter the NOTAM database and produce a Pre-flight Information Bulletin (PIB) but is not included in the PIB itself.

The absence of this information places huge limitations on anyone trying to select and present data.

There is a need for users to be able to filter and present data in different ways, examples include:-

• Balloon pilots need a graphical map-based representation so they can pick a launch site that is not upwind of a hazard or restriction.
• Gliding competition organisers need a graphical representation so they can set tasks that will not conflict with hazards and restrictions.
• Flying Training Organisations need a graphical representation so they can plan training sorties to avoid hazards and restrictions.
• Users may wish to filter out information that is not relevant to their intended flight, e.g. a pilot whose aircraft does not have a VOR, ADF or Transponder can filter out information on those aids.
• Private pilots can filter out Heathrow, Gatwick and London Heliport.

By making a download of the raw data available AIS will create a way for developers to produce briefing aids that are not included as part of the existing AIS service but with the capability of being just as accurate and robust.

There is ample evidence that users want this type of service.

Products such as NotamPlot and NotamPro were designed to meet this need and much of the user feedback has complained of the inability of the new system to provide data that is compatible with them.

A file for each of the three UK FIRs containing the raw NOTAM data should be made available for download by registered users each day.

A Comma Separated Value (csv) format is suggested as a standard providing a compact file with no wasted space.

The AIS Website should contain a downloadable and printable description of the file format. Each data item in the ICAO NOTAM message should be in a separate field. It is anticipated that this will be an automated process.

The file should be made available for download by 06:00 UTC each day.

The file should include all NOTAM affecting the selected FIR which are valid from 06:00 UTC on the day of issue to 23:59 UTC on the eighth day following. This will allow users to plan an activity up to 7 days in advance.

NOTAM should be extracted from the core database no earlier than 02:00 UTC on the day of issue. This allows UK AIS a four hour "window" and ensures that the file contains the latest available data.

The UK AIS website has the potential to become pre-eminent as a global resource. The core database is one of the best, most comprehensive and accurate in the world.

The key to success is to design queries that will extract records from the core database that are relevant to the user's purpose and present them in a form that is logical, easy to understand and easily assimilated. This is primarily a function of the ANAIS database and there is considerable scope for developing new queries for users with differing requirements.

ANAIS uses a standard Oracle database but AIS do not currently have access to Oracle query tools. We suggest that upgrading the license and training AIS staff in designing queries will result in a much shorter and more economic development process for future services.

When these queries have been designed and tested web pages will need to be designed to operate under AES to allow users to provide parameters and to run the queries. These pages must be simple and intuitive to use and the user must have a clear understanding of the filters that are being used to select the records.

The output from the queries must be presented in a logical and easily assimilated form. Each output must be uniquely identifiable. It must be possible to identify all of the parameters that were used to query the database and the date and time that the query was run. It must be possible to establish whether or not the output is complete and if it consists of multiple pages then it must be possible to identify which output each page belongs to and which page of that output it represents.

As already mentioned, NOTAM are being raised which should not have been if the guidance in MATS Part I were followed.

It is possible that major users such as airlines would still like to receive this data. It may therefore be necessary to establish a second address list for these to be placed into. While they should not under ICAO be called "NOTAM" they could be given another name, still be in the same format as NOTAM, but be delivered to a different address list.

The site is not particularly user-friendly. The homepage contains no statement of the purpose of the navigation tools are not particularly intuitive. Usability trials carried out with novice users might point up ways in which the user interface could be improved.

The site collects and holds personal information on users and is therefore required to comply with Data Protection legislation.

The registration page does not comply with guidance issued by the Data Protection Registrar.

Http://www.ais.org.uk/aes/control/uk_user?HF_ACTION=modifylogin Does not allow the user to change from UK to Worldwide coverage and there is no provision for a user to cancel his registration. This means that a user has to re-register so he is counted twice.

There is no provision for a lost password to be sent to the user (e.g. by e-mail to his registered address) so a lost password will also result in multiple registration.

The "franglais" is endearing but an update to UK English would look better.

First FIR field is mandatory and so should be tinted yellow for consistency of design. (webmaster - cell needs class of "mandatory" applied to do this). The whole line of fields covering date, time, departure and arrival AD's does not contribute to the result and should be removed.

We understand that UK AIS does not wish to become the de-facto source of aeronautical information for foreign nationals and to this end has introduced a system of registration and passwords.

While we agree that Non-UK information should be restricted to UK Based Registered Users we suggest that information that is solely concerned with the UK (such as the AIP, AIC’s, UK PIB’s) might, in the interests of the widest distribution of safety-related material, be made freely accessible.

We suggest that the .pdf files making up the AIP might be modified to allow text selection. This would allow users to "cut and paste" parts of the AIP into other documents, allowing for example a pilot to print his own ICAO encodes/decodes for his kneeboard.

National Air Traffic Services Ltd

Aeronautical Information Service

Control Tower Building

London Heathrow Airport

Hounslow

TW6 1JJ

CAA Directorate of Airspace Policy

CAA House

45-59 Kingsway

London

WC2B 6TE