Here Come the Drone NOTAMS

While reports of drone near-misses from airline pilots at major airports tend to be sensational, most of us believe that for small consumer-grade drones that weigh less than a pound, the safety risk is similar to wildlife strikes, which occur daily, NOTAM or no NOTAM.

Frank Bowlin

Tuesday, May 10, 2016 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

Drone NOTAMs (DROTAMs) are now being implemented and integrated into flight planning tools to alert pilots to UAS activity in the National Airspace System.
The article questions the practical effectiveness and comprehensive coverage of DROTAMs, doubting if they will significantly help avoid encounters or accurately reflect all real-world drone operations.
There is an ongoing debate about the actual safety risk posed by small drones compared to existing threats like bird strikes, and whether DROTAMs truly enhance safety for pilots.

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Now that drones are in the National Airspace System, we need to work them into our flight preparation. Drone NOTAMs (“DROTAMs”?) have begun dotting the landscape, alerting us to where we can expect drones.

A routine check during a route briefing could bring up something like this, cast in typical NOTAM shorthand: “LBB AIRSPACE UAS WI AN AREA DEFINED AS .9NM RADIUS OF 333457.43N1.14707.69W (6.0NM SSE LBB) SFC-400FT AGL 1604052000-1604052100.” Larger airports, such as Atlanta, can have multiple layers of these NOTAMs, all of varying sizes.