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 being introduced into the National Airspace System to alert pilots to UAS activity, with some aviation platforms beginning to display them.
Concerns exist about the effectiveness of DROTAMs in preventing drone encounters, as their coverage of actual UAS activity may be incomplete and many drone operators might not be aware of the system.
The article questions whether the safety threat from small consumer drones warrants this added layer of NOTAMs, suggesting the risk is often comparable to wildlife strikes.

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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.