NATS Pre-flight Briefing Service

As a PPL, before a flight, I can get a route briefing from NATS to check what was notified for my route… NOTAMS, restrictions etc are all in that briefing. It is a free service.

I don’t see any mention of the NATS briefing service regarding drone flying so I suspect that not many people use it. How do people check NOTAMS etc prior to flying or do most people just wing it and hope for the best?

You can get a briefing for an aerodrome, a route, or more useful for us, a single spot… just give it the lat/log and it gives you any important info for that point and surrounding area.

NATS Briefing Service

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PPL? :thinking:

I just look at the NOTAM layer on Drone Scene.

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Private Pilot Licence holder :slight_smile:

That layer is handy… didn’t know about that.

Even so, a NATS briefing does cover everything you might want to know before a flight so still worth doing, perhaps as well.

I just use SkyWise, SkyDemon and DroneScene but maybe that’s overkill really.

So just to get my head round this, do you check all these before every flight, as well as submitting a NOTAM for all said flights?

My questions are about how people might find out this info if we want to know it.

What I do is not the question here. I am a commercial pilot… you can make your own inferences from that I am sure.

I asked it ?

I’m curious to see if thats what you do before all your drone flights, and how much value it would add to our membership.

It’s all about proportionality, really. In 99.9% of cases flying a drone a resource like Dronescene’s NOTAM layer is plenty enough.

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Same question to you Ben, do you feel the need to submit a NOTAM before every flight (if I maybe so bold in asking) ?

No more than other airspace users file a NOTAM before a routine flight outside of controlled airspace.

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You talk of submitting NOTAMs… by posting on Drone Scene you are not submitting a NOTAM and that is my point… and in any case, why should anyone submit a notice of their flight if it isn’t remarkable in any way. Private planes don’t submit flight plans for VFR flights outside controlled airspace so why should drone flights be notified in any way?

In any case, I think you are again misunderstanding my question and why I asked it. My question is not about drone pilots notifying anyone about their flight… it is about drone pilots getting information about NOTAMs in the NATS system… NOTAMs that might help us decide whether a flight in the area of our interest is likely to be affected.

I think the point though is that there are already a billion and one tools that already pull this data. And as with Dronescene, come bundled with a lot of other information - safety and otherwise - that are tailored to drone pilots rather than other GA.

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But drone scene doesn’t include all the NOTAMs that we might need to know about. I have already found out that drone scene will not show when a danger area activated by NOTAM becomes active so if such important information is missing on drone scene then it isn’t out of the question that it is also missing from other third party apps and web sites too.

So, as it stands, the only way to definitely pick up on all the NOTAMs that might be important is to use the NATS Briefing Service.

Let me be clear here… if Drone Scene showed it then I would prefer to use Drone Scene so it is all in one place :slight_smile:

Then use the NATS Briefing Service? :man_shrugging:t2:

We’re going round in circles here.

Yes we are because for some reason people don’t like the idea that we have to use the NATS service to get all the info on NOTAMs that we need.

I posted the original post to make everyone aware that the service exists… all I have had in this thread is reasons why I don’t need to use it… when clearly we should ALL be using it if we want to get all the info necessary to determine if there is a NOTAM that potentially affects our flight.

I have done that so please, no more reasons why we should use Drone Scene or any other third party app… the only way to guarantee we have all the necessary info is to use NATS.

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Let us know if you find any NOTAMs that don’t appear in the data provided by Altitude Angel and we’ll raise it with them.

Maybe because you’re on a forum that runs DS is the reason you’ll get those answers.

Go on a Mac forum and promote windows and watch the flames

I subscribed to CAA SkyWise, and get all NOTAMS relevant to drones by email when ever they arise. You can download their app aswell.

The whole thing regarding NOTAMs is completely inconsistent.

Coventry Airport will issue one when I want to fly in their FRZ.

Birmingham Airport a huge airport don’t give a stuff and you can phone them pretty much there and then and activate permission from them. No NOTAM is issued and it’s the busiest airport in the region by far.

Coventry is mainly used by private planes only so could be the reason they are more thorough about it, but when ATCs don’t even bother…

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