THE ULTIMATE GUIDE

TO DECODING
 NOTAMS
Notices to Airmen (NOTAMs), are essential for flight, but maddeningly difficult to decipher.

This guide to decoding NOTAMs will help you understand the framework of NOTAMs, so you can
figure out which ones apply to your flight.

I highly recommend you check them prior to every flight. Good aviators are merely a collection of
great habits.

Checking NOTAMs, even if they frustrate you, will help you get better at sorting through
them quickly.

>Getting NOTAMs:
The easiest way to check NOTAMs, if you don’t have Foreflight, is to go to the FAA website. I also
wrote a more in depth article on how to get NOTAMs, which you can check out by clicking here.

> Decoding NOTAMs:

1 “Accountable” location
Most NOTAMs begin with an exclamation point and an airport location. This airport identifier is
called the “accountable” location.

This doesn’t apply to Flight Data Center (FDC) NOTAMs, though. FDC NOTAMs are easy to identify
because they begin with “!FDC.”

FDC NOTAMs are regulatory and apply to changes in instrument approach procedures or runways.
They usually don’t apply to VFR traffic, but sometimes they do so don’t get lazy and ignore them.

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Here is an example:

Notice that every !FDC NOTAM will still have an affected location associated with it. The second
arrow points to “PDX,” or the “affected” airport which I will cover shortly.

2 NOTAM numbers
After the accountable location you will see the official NOTAM number.

But wait....there are sometimes two different NOTAM numbers.

In the picture on the next page, I labeled the different types of NOTAM numbers with a “1” and “2” so
you can see the difference between the two.

Neither the first or second numbers have anything to do with the meat of the NOTAM, it’s just a way
for the system to keep track of the NOTAMs.

This NOTAM has only one official number:

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Most will have two numbers, though. These numbers are important for several reasons:

1) You can use these numbers to search for NOTAMs on the FAA’s website.

2) You can quickly pick out new and old NOTAMs, but only if you know how the numbering
system works.

Lets start with #1. In this example you will see the NOTAM is “11/049.” The 11 indicates the month it
was issued (November). The “049” means it is the 49th NOTAM issued in November.

Now on to #2. The numbers in the parentheses are just an alternate numbering format. The number
in the parentheses starts with the airport location and then the NOTAM number. The “/15” indicates
the year (2015) and the “A1249” is a computer generated number.

These numbers help you identify new and old NOTAMs.

Some NOTAMs stay on the docket until the charts/approach plates are revised which could be 56
days (IFR) or 6 months (VFR charts). Some NOTAMs also apply to runway construction which could
go on for a year or more.

The month and year numbers will help you remember if you have seen that particular NOTAM
before.

The number also comes in handy because some NOTAMs will “point” to other NOTAMs.

Here is an example of a “pointer” NOTAM:

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It is telling you to go “see” the “DDY 12/045” NOTAM. Take that number and plug it into the FAA’s
main NOTAM website. This is how you would enter “DDY 12/045:”

You can also search the by the alternate NOTAM number found in the parentheses. For example,
here is how you enter in the “(KSEA A2995/15)” NOTAM into the FAA’s website:

3 “Affected” Location
The next part of the NOTAM will include the “affected” location.

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For “D” or Distant NOTAMs, the “accountable” locations (the first airport identifier) and “affected”
(second airport identifier), are usually identical. But, with the “!FDC” NOTAMs, the “affected”
location becomes very important.

Sometimes, in “D” NOTAMs, the NOTAM number will differ from the accountable and affected
location.

Check out this example. Both the accountable and affected location of this NOTAMs are for ELN
(Bowers field which is super close to SeaTac), but the second NOTAM number references KSEA. It
came up on SeaTac’s NOTAMs when I punched in “KSEA.”

ACCOUNTABLE LOCATION AFFECTED LOCATION

The second number, (KSEA A2995/15) ensures people searching for KSEA will see this NOTAM.

Anyway, just know after the numbering system you will see the “affected” location and this is very
important for FDC NOTAMs.

4 Type of NOTAM
The next part of the NOTAM is the type or description of the NOTAM. There are twelve different
keywords to describe the types of “D” NOTAMs. There are nine different keywords to describe the
types of “FDC” NOTAMs.

Note: “D” NOTAMs are “distant” NOTAMs. If you are wondering how to tell the difference between
“D” NOTAMs and “FDC” NOTAMs, the “D” ones start with a location (i.e. !PDX) and the FDC NOTAMs
start with.....you guessed it....”!FDC.”

The keywords will always follow the “affected”location.

You should be able to quickly identify all of the keywords. Knowing these keywords will dramatically
increase the speed at which you can read and disregard irrelevant NOTAMs.

Pilots spend way too much time reading NOTAMs when if they just focused on the keywords they
could cut out half of the NOTAMs in a few seconds.

Let’s look at an example. This NOTAM below is a “SVC” or “Services” NOTAM.

The next page has a list with examples. Spend some time studying the table.

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NOTAMs are confusing for VFR pilots because they aren’t familiar with the instrument lingo. So let
me help you out.

If you are a VFR pilot you can safely ignore these keywords in all NOTAMs:

ODP SID STAR IAP

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The FDC NOTAMs have their own keywords as seen below.

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Check out this example. I underlined the keywords and then crossed out the ones that don’t apply
to VFR pilots.

Within the body of the NOTAM, here are some other words VFR pilots should know so they can
quickly disregard the NOTAM:

Missed approach Takeoff minimums Departure procedure Approach procedure

Procedure turn TACAN ILS Arrival

5 Condition being reported = the meat of the NOTAM

I underlined the meat of the NOTAM in green and bracketed it with pink lines to show you where the
“condition” begins and ends in the overall framework of the NOTAM.

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 6 Effective Time
The “WEF” or “when in effect times” are the last part of the NOTAM. The times are ALWAYS in Zulu!
The biggest mistakes pilots make with NOTAM is confusing Local for Zulu/UTC time.

Bottom line: the times go from YEAR, MONTH, DAY then UTC TIME.

Here is an example:

Don’t know what UTC time is right now? Here is my favorite site for figuring out UTC time:
Time.is/UTC

Oh yeah, remember Daylight Savings Time (DST) will effect the times on NOTAMs. Google Daylight
savings time to find out the dates for the current year.

Remember though, some places don’t observe DST:

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This guide only covers decoding and reading NOTAMs. I didn’t
cover the tricks I use to sort through NOTAMs quickly. I also didn’t
explain how to tell if they apply to your flight.

I cover all of that and more in my NOTAMs Made Easy course.

You will come out of that course an expert at deciphering and

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