The FAA announced today that a planned outage will make Notices to Airman (NOTAM's) unavailable for a 4.5 hour period over memorial day weekend. The outage is planned to last from 0600Z to 1030Z. The outage will affect the ability of pilot's planning flights over that period to obtain NOTAM's electronically.
The FAA is in the process of moving the US NOTAM System from Herndon, Va, to its new location in Oklahoma City, Ok. The servers that handle the electronic NOTAM's will be taken offline while the data is moved to new servers at the new location. The FAA states the move is part of its efforts to relocate the Air Traffic Control System Command Center (ATCSCC) to a new location in Warrenton, Va.
Pilot's will be able to obtain NOTAM's up until the start of the outage at 0600Z with the FAA planning to release the most recent update at 0600Z. Following the start of the outage, pilot's will still be able to obtain NOTAM's from multiple sources. Pilot's can still contact flight service at 800-WX-BRIEF (800-992-7433) or their local flight service station (FSS) via radio if in the air. The FSS employee's will have access to all NOTAM's
Pilot's will also have access to two websites as well that will post information online to help ease access for pilots. Lockheed Martin will be providing a temporary website, the Temporary NOTAM Notification site, to disseminate 'D' NOTAMs. The FAA will provide a online site, the NAIMES Migration site, that will provide FDC, TFR and Military NOTAMs. Both sites will have links to each other to allow pilot's ease of navigation between sites to check all NOTAMs.
It appears that pilots flying in Alaska will not be able to make use of the two websites and NOTAMs will need to be obtained from a local Alaska Flight Service briefer.
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