Air Information Publications — Page 1, Lesson 11

I want to walk you through the very start of the Air Information Publications chapter. This is the foundation of how we, as professional pilots, get the official, legally binding information we need before every flight. Before any flight, we have to brief ourselves on a whole list of things. We need to know the Air Traffic Control procedures for our departure airport, the en-route phase, our destination, and our alternate airfields. We need the frequencies for communication and for navigation aids—we call those navaids—both along the route and at the airfields themselves. We need details on radio navigation and approach aids. We also need information on services like the Aerodrome Flight Information Service, or AFIS, the Automatic Terminal Information Service, or ATIS, and in-flight weather services. And we have to know about airspace: Danger, Restricted, and Prohibited Areas, military training areas, Air Navigation Obstacles, and aerial sporting and recreational activities. Now, in many operations offices and flight planning rooms, you'll see a lot of this information on wall boards, often in the form of maps. A lot of it is also available on printed maps and charts from companies like Jeppesen and AERAD, among others. These are very useful tools, but I want to be very clear about their status: they are secondary sources. Jeppesen and AERAD are not the authority on airspace, frequencies, or navigation aids. They take information from the official documents produced by the national aviation authority of each country—that might be the CAA, the FAA, the DGAC, and so on—and they print and reproduce it in an easily accessible format. The national aviation authority is the primary source. So, what are these primary source documents? The first one is the Air Information Publication, or AIP. The definition is precise: it is a publication issued by or with the authority of a State, containing aeronautical information of a lasting character that is essential to air navigation. The United Kingdom Air Information Publication is a perfect example of this. Next, we have AIP Supplements. These cover temporary changes to the information contained in the AIP. In the UK, these supplements are printed on yellow paper and filed in the AIP SUPPLEMENT SECTION of the UK AIP, specifically in the GENERAL, or GEN, volume. Finally, there is the NOTAM. That stands for Notice to Air Missions. The definition is: a notice distributed by means of telecommunications, containing information concerning the establishment, condition, or change in any aeronautical facility, service, procedure, or hazard, the timely knowledge of which is essential to personnel concerned with flight operations. A NOTAM is originated and issued promptly whenever the information to be distributed is of a temporary nature and short duration, or when operationally significant permanent changes of long duration are made at short notice. You will find NOTAMs displayed in, or issued by, operations and flight planning centres. So, to summarise the hierarchy: the AIP is the main, lasting document. AIP Supplements handle temporary changes. And NOTAMs handle urgent, short-notice information. These are the three primary sources you will rely on.