The Deal With ForeFlight’s ClearNOTAMS

Let’s face it. The NOTAM system in the US is antiquated. It takes a lot of time to decipher the list of NOTAMs that are received in a briefing for a flight and quite frankly most of them aren’t even relevant in my opinion. The number of unlit towers 150 feet from the centerline, wildlife in proximity of the airport and so on is staggering and likely drives people away from looking at the NOTAM list in the first place. It’s a bad situation and certain NOTAMs are important, so the prudent pilot should still look through the list and determine which ones apply.

If you have a subscription to ForeFlight and have the Starter or Essential plan, you likely saw a notice about the free trial for ClearNOTAMs, which runs through Nov. 4, 2006. We had a chance to talk with Jeppesen ForeFlight about it and got a few answers. They are utilizing an internal AI tool that conveys the essential meaning of the NOTAM in plain English that is understandable. The original text is still easily accessible and the system works alongside the enhanced NOTAM interface, which is an efficient way to sort and prioritize them.

Sifting through NOTAMs is enough work, let’s keep the deciphering easy.

My take on this is pretty straightforward and I will catch some heat. Anything an EFB provider can do to make the NOTAM system function better for the pilot is welcomed. For far too long, NOTAMs have lived in an overly coded environment that often leads to more questions than answers. I’m not saying it is not important to be able to decode a NOTAM and I will be the first to say primary skills are the most important, but we should be willing to embrace technology at some levels as they come into play. If you think we should be using the old school system, I would challenge you to consider whether you read raw TAF and METAR data or use the much friendlier decoded version.

The comparison is not perfect. A decoded METAR is a straight parse, while ClearNOTAMs is AI and ForeFlight acknowledges that an inaccurate translation can occur. That is why the Show Source toggle matters; it puts the original text beside the translation so the pilot can verify it, and a Report Error button sends bad translations back to ForeFlight. The translations are also not available in the PDF briefing format.

The downside is that after the trial ends on November 4th, the only way to keep using ClearNOTAMs will be the Premium plan at $390 per year. That is a significant jump from the Essential plan at $260 per year and the Starter plan at $130 per year.

What does not go away is the enhanced NOTAM interface. Filtering, sorting, pinning and collapsing stay available on all plans, so the list remains manageable. Without Premium you are back to reading the original coded text, but not the old unsorted pile.

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