Reading NOTAMs before a cross-country and the buried line that closes the runway you were planning to land on

NOTAMs — Notices to Air Missions — are the real-time layer on top of your static charts, and they’re the single most skipped step in cross-country flight planning. Buried in that wall of capital letters and abbreviations is the runway closure, the temporary flight restriction, or the unlit crane that could turn a routine training flight into a serious problem. Learning to read them systematically takes about ten minutes and may be the most important ten minutes of your preflight.

What Is a NOTAM and Why Does It Matter?

A Notice to Air Missions is a notice filed with the FAA alerting pilots to potential hazards or changes along a route of flight or at a specific location. NOTAMs cover everything from runway closures to airspace restrictions to lighting outages to crane construction near an airport.

Your sectional chart might be current. Your Chart Supplement might be current. But the world changes between publication dates. NOTAMs fill that gap. If something changed since the last publication cycle, there’s almost certainly a NOTAM about it.

What Are the Different Types of NOTAMs?

The two types you’ll encounter most often are D NOTAMs (distant NOTAMs) and FDC NOTAMs (Flight Data Center NOTAMs).

D NOTAMs are tied to a specific airport or facility. They cover runway closures, taxiway closures, navaid outages, lighting changes, and obstacles near the field. When you pull NOTAMs for your departure, destination, and alternates, D NOTAMs make up the bulk of what you’re reading.

FDC NOTAMs are issued by the National Flight Data Center in Washington and cover changes to instrument approach procedures, temporary flight restrictions (TFRs), and amendments to aeronautical charts. If a TFR appears along your route for a presidential visit, wildfire, or sporting event, that information arrives as an FDC NOTAM.

Why Are TFRs So Critical?

TFRs deserve special attention because flying into a temporary flight restriction without authorization can result in interception by fighter jets, an FAA violation, or both. TFRs move and appear with short notice. A presidential visit TFR might appear the day before. A wildfire TFR can appear the same day.

Check for TFRs at three points: the night before your flight, the morning of your flight, and once more right before departure.

How Do I Actually Read a NOTAM?

The format looks like a string of abbreviations, numbers, and slashes, but there’s a logic to it. Every NOTAM starts with an identifier (the airport or facility it applies to), followed by a NOTAM number, then the substance: what is affected, what the condition is, and when it’s effective.

All times are in Zulu (UTC). A NOTAM effective from 1408002 to 14170002 means the 14th of the month, from 0800Z to 1700Z. Convert to local time to determine whether it affects your flight.

What Could Go Wrong If I Skip NOTAMs?

Consider two scenarios that catch students regularly:

Scenario 1: The closed runway. You plan a cross-country to an untowered field 120 nautical miles away. Weather looks perfect. But the NOTAMs show the destination’s only runway, 18/36, is closed for maintenance from 0800 to 1700 local. Your planned 10 AM arrival falls right in the closure window. Your entire flight plan needs to change — new destination, adjusted timing, or a phone call to the airport. Show up without reading that NOTAM, and you’re dealing with no available runway or a conflict with construction equipment on the pavement. On a checkride, the examiner will catch it during planning review.

Scenario 2: The dead lighting system. You’re planning a late-afternoon cross-country, arriving near sunset. No runway closure NOTAMs — the runway is open. But pilot-controlled lighting is out of service. Arriving at dusk without runway lighting is a genuine go/no-go decision point you’d completely miss without reading NOTAMs.

A third hazard: an unlit construction crane within a mile of the airport, 200 feet AGL. That won’t appear on your sectional. It’s only in a NOTAM. On a visual approach, especially at night, that’s a serious threat.

Where Do I Find NOTAMs?

• FAA NOTAM Search tool on the FAA website
• Leidos Flight Service — call for a standard briefing and they’ll read relevant NOTAMs for your route
• Electronic flight bag apps like ForeFlight, Garmin Pilot, and FlyQ, which pull NOTAMs automatically and highlight critical entries
• FAA Graphic TFR tool — provides a map view showing TFRs along your route

One important caution: don’t rely solely on an app’s filtering. Apps sometimes categorize a NOTAM as low priority when it’s actually critical to your specific flight. Scan the full list yourself for departure and destination airports. Let the app assist, but don’t let it think for you.

For TFRs specifically, check both the text FDC NOTAMs and the graphic TFR tool. The graphic tool shows spatial context; the text gives you altitudes, times, and contact information.

What Does a Solid NOTAM Check Look Like?

A systematic NOTAM review for a cross-country follows this sequence:

1. Departure airport — scan for runway closures, taxiway closures, lighting outages, and navaid issues
2. FDC NOTAMs near departure — check for TFRs
3. Airports along your route — including fuel stops
4. Destination airport — same scan as departure
5. Alternate airports — same scan
6. Entire route of flight — check for TFRs using the graphic tool

Write down or highlight anything that affects your flight. Note it on your kneeboard or in your nav log. When the examiner asks about NOTAMs, you should be able to point to your notes and explain what you found, how it affects the flight, and what you’re doing about it.

How Do NOTAMs Factor Into the Checkride?

The Airman Certification Standards for the private pilot certificate specifically require you to demonstrate that you can obtain and interpret weather briefings and NOTAMs. The examiner will review your cross-country planning and ask about them. Not having checked NOTAMs is a significant issue — it signals you’re not thinking about what could go wrong.

The examiner doesn’t expect every NOTAM memorized. They want to see a systematic approach: that you checked, understood the ones relevant to your flight, and incorporated that information into your planning. The critical piece is acting on what you find. If a runway is closed, what’s your plan? If there’s a TFR, are you routing around it? If lighting is out, are you adjusting your departure time to arrive in daylight?

Don’t Forget: NOTAMs Have a Shelf Life

Some NOTAMs are effective for hours; others last months. If you check NOTAMs the night before, check again the morning of your flight. New ones can be issued overnight. A TFR that didn’t exist at 9 PM might exist at 7 AM.

Key Takeaways

• NOTAMs are the real-time update layer that fills the gap between chart publication cycles — skipping them means flying with incomplete information
• Check TFRs at least three times: the night before, the morning of, and right before departure
• Work through NOTAMs systematically — departure, route, destination, alternates — and write down anything that affects your flight
• Don’t trust app filtering alone; scan the full NOTAM list yourself for departure and destination airports
• Act on what you find — the examiner (and safe flying) requires not just reading NOTAMs but adjusting your plan based on them

References: FAA Aeronautical Information Manual, Chapter 5; Advisory Circular 91-92; Airman Certification Standards for Private Pilot Certificate.