NOTAMs and temporary flight restrictions change constantly, and the ones that matter to an air medical crew are easy to miss in a long list. A closed helipad, an unlit tower or a new TFR over a wildfire can change a flight in ways the weather never will.
NOTAMs worth a careful look
- Your home base and likely destinations: runway, taxiway and helipad closures, lighting outages, approach changes and construction.
- Obstacles: unlit or newly erected towers and cranes along common routes, especially for night operations.
- Navigation and communication: outages that affect the approaches or frequencies you rely on.
- Hospital helipads: many are private-use and may not publish NOTAMs. Know how each receiving facility tells you about changes.
TFRs
Temporary flight restrictions appear for wildfires, disasters, VIP movement, stadium events and more. Some allow air ambulance operations with coordination, and some don't. Check:
- active and scheduled TFRs in your service area for the whole shift, not just right now;
- the specific restrictions and any coordination procedures for medical flights;
- how your communications center will alert crews to new TFRs during the shift.
Read, don't just display
Showing a list of 150 NOTAMs doesn't mean anyone read the five that mattered. Group them by airport, put the ones for your home base first, and ask the pilot to acknowledge each hazard before the brief can be submitted. Then the record shows that the information was reviewed, not just available.
Keep it current during the shift
A brief is a snapshot at the start of the shift. When something new appears, such as a fresh TFR or an amended NOTAM for your destination, the crew should know without having to re-run the whole brief.
BRIEFED pulls NOTAMs and TFRs from the FAA for each pilot's airports, groups them by airport, and records each pilot's acknowledgment with the brief.