• As requested by users, you can now choose to see NOTAMS for any day of the week ahead on the maps. Only those in place for the day chosen will be shown.
  Please beware that if you show NOTAMs for any day in the future, that between now and then, NOTAMS may be amended or removed, and new NOTAMs may be issued for that day. You must not assume that any NOTAM information viewed days beforehand will be active on the day in question. The selection is merely there to remove clutter when viewing the maps.
• The date selection has also been added to the NOTAM lists.
• NOTAMS with very long text now have a scrollable window, so they don't occupy the entire map.

.. is here at last!

On the map pages (either your local map or the UK map), click on 'show route'. The first time you do this, a default route will be shown in the middle of the map, in an west-to-east direction. The route will be enclosed in a rectangle marking the route width (default 5nm). This may be altered on-screen to suit.

Drag the start(red) marker to your take off spot, and the green landing marker to your landing. Click on the line in between them to create a draggable turn point (yellow). You can create as many turn points as you like by repeatedly clicking the lines between markers. Click on a marker to show its latitude and longitude. The turnpoint may be removed by clicking on it, and then clicking on the 'Remove this turnpoint' link. Once you are happy, hit 'save route' to store the route on the database. The next time you look at a map and click 'show route', your previously stored route will be displayed.

The 'route NOTAMS' menu item will now contain the NOTAMs affecting your selected route. If you start or end your route on, or very close to an ICAO airfield, the program assumes that you are taking off/landing there. The aerodrome NOTAMs for those airfields will be shown in the list. Note that, unlike the official NATS web site, you do not need to start or finish on an airfield to obtain the narrow route brief.

The route will also appear in the downloaded Google Earth files.

Please let me know of any problems/bugs.

The maps now tracks the Eyjafjallajokull volcano's ash cloud, as per the Met Office's volcanic ash advisory. The volcano is marked by 4 false NOTAMs. The current ash cloud is delineated in red, the +6 hour forecast in yellow, the +12 hour in dark grey, the +18 hour in light grey. It's updated every 6 hours.

As of 13 May 2010, the current forecast is now included on the RSS and email feeds.

The (left-hand) navigation menu now has an item on it - 'METARs and TAFs'. This will display the current meteorological conditions and the forecast from ICAO airfields in your designated area. Not all airfields provide these forecasts. Those that do will also shortly be linked to from the national and local maps.

The original METARs and TAFs are displayed, followed by a near-English translation. If you spot any obvious mistakes, please let me know via the contact form.

** Coming shortly : Narrow route brief **

The following have just been installed. Please let me know if you spot any mistakes...

• Google Earth files - Once you have selected what you want to see on the map pages you can download a file to see it all in glorious colour on Google Earth. The GE files may optionally contain NOTAMs, airspace, flying sites and airfields.
• NOTAMs by email. - Go to 'My Account', and fill in your email preferences. You can receive a daily email with all the NOTAMs in your area, or one with just the updates as and when they are posted. NB You must tick the 'Send an email' box to receive any email at all.
• Microlight fields are now available on the map, as are ICAO airfields (all the EGxx fields listed in the Air Info Package). Go to 'my account' to set up whether you want to see these or not. If you list these on the Google maps, they will also show in the Google Earth .KMZ files.
• The emails, RSS feeds and the notam lists all now show the airport name for aerodrome NOTAMs
• You can now turn the display of flying sites, microlight and ICAO airfields on and off on all maps.

• The free-flying sites listed here have been extracted mostly from the BHPA clubs' websites. Where possible, these have been linked directly to the web site site guides. Others were taken from paragliding Earth, entries from XC tables, and the UK AIP. If you find any errors, please let me know, so that it may be corrected.
• The microlight airfields were taken from the UK AIP. Some are wrongly positioned, despite the data being copied directly. Please let me know where they should be!
• The ICAO airfields have all been checked on Google Earth.