NOTAMs tell you what changed since the charts were printed — a closed runway, a dead ILS, a new crane, or restricted airspace you are legally required to avoid. This guide explains what they are, how to read them, and exactly where to check current ones before every flight.
NOTAMs are one of the most important — and most frequently skipped — parts of preflight planning. They tell you what has changed at an airport or in the airspace since the charts were printed: a closed runway, an out-of-service ILS, a new crane near the approach path, or a temporary flight restriction you are legally required to avoid. This guide explains what NOTAMs are, how to read the format, the types you'll actually run into as a student, and exactly where to pull current ones before every flight.
Checking NOTAMs is not optional. Under 14 CFR 91.103, the pilot in command must become familiar with all available information concerning a flight before departure — and NOTAMs are squarely part of that. "I didn't check NOTAMs" is not a defense after busting a TFR or landing on a closed runway.
NOTAM stands for Notice to Air Missions (formerly Notice to Airmen). It's a time-critical notice about a condition that isn't shown on current charts and is essential to anyone planning to operate in that area. NOTAMs are created and distributed by the FAA and cover everything from a single taxiway light being out to a nationwide GPS testing event. They exist because the National Airspace System changes constantly while charts are only republished on 28- and 56-day cycles — NOTAMs fill the gap in between.
U.S. NOTAMs are published in the international ICAO format, which looks cryptic at first but follows a fixed set of labeled fields. Here's a simplified example for a closed runway:
!PVU 06/015 PVU RWY 13/31 CLSD
2606151200-2606161800
Reading it: the airport is KPVU (Provo), the notice number is 06/015 (the 15th NOTAM issued there in June), runway 13/31 is closed (CLSD), and it's in effect from 15 June 1200Z to 16 June 1800Z. In a full official briefing you'll see the complete ICAO format, which breaks the same information into lettered fields:
Q) — the "qualifier" line: the FIR, subject and condition codes, and the affected altitude/location box.
A) — the location (the ICAO airport or FIR identifier).
B) — the start date/time (UTC).
C) — the end date/time (UTC), or PERM for permanent / EST for estimated.
D) — a schedule, if the condition is only active at certain times (e.g. "daily 0600–1800").
E) — the plain-text description (the part you actually read).
F) and G) — the lower and upper altitude limits, used mainly for airspace and obstacle NOTAMs.
You don't need to memorize the code letters — official briefing tools display them with labels, and many decode the text for you. What matters is knowing where to look: the E) line tells you what's happening, and the B) and C) times tell you whether it's active during your flight. All times are in UTC (Zulu).
As a student and new private pilot, a handful of NOTAM categories cover almost everything you'll see:
Changes at a specific airport: runway or taxiway closures, lighting outages, displaced thresholds, construction, unavailable services. These are the most common and the most directly relevant to a local training flight.
A VOR, ILS, or other navigation aid out of service. Important if you planned to navigate or shoot an approach using it — and increasingly relevant as you move toward the instrument rating.
New or newly-lit obstacles — cranes, towers, antennas — often near airports and approach paths. Easy to overlook, occasionally critical on a low approach.
Temporary changes to airspace, including Temporary Flight Restrictions (TFRs). These get their own section below because they're the ones that get student pilots into real trouble.
The military regularly conducts GPS jamming tests over large regions, published as NOTAMs. If your navigation depends on GPS, an active interference NOTAM along your route is something you want to know about beforehand — not discover in the air.
Issued by the FAA's Flight Data Center, these are regulatory or chart-related: changes to instrument procedures, airway changes, and — importantly — TFRs are published as FDC NOTAMs.
Temporary Flight Restrictions are the NOTAM most likely to get a student pilot violated. They appear for VIP movement (presidential travel creates a large moving ring of restricted airspace), wildfires, disaster areas, space launches, and major sporting events.
The classic trap is the standing stadium TFR. A standing FDC NOTAM prohibits flight below 3,000 feet AGL within a 3-nautical-mile radius of any stadium seating 30,000 or more people — beginning one hour before and ending one hour after the event — for MLB, NFL, NCAA Division I football, and major motor-speedway races. There's no individual schedule published for each game; it's your responsibility to know an event is happening. Plenty of sightseeing and training flights have been violated for drifting over a Saturday college football stadium.
Always check TFRs specifically, in addition to your airport NOTAMs, on every flight — local or cross-country.
NOTAMs are included automatically when you get a standard weather briefing, so the easiest complete check is to pull a full briefing for your route. The official, current sources:
FAA NOTAM Search — notams.aim.faa.gov — the FAA's official search by airport or area.
Leidos Flight Service — 1800wxbrief.com or 1-800-WX-BRIEF — a full briefing here includes NOTAMs along your route.
TFR list — tfr.faa.gov — the FAA's graphical temporary-flight-restriction page; check it on every flight.
Electronic flight bag apps — ForeFlight, Garmin Pilot, and similar pull NOTAMs and TFRs into your route briefing and overlay TFRs on the map.
Why we don't show live NOTAMs here: NOTAM data changes constantly, and an incomplete or stale list creates dangerous false confidence. Pull current NOTAMs straight from the official sources above before every flight — that's the workflow you'll use for your entire flying career, so build the habit now.
Before any flight, make NOTAMs a deliberate step, not an afterthought:
1. Get a standard briefing for your route (1800wxbrief or your EFB app) — this surfaces NOTAMs for departure, destination, and en route.
2. Check your departure and destination airports for runway/taxiway closures, lighting, and NAVAID outages.
3. On a cross-country, check your alternates and anything along the route, not just the endpoints.
4. Check TFRs separately at tfr.faa.gov — especially for sporting events, VIP movement, or fire activity near your route.
5. Note the B) and C) times on anything relevant and confirm it's actually active during your flight window.
Build this into your normal preflight flow and it takes only a few minutes — and it keeps you off a closed runway and out of restricted airspace.
NOTAMs are one piece of preflight planning. See also Weather for Pilots for reading METARs and TAFs, Cross-Country Planning for putting it all together, and the Go/No-Go Weather Tool for live conditions.