C172 pilot reports being unaware of NOTAM concerning military activity along a line between aco and ...

Narrative:

After departing; I headed east towards yng. I called up youngstown approach and was told I was in radar contact and to head towards the airport. I was also told about traffic that was a C-130 doing a military training exercise in my vicinity. I advised ATC that I had the traffic insight and was then told to alter my course to the northwest to avoid the traffic. After passing the traffic without a problem I was asked by ATC if I had gotten a briefing and was aware of the area NOTAM around 'slagl' I replied that I had gotten a briefing (via duat) but was unaware of the NOTAM. Nothing more was asked and I completed the flight without any problems. ATC then called my home airport and informed them that my plane had missed the NOTAM. After landing I looked for the NOTAM and found; among numerous tower outage notams; one marking off a 1nm area for the military training. I am not sure if I actually flew into that 1nm area or not; but it was too close for comfort. I believe that the problem was caused because that NOTAM was mixed with so many tower outages. If notams were separated into categories I think it would be considerably easier to navigate them to find the ones that would be pertinent to a individual flight; and may have stopped this from happening. I do not know if the ATC controller had forgotten about the NOTAM or not when he told me to proceed to the airport; but it also seems like he could have given me a vector to avoid the whole situation as well.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: C172 pilot reports being unaware of NOTAM concerning military activity along a line between ACO and YNG 6000 feet and below. Reporter is queried by ATC then given a vector around C-130 traffic.

Narrative: After departing; I headed east towards YNG. I called up Youngstown Approach and was told I was in radar contact and to head towards the airport. I was also told about traffic that was a C-130 doing a military training exercise in my vicinity. I advised ATC that I had the traffic insight and was then told to alter my course to the NW to avoid the traffic. After passing the traffic without a problem I was asked by ATC if I had gotten a briefing and was aware of the area NOTAM around 'SLAGL' I replied that I had gotten a briefing (via duat) but was unaware of the NOTAM. Nothing more was asked and I completed the flight without any problems. ATC then called my home airport and informed them that my plane had missed the NOTAM. After landing I looked for the NOTAM and found; among numerous tower outage NOTAMs; one marking off a 1nm area for the military training. I am not sure if I actually flew into that 1nm area or not; but it was too close for comfort. I believe that the problem was caused because that NOTAM was mixed with so many tower outages. If NOTAMs were separated into categories I think it would be considerably easier to navigate them to find the ones that would be pertinent to a individual flight; and may have stopped this from happening. I do not know if the ATC Controller had forgotten about the NOTAM or not when he told me to proceed to the airport; but it also seems like he could have given me a vector to avoid the whole situation as well.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

Attributes
ACN	830630
Time
Date	200904
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	ACO.Airport
State Reference	OH
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Skyhawk 172/Cutlass 172
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 91
Flight Phase	Cruise
Flight Plan	None
Person 1
Function	Single Pilot Pilot Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Commercial Flight Crew Instrument Flight Crew Multiengine Flight Crew Flight Instructor
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 40 Flight Crew Total 740 Flight Crew Type 400
Person 2
Function	Approach
Events
Anomaly	Conflict Airborne Conflict

C172 pilot reports being unaware of NOTAM concerning military activity along a line between aco and yng 6000 feet and below. Reporter is queried by ATC then given a vector around C-130 traffic.