View US Airport Runways In Google Earth, and More

[2KA]

Hi All,

I've made a few smallish improvements on my website, which extracts
airport information from the FAA's NASR database. The changes affect
all of the output file formats.

You can get to my website at http://www.soaringdata.info.

RUNWAY HIGHLIGHTING IN GOOGLE EARTH

In KML output files for Google Earth, a colored stripe now now
highlights the runway positions, or at least where the FAA thinks the
runways are. Yellow highlighting is used for solid surfaces (asphalt,
concrete) and green for soft surfaces (dirt, sand, gravel, grass,
etc.). Actually, this feature didn't turn out to be quite as cool as
I thought it would be, because apparently the operators of many little
airports with soft surface runways don't report the runway locations
to the FAA. Of course if the position isn't in the database I can't
draw the stripe. Oh well.

RIGHT-HAND PATTERN TRAFFIC INDICATION

For runways that are marked as using right-hand traffic patterns in
the FAA database, the runway description will now include an
indication that such is the case. This change affects the Google
Earth format as well as those that support glide computers, PDAs,
etc. For many instruments, the limited amount of space on the screen
has caused me to resort to a runway description coding that is a teeny
bit arcane. This is especially true for ILEC (.NDB), Cambridge
(.DAT) and Garmin-style airport descriptions. Users of these formats
are strongly encouraged to read a description of my new runway coding
scheme by following the "Choose a Companion File Format" help link on
my site, or by going directly to:

http://www.xmission.com/~lalley/airports/NDBComments.html

STANDARDIZED SURFACE TYPE CODINGS

John Leibacher and I have agreed on a set of single character runway
surface type codes, which I use whenever it is necessary to abbreviate
a runway surface description to a single character. We took some care
to provide as much backward compatibility as possible while at the
same time reconciling the differences that have been used in our
coding methods in the past. This changes the way I represent surface
types in. NDB files (for the ILEC SN-10) Cambridge .DAT files,
ClearNav .STX files, and Garmin-style comments. Moving forward, I
believe John will be using these same surface codes in the files on
the Worldwide Soaring Turnpoint Exchange. The link given above also
describes the new surface type codes.

Happy Downloading!
Lynn Alley
"2KA"

[2KA]

By the way -- it might not be obvious, but each of the numbered links
on the airports page of my site is a help link. If you are having any
trouble, there is good information there to read. There is also an
email link there in case you need to ask me a question directly. Feel
free to do so.

L.

[2KA]

Just a bit ago someone tried a query centered on Ellington Field,
which triggered an error in the website software. The problem has
been fixed, so please try again. It was a very unusual condition
involving a tiny angle that caused a distance calculation to go south.

L.

[kirk.stant]

Lynn,

Excellent site.

One comment: Your .sua airspace does not include Warning Areas or the
Grand Canyon Special Use Airspace. Kinda important for some of us!

Kirk
66

[2KA]

Hi Kirk,

Thanks for your comments. I can add Warning areas pretty easily.
But, if you don't mind educating a land-locked Westerner a bit, I'd
like to know more about how and where Warning areas affect glider ops.
I guess I mistakenly assumed they didn't, so I intentionally excluded
them.

As far as the Grand Canyon goes, it does not currently appear in the
national Airspace System Resource File (NASR) database. I don't have
any source for the data that isn't covered by a copyright and/or
restricted copy license. As you may know, all of the rest of the data
on my site is free, and freely redistributable -- that's kind of it's
reason for existence. If someone can point me to a free source for
the Grand Canyon in a suitable format, I'll be happy to add it.

L.

[kirk.stant]

On Mar 6, 8:46*pm, 2KA > wrote:
> Hi Kirk,
>
> Thanks for your comments. *I can add Warning areas pretty easily.
> But, if you don't mind educating a land-locked Westerner a bit, I'd
> like to know more about how and where Warning areas affect glider ops.
> I guess I mistakenly assumed they didn't, so I intentionally excluded
> them.
>
> As far as the Grand Canyon goes, it does not currently appear in the
> national Airspace System Resource File (NASR) database. *I don't have
> any source for the data that isn't covered by a copyright and/or
> restricted copy license. *As you may know, all of the rest of the data
> on my site is free, and freely redistributable -- that's kind of it's
> reason for existence. * *If someone can point me to a free source for
> the Grand Canyon in a suitable format, I'll be happy to add it.
>
> L.

Lynn,

Not sure if there is much use for the overwater warning areas, but I'm
more concerned with other "odd" bits of airspace that might crop up.
I just happened to notice that some smaller airspace within MOAs are
missing, and of course, for me, the Grand Canyon Special use airspace.

My personal feeling is that all airspace bounderies below 18000 ft are
worth having - it's easy to open the file in SeeYou and delete any
that aren't needed (like overwater warning areas ;>).


I found the differences by comparing the .sua files from your NASR
database to a .sua made from the FAA NFD database.

Cheers,

Kirk

[2KA]

Kirk,

Yeah, the NASR doesn't include the Washington ADIZ either. I'm still
looking for an open source for that and the Grand Canyon.

I'm interested in resolving any errors in the MOAs you can tell me
about. I've actually had some luck getting the FAA to fix that type
of thing fixed in the database. I'll send you an offline email
request for some specifics.

Thanks!

Lynn