USA charted airport database available

[Eric Greenwell]

Note that a recent (~April 2006) database of all the charted airports in
the USA, including Alaska and Hawaii, is available from John Leibacher's
Turnpoint exchange (http://soaring.aerobatics.ws/TP/FAA). This database
is derived from an FAA database sold on CDs that Paul Remde and I
discovered together, and then Paul found someone in the FAA to give John
free online access to it. Thank you, Paul!

John wrote the script that parses the file into the SeeYou format, and I
assume plans to offer other formats when he's not so busy. Since the
SeeYou format is a plain text file, it wouldn't take too much work with
spreadsheet or similar to rearrange it into other formats.

Besides the obvious lat/long/elevation/radio frequency kind of thing,
the comment section includes runway width for the widest runway, and the
fuel availability (I'm a motorglider pilot, so I talked John into that
one!). Duplicate names (100's of them!) are modified by appending the
State abbreviation (e.g., "Richland WA" for the Richland airport in
Washington state), and then a number if there are duplicates within a state.

I used it for a couple months on my trip around the country, and what a
huge convenience it was to have this information at my finger tips
without tediously inputting for each of the 9 places I flew. I'm now
using it at home just as happily. Thank you, John!

You still have to keep your own database of runways and landable areas
that aren't on the charts. With SeeYou, it's easy to merge these into
the FAA file.

--
Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly

Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA

www.motorglider.org - Download "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane
Operation"

[Doug Haluza]

Hey, WOW, great show! I've been looking for this, and was even
considering paying up for the CD subscription. Now I don't have to.
Thanks!

I see you have the airports coded based on surface type, and the
gliderports are also coded separately. You even have the runway
directions corrected for magnetic variation. Very nice!

Eric Greenwell wrote:
> Note that a recent (~April 2006) database of all the charted airports in
> the USA, including Alaska and Hawaii, is available from John Leibacher's
> Turnpoint exchange (http://soaring.aerobatics.ws/TP/FAA). This database
> is derived from an FAA database sold on CDs that Paul Remde and I
> discovered together, and then Paul found someone in the FAA to give John
> free online access to it. Thank you, Paul!
>
> John wrote the script that parses the file into the SeeYou format, and I
> assume plans to offer other formats when he's not so busy. Since the
> SeeYou format is a plain text file, it wouldn't take too much work with
> spreadsheet or similar to rearrange it into other formats.
>
> Besides the obvious lat/long/elevation/radio frequency kind of thing,
> the comment section includes runway width for the widest runway, and the
> fuel availability (I'm a motorglider pilot, so I talked John into that
> one!). Duplicate names (100's of them!) are modified by appending the
> State abbreviation (e.g., "Richland WA" for the Richland airport in
> Washington state), and then a number if there are duplicates within a state.
>
> I used it for a couple months on my trip around the country, and what a
> huge convenience it was to have this information at my finger tips
> without tediously inputting for each of the 9 places I flew. I'm now
> using it at home just as happily. Thank you, John!
>
> You still have to keep your own database of runways and landable areas
> that aren't on the charts. With SeeYou, it's easy to merge these into
> the FAA file.
>
> --
> Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly
>
> Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA
>
> www.motorglider.org - Download "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane
> Operation"

[Eric Greenwell]

Doug Haluza wrote:
> Hey, WOW, great show! I've been looking for this, and was even
> considering paying up for the CD subscription. Now I don't have to.
> Thanks!
>
> I see you have the airports coded based on surface type, and the
> gliderports are also coded separately.

I was amazed when I saw the gliderport symbol the first time I flew with
the new database! Thought it must be an error, but it was on the paper
chart I had with me, so I was impressed.

> You even have the runway
> directions corrected for magnetic variation. Very nice!

You're welcome! But, remember, I just found the CDs, Paul Remde found
the free online access, and John Leibacher wrote the scripts to parse
the FAA data file. I didn't even think about asking him to correct for
the magnetic variation, even though I use SeeYou and it uses true North
for displaying runway directions, so I'm assuming John figured that one
out on his own.

For my purposes, I'd also like to have the AWOS/ASOS frequencies listed
in the comments section. John says he's open to suggestions, but might
not take all of them :^). Part of his concern is getting it into other
formats, and the more stuff there is, the more awkward it is to
translate it. This is especially true of the older ones, like the
Cambridge DAT format, which has smaller and fewer data fields in it.

Regardless, these are just wrinkles that will be ironed out one way or
the other; the great thing is we now have full coverage database that
can be updated several times a year.

--
Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly

Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA

www.motorglider.org - Download "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane
Operation"