Thanks to Dennis Megary at MyAirplane.com, I've added the vector (PDF) approach plates to my collection. http://aviationtoolbox.org/raw_data/FAA/approaches/ There's a lot that I plan to do with these, but for now I have a terribly simple kludge for finding them...

"Aeronautical Information Services is in the process of testing a web-based electronic data distribution system for the 56-day subscriber files. This system will be replacing the current method of sending subscribers a CD-ROM by FEDEX. The advantages of the new distribution system are the data...

I just got this in an investor update from Borealis. ************************* Missing pilot and plane We are delighted to report that the plane and the pilot were found. Dave is fine; the plane crashed and is probably a total loss as a wing broke off, possibly from wind sheer. Dave was flying...

This struck me as something that could make loading the plane a little easier. http://ricardobeverlyhills.com/scale.html Then I thought about it for another second. No, my fish scale is a whole lot more versatile. It's not like I'm going to find a self-weighing 5 gallon dogfood bag so I'll always...

I fell behind in maintaining my copies of FAA data last year. http://aviationtoolbox.org/raw_data/FAA/ As a new year's resolution, I decided to get going again. I misplaced the December ATA-100 data but I now have the January version in place. http://aviationtoolbox.org/old/ATA-100/ The raster...

I just saw a clip on the local news about a single-engine turboprop that landed on a Highway 933 in Roselawn yesterday after having engine problems. It looks like it might be a PC-12. It's N922RG. It was going from South Bend Regional, IN to White Plains, NY with five people on board. They were...

I hate software patents. They *really* burn me when they're on things that I've already discussed and planned to do. Here's one. http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archives/avflash/323-full.html#188748 Any GPS can tell you where you are but Control Vision's Anywhere Map system tells you where you...

It's been months since I got a good set of sectional raster DVDs from the FAA. For a couple cycles a Miami image was missing georeferencing data. That was fixed but then the current set I received had a bad (East) disk. So I called to see if I could get another. They didn't have any extra disks...

I've been asked to help write some code to assist in flight planning by choosing routes. I have just enough Computer Science and IFR background to make me dangerous. I said that I'd donate my effort if it results in Free code the community can use. So we're making this a community...

As I was considering renting a car today I noticed that Enterprise has a section for general aviation. http://www.enterprise.com/GA "from your wings to our wheels" Last time I rented an Enterprise car it was from a place just down the road from N10. (They picked us up at the airport.) ...

Anyone know where to get the boundaries for sectionals? (I want to be able to determine which sectionals contain a given point.) Thank you. --kyler

I see that the Fairey Rotodyne had a max. gross weight of over 32,000 pounds. The only gyro in which I have time was close to 2% of that weight. It's been years since I've been to a PRA fly-in, but I only recall seeing *little* (two-person max.) aircraft - much lighter than the 5200 pound...

I've thought about the possibilities of using GPS and air data along with a well-stocked GIS to advise a pilot of the better places to ditch. Using aircraft performance, wind, and terrain elevation data, it would be fairly easy to determine the areas that could be reached if power was lost. The...

I've described the problems we've had with my wife's cherished Bose X headset since having it...

Right after I got my AMEL (and before I was flying our Aztec), I rented a Seneca and took my family to 2I3. http://lairds.org/Kyler/photos/disk0005/img19.jpg/image_viewer As I recall, we got there at the tail end of lunch but still ate something and then headed right home. It wasn't a big...

Anyone want to take a stab at explaining where the Parkland Health and Hospital System Heliport is? Here's the entry for Parkland's heliport, TE43. http://www.airnav.com/airport/TE43 The location...

In another thread, I asked if the FAA keeps track of FBOs. I decided to submit that question to the FAA. I received a timely and complete response. You asked if FAA maintains a list of fixed base operators for each airport. The FAA does not. You need to contact the individual airports for...

I converted all of the sectional map chunks http://aviationtoolbox.org/munge/mosaic from 24-bit to 8-bit (palette) color. Putting them all into a single zip file, they compressed to 1.9GB (2013432788 bytes). http://aviationtoolbox.org/munge/chunked.zip (To get a single uncompressed 8-bit color...

For the past few weeks, I've been obsessed with manipulating the newly- available (from the FAA) raster sectional images. This is all new to me so I've just been banging out code trying to get something reasonable. The code is *horrible* and I don't recommend it as anything beyond an example of...

Recently I've been working a lot on manipulating the FAA sectionals I purchased. http://aviationtoolbox.org/raw_data/FAA_sectionals/ I've been amazed by the hundreds of people who have downloaded this data. There's apparently some interest in it so I'd like to solicit input on some of the projects...