On Fri, 20 Jun 2014 07:29:49 -0700, JS wrote:

Perhaps a good idea to keep the ratings in the first few characters, as
some older systems only allow 7 or 8 characters. Characters near the end
may get removed.
Jim

I think its better to add runway width & length to all landout fields.
You can get this information for most fields by using GoogleEarth's
measurement tool and you'll already have its co-ordinates because without
them the field is pretty much useless. Then, provide the user with both
the landout database and a tool to remove any fields that don't match his
personal requirements for width and length.

This can be done with a standard CUP turnpoint file because its
description field has no defined maximum length though some programs may
impose a limit.

Both LK8000 and XCSoar are said to limit the description to 250 chars in
CUP files though I'm certain I've supplied both with longer descriptions
without crashing them. However, both make no attempt to format this field
nicely. For this reason I prefer to use Winpilot files with a short (=15
chars) comment in the file and the arbitrarily long comment in the
Turnpoint description file that LK8000 and XCSoar both support.

Of course, that does mean that the landouts master file won't be a
standard Winpilot file but who cares as long as the runway size filter
program can also spit out the filtered landout list in a format that a
glider navigation instrument can use.

I've built such a tool to support my club's landout list plus the other
UK landout fields I know about: the master file is in a format that is
suitable for maintenance with any text editor. The filter program can
output the filtered data as either a CUP file or as Winpilot TP file plus
the associated TP description file.

The program has not yet been published because at present its more of a
programmer's utility program than an end-user's point-and-click tool but,
as its written in Java, it will run on just about any desktop box a
glider pilot is likely to own.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |