"Chip Hermes" writes:

I agree, free would be best! After all, since taxpayers pay for the
FAA to collect the data and operate their infrastructure, it would make
sense that the data is freely available, like weather data is from the
NOAA.

Oh, sure, that seems reasonable to us taxpayers. But how do you expect
those poor corporations to make money without limiting our access to our
data?

However, your friends at the FAA, AOPA, FlightExplorer, etc, have all
teamed up to make pilots pay for flight tracking data. If the data was
freely available on the internet in some open format (like XML), there
would be countless free services offering flight tracking with superior
technology to the stuff you can pay for.

My understanding is that the data *is* "freely" available...with lots
of strings attached. I've got details about that around here somewhere
but here's what I recall.

To get the data you must sign an agreement that says you won't share it
freely. You must also provide specific communications equipment to be
installed at the data center and pay for (partial T1?) access to that
equipment. I think there's a data center charge too.

I was looking into this when "but the terr'rists would use it!" would
quickly shut down any discussion of Free access to such useful data.
Maybe that's changed. I'd be happy to provide money, equipment and
software to help make this data available to those who pay for it
(taxpayers) but I don't have effort to spare to bang my head against
this wall right now.

BTW, I think I recall that a university (MIT?) might already have
access. That would be a good place to start sharing.

--kyler