Major US data update on soaringdata.info

New airport and airspace data for the charting cycle effective 2012-11-15 as well as updated sectional charts have been posted on my website at http://www.soaringdata.info. I've posted this update a bit early because it contains the new Salt Lake City class B definition, which went into effect Oct. 18. This change affects several soaring operations in Northern Utah, where it is the height of the wave season right now.

All 37 US sectional charts have been updated as well. These are available on my website in CMR format for SeeYou, as well as Geo-Referenced TIFF format suitable for import into several other programs, including Google Earth. The sectionals have been reprojected from the original Lambert Conformal-Conic into a rectangular lat-lon format, so that they appear correct in programs (such as SeeYou) that use a rectangular display scheme. Edge material has been trimmed away so that the maps will tile seamlessly together.

In addition to the above, the FAA has released new airspace definition files in a revised, modern format (called AIXM5) for all special use airspace, including Prohibited, Restricted, Alerts, MOAs, and National Defense areas. The new format promises several advantages:

- Better detail than has previously been available for airspace bounded by irregular borders, such as roads, rivers, ridges, etc.
- Interior detail for some MOAs that was previously unavailable in the NASR data
- More detailed time of use information
- Better standardization on the encoding methods, which should result in a smaller chance of errors

The new AIXM5 format promises to be a Good Thing for soaring, but It is not improbable that there will be some problems in the first release. I've posted experimental translations of them into Tim Newport-Peace (SUA), OpenAir (TXT), and Google Earth (KMZ) formats on my website. Just click on the Airspace tab. Please let me know of any errors by using the webmaster email link on my site.

As always, all of this is free of any charge.

Lynn Alley
"2KA"