Electronic Airport Facility Directories ("A/FDs")

On 2006-04-07, Roy Smith wrote:
Justin Gombos wrote:

I'll start with a rant; it's disturbing to find that the Department
of Transportation ("DOT") does not release the AFDs in a useable
digital format.

Of course they do.

Have a link for that?

Where do you think places like Airnav get their data from?

I don't think Airnav gets the information from DOT - I think they get
it from the FAA.

True, it's not 100% of everything that's in the AF/D, but it's most
of it.

I doubt that getting "most of it" adequitely complies with FAR 91.103.

The FAA has been getting steadily better about stuff like this.

Perhaps, but the DOT seems to be stuck in the 80s.

You can download PDFs of all the approach plates. You can download
sectionals. You can download the entire nav database (every
airport, fix, navaid, airway, etc, in excruciating detail). You
just have to do your homework to find it.

In that case, consider this thread "my homework".

The DOT cannot legally copyright the AFD, so AFAIK anyone is free
to tear the binding off, scan it, and redistribute it. Is anyone
doing this?

Of course somebody could do it. But I can't imagine anybody would
want to. Scanned images of the pages??? It's hard to think of a
more bizarre way to waste perfectly good electrons.

Fortunately, machines and electrons don't get tired. Drop a stack of
papers on an ADF, and it will go until the stack is empty. The cost
of a few electrons? You can figure it's negligable (and cheaper than
the material wasted in the production of the green book).

If you want to play lawyer games, keep buying the green book. If
you simply want to get the useful information you need to conduct
your flight safely, go to Airnav, or places like it. If you think
you can do a better job than Airnav, go download the raw data, spend
$9.99 to register a domain name, and go into competition with them.

Call them spoiled, but some pilots might want to be both practical
(that is, making use of electronic AFDs) and lawful at the same time.
Are you saying this isn't possible?

--
PM instructions: do a C4esar Ciph3r on my address; retain punctuation.

In article GJCZf.872$Fp4.847@trnddc01,
Justin Gombos wrote:

You can download PDFs of all the approach plates. You can download
sectionals. You can download the entire nav database (every
airport, fix, navaid, airway, etc, in excruciating detail). You
just have to do your homework to find it.

In that case, consider this thread "my homework".


Well, here's some places to start:

http://avn.faa.gov/index.asp?xml=nac...ectional_Raste
r
https://www2.nima.mil/products/digitalaero/index.cfm
http://www.naco.faa.gov/ap_diagrams_...ch=&select =&
submit1=Search
http://www.fly.faa.gov/Products/Code...eferred_Routes
_Database/nfdc_preferred_routes_database.html

On Fri, 07 Apr 2006 23:38:14 GMT, Justin Gombos
wrote in GJCZf.872$Fp4.847@trnddc01::

I don't think Airnav gets the information from DOT - I think they get
it from the FAA.

Isn't that like saying cars aren't manufactured by General Motors;
they come from Chevrolet and Buick? While strictly true, it fails to
draw a revenant distinction. Or am I missing your point?

On Sat, 08 Apr 2006 06:08:14 GMT, Larry Dighera
wrote in ::

revenant

That should have been 'relevant.'

"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
...
revenant

That should have been 'relevant.'

Oh come on...if you're going to go around correcting every typo in your
posts, we'll be here all day.

On Sat, 8 Apr 2006 11:34:29 -0700, Peter Duniho wrote:

revenant

That should have been 'relevant.'

Oh come on...if you're going to go around correcting every typo in your
posts, we'll be here all day.

and: superseed, superseed!

:-)

#m
--
"We're out of toilet paper sir!"
http://www.webcrunchers.com/crunch/Play/history/stories/toilet.html

On Sat, 8 Apr 2006 11:34:29 -0700, "Peter Duniho"
wrote in
::

"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
.. .
revenant

That should have been 'relevant.'

Oh come on...if you're going to go around correcting every typo in your
posts, we'll be here all day.




You've noticed others?

"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
news
You've noticed others?

Of course. There's not any point in commenting on them, for the same reason
there's no point in commenting on typos in posts generally. Even my own
posts have been known to have typos on occasion. As long as everyone
understands what was meant, who cares?

On 2006-04-08, Larry Dighera wrote:
On Fri, 07 Apr 2006 23:38:14 GMT, Justin Gombos
wrote in GJCZf.872$Fp4.847@trnddc01::

I don't think Airnav gets the information from DOT - I think they get
it from the FAA.

Isn't that like saying cars aren't manufactured by General Motors;
they come from Chevrolet and Buick? While strictly true, it fails
to draw a revenant distinction. Or am I missing your point?

The issue there is that the AFD is a compilation of information from
different sources, one of which is the FAA. Moreover, even if we
could assume that the DOTs sole source of information were available
digitally the FAA, the FAAs digital products are not necessarily in a
format that's readily useable.

Information slips through the cracks as a result of this arrangement.
For example, you won't find hours of operation for control towers on
the myafd.com pages.

It's wasteful as well as error prone to have multiple organizations
repeating the work of the DOT.

--
PM instructions: do a C4esar Ciph3r on my address; retain punctuation.

On Sat, 08 Apr 2006 14:31:43 GMT, Justin Gombos
wrote in
jPPZf.2206$XI6.1173@trnddc05::

The issue there is that the AFD is a compilation of information from
different sources, one of which is the FAA.

What are the others?