Yet another source for US Airport Information

Some years ago I wrote a program to extract airport information from
the NASR data published by the FAA's National Flight Data Center.
I've finally gotten around to putting a dumb little website around it,
so that others can use it to build their own database extracts. The
site produces .CUP files (for use in SeeYou) and, optionally, a
companion file containing exactly the same set of airports for use in
a glide computer. Two different companion file formats are
available: .NDB for the ILEC SN10, and CAI .DAT format for use with
Cambridge and others (such as GNII) that use it. I've also provided
"how to" notes on using these data with Volksloggers and Garmin GPS
units.

You can access my site at http://www.xmission.com/~lalley/aviation

You may ask what the difference is between this and other sources of
similar data. The main difference is in the comment information
provided for each airport. In the CUP file, I support three different
levels of comment detail. The normal level includes runway length,
width, and surface info; communication frequencies; fuel availability;
and owner/manager contact information for private fields. A higher
level adds to this pretty much everything the FAA knows about the
airport; stuff like obstacles, runway and marking conditions, etc. A
low detail level is provided for memory-limited devices, such as
generic (non-aviation) Garmin GPS units.

Since I own an SN10, I've undertaken some special efforts to make sure
the comments make sense and look good on that platform. On the SN10,
the comments will appear properly divided and centered on five 16-
character lines, matching the screen layout of the instrument.

At the same location you can also download current US airspace
information extracted from NASR data. which is also available at on
the Worldwide Turnpoint Exchange. Additionally, I've made available a
few current-ish sectional charts (those for my local flying area in
the Western US) that have been reprojected for use in SeeYou.

All of this information is from public sources; it is free and freely
redistributable.

Lynn Alley
"2KA"

I've noticed that some of you have tried to use .cup turnpoint files
that do not contain airport FAA/IATA identifiers. Up until now, this
would have been a problem because my site uses the identifier as the
key to match and merge the data from the NASR sources. The result is
that the NASR data would simply have been appended to your turnponts
instead of properly merged.

I've spent a little time this weekend implementing a proximity search
so that data for airports will be merged correctly. Now if your input
file contains any point marked as an airport that is within 30 seconds
of arc (about half a mile) of the published coordinates of an airport
listed in the NASR data, the information for that airport will be used
for the point.

So you might want to give it another try.

I've also noted that a few have been uploading tab delimited input
files that don't have all the required fields. My site requires tab
delimited files with the full set of fields listed at the bottom of
this message. I think that most (all?) of the tab delimited files
available for download on the Worldwide Turnpoint Exchange now conform
to this format.

If you still are having troubles, feel free to reply to me directly
and I'll see what I can do to help.

Lynn Alley
"2KA"

Here is the complet list of required fields for tab delimited files.
If your file doesn't have these, it won't work:

TP Number, Name, North/South, Latitude [degrees], Latitude [minutes],
Latitude [seconds], Latitude [decimal minutes], Latitude [decimal
degrees], East/West, Longitude [degrees], Longitude [minutes],
Longitude [seconds], Longitude [decimal minutes], Longitudee [decimal
degrees], Elevation[Feet], Codes, ID[3], ID[5], ID[6], ID[10, ID[12],
State, Comments, CAI Comment, ICAO Identifier