Australian Aerodrome and Navaid databases

[Guest carlsnilsson]

G'day all:

 

It annoys me greatly that databases of aerodrome and other info, such

 

as are contained in ERSA, are so commercialised. I have a liking for

 

writing some of my own modest navigation software in various versions

 

of Visual Basic for PC and Pocket PC for my own entertainment, but

 

access to Australian database info is unduly difficult. This should be

 

downloadable (for a very modest fee)

 

from Airservices, but no it is not. They commercialise what is public

 

data and sell it to foreign companies like Jeppesen so we can buy it at

 

exhorbitant cost. Even small Australian concerns like Raptor Designs (John Reynoldson) take ERSA data (I'm not sure how he gets it - must ask)

 

and hide it in obscure formats like *.wdf files. If safety is a

 

concern, these data should be very readily available to the public

 

directly from the collator (Airservices). Even our maps, with their rapidly changing airspace, have to be purchased (in electronic form)

 

from an overseas company. It still costs $10 to download a single map,

 

originally made from data collected and surveyed at taxpayer cost.

 

So, it was a breath of fresh air to have sites like J Hovel's http://users.monash.edu.au/~jhovel/gps.shtml

 

which had these data in usable form. Unfortunately, those files date

 

back to 1999. One can also use Waypoint to download jeppeson databases

 

from Garmin GPS's, so I believe. Is anybody out there current on these

 

matters? Does anyone have near-up-to-date data available in simple

 

useable form? CSV files are OK. Exel files would be good. It would be

 

nice to make aerodrome plates an optional part of the database.

 

Sometimes, flying into a strange aerodrome, a picture including

 

taxiways is very useful. Any thoughts, suggestions or offers, anyone? I

 

think I will send this off to AirServices for comment.

 

Carl

 

 

[Captain]

Carl

 

One of my other passions in Cross-Country Soaring and while it may not

 

be exactly what you want, the Gliding community have terrific data

 

bases for most registered and bush strips as well as key landmarks that

 

they use as turn-points.

 

Most Clubs have their data bases for their area and make them freely available, many times on their websites.

 

I use them with WinPilot into an Ipaq PDA. They are mostly very

 

accurate for strips but I don't think they'll help you much for

 

Navaids.

 

An example of such freely available downloads is at http://www.australian-soaring-corowa.com/download.htm but I guess you'll need WinPilot or StrePla to access them.

 

Just checked my WinPilot manual and they recommend the following link for list of worldwide turnpoints & airports http://acro.harvard.edu/SOARING/JL/TP

 

Does that help or hinder?

 

Regards Geoff

 

 

[Guest carlsnilsson]

Geoff:

 

That's most helpful, thank you for the prompt response. I don't know

 

about WinPilot, but I'll find out. I do use an iPAQ PDA. To date, I

 

have been using OziExplorerCE or, lately, PocketFMS. What is really

 

needed is to have these various databases collected and collated onto a

 

Recreational site, along with a guide to their use. Following this line

 

of thought, why could not RA-Aus purchase Australia's e-maps and have

 

them freely downloadable for members? They may not be able to sell

 

them, but surely they could be made available online to members?

 

Carl

 

 

[Captain]

Carl

 

I think you can download a trial copy of WinPilot.

 

It is mainly a Gliding Program with final glide calculator, task

 

selections etc, but you will find the winds aloft, terrain elevations,

 

airport data (all runway details, frequencies etc)

 

and some other features to be of interest and use in Ultralights. A

 

Gliding Task is just a flight plan and with the right data base, that

 

will give you XTE, time to run etc on WinPilot on the screen.

 

Let us know what you think of it.

 

Regards Geoff

 

 

[Paul Willett]

I have discvered a way to take the data from online ERSA and convert to

 

Excel if anyone is interested - if I can just remember how I did it!

 

But I did then put them in to my own private database on my GPS (in fact on reflection it was the VFR Waypoint data)

 

 

[Guest carlsnilsson]

Paul and others:

 

You bet I am interested! Please do your best to recall how you transferred ERSA data into Excel files and let me know at <[email protected]>. That's just the sort of thing we want.

 

Before my recent trip to Narromine, I spent a lot of time (a real lot of time)

 

scanning WACs, VTCs etc in A4 segements, carefully recalibrating them

 

into desired projections and then re-synthesing them into *.ozf3 files

 

for OziExplorer. We should'nt have to do that. Now I see you can buy

 

these from MapTrax for $10 ea. That may seem pretty small, but if you

 

try to stay current on a bunch, it adds up to heaps each year. I

 

propose we form a private group - club - called "The Tight-Fisted Mob" (TFM)

 

and each buy one map of our choice. Then we post on this site a list of

 

maps we hold - maybe our coordinator can facilitate this and set up a

 

special TFM section. Maybe the coordinator can in fact hold our maps

 

which can be downloaded by TFM member in exchange for their uploading

 

one - or we could use FTP to exchange. Some simple mechanism for

 

sharing Australian respources and databases is called for. Any

 

comments?

 

Carl</[email protected]>

 

 

[Guest carlsnilsson]

Paul:

 

Somehow my address got omitted from my last post. It is

 

[email protected]. Also, I believe I made an error in referring to

 

MapTrax as an overseas company in my first post. The address is in

 

Queensland, so it would appear to be an Australian company. It doesn't

 

really change my argument. I think $10 to download each map and, by

 

regulation, to do so regularly to keep them current with the latest

 

airspace reshuffle, is too much. I have no objection to MapTrax

 

offering these, but why are they not available directly from

 

airservices in this form? I am beginning to see that AirSafety concerns

 

in this country are hypocritical. CASA is charged with promoting air

 

safety - indeed I have just attended one of their pilot forums - yet

 

obvious measures like promoting free downloads of ERSA and current av

 

maps are ignored. There is a contradiction between having a publically

 

funded body charged with promoting air safety and then asking it to

 

increase it's cost recovery measures.

 

Carl

 

 

[greggf]

Gentlemen,

 

Please add me as a "me too" for such toys (read = useful devices).

 

Cheers

 

Gregg email: [email protected]

 

PS. My autopilot (pictured at left) is looking for a set of rudder pedal extenders.

 

 

[Guest Guest]

Hi Carl,

 

don't you find that PocketFMS has enough information?

 

They keep updating their info and adding more airfields. I think they are also trying to collect airfield data.

 

ERSA PDFs seem to be encypted. But if you convert (effectively print) to postscript and then convert back to PDF or directly to HTML then you have a format that you can extract the info.

 

Have a look at where FlightGear gets its information. I managed to track down its source and found airfield data for the world.

 

Country Airstrips Guide use to publish the lat/lon of the airfields on

 

its web page. It looks like they recently stopped doing that.

 

 

Cheers,

 

Peter

 

 

[Guest carlsnilsson]

G'day Peter:

 

thanks for posting. Yes, basically PocketFMS has the data, and I am

 

impressed with the package, which I used to Narromine and back. I guess

 

there must be country strips they don't have and I had to put in an IFR

 

Reporting point (AUDRA)

 

by hand - although I cannot swear it is not there, as I am still

 

learning how to use the program. Some of it is not that intuitive - it

 

is a very powerful set of software. How it compares with WinPilot, I'm

 

not sure, not having yet tried the latter. It certainly is cheaper.

 

However, that is only part of what I am on about: firstly, I should be

 

able to access these databases other than using software witten the

 

other side of the world. I don't know how to open up PocketFMS

 

databases, do you? Secondly, I have been developing my own specialised

 

software for a instrument package that includes a GPS engine. I want to

 

add a simple "go to" function so that "desired track (bearing)

 

and distance" can be displayed. For that I want a database like that of

 

PocketFMS. I'm not trying to emulate PocketFMS or OziExplorerCE or any

 

other moving map program.

 

Thanks for your suggestions re ERSA. I think access to these data should be free (we have already paid through our taxes)

 

and facilitated and I think we could do that through this site. Fair

 

enough to charge for software that people develop to use the data, but

 

the databases should be freely available. So should government maps

 

accessed online.

 

Carl

 

 

[Guest Guest]

Google: flightgear airport data

 

http://www.x-plane.org/home/robinp/

 

Hope this helps. It won't have all the small airports, but it should be a good start.

 

Cheers,

 

Peter

 

 

[Guest Guest]

For those that don't know. PocketFMS is free (pocketfms.com) and is quite good for flight planning on the PC, as well as flight management on a PocketPC.

 

I find new airports appearing on each monthly update.

 

The interface takes a bit of getting use to. The PC interface seems to

 

work similar to the PocketPC interface. But once you get use to it, you

 

can do things rather quickly.

 

Although I have managed to extract ERSA data, I get the impression that

 

they don't want us to do that, so I don't. I've been working with the

 

FlightGear data. For my purposes it seems to be fine.

 

Good luck in convincing the government to make the data free.

 

PocketFMS's User Maintained NavData might be a solution. I just glanced

 

over it. I don't know if they will make the data available for free or

 

not.

 

http://www.pocketfms.com/1-volunteer.asp

 

Cheers,

 

Peter

 

 

[Captain]

Carl

 

I guess you have already checked it out, but I had forgotten that

 

http://www.winpilot.com have a complete separate system from the Gliding

 

program that I was interested in when I bought it last year.

 

Their offering for power aircraft is Winpilot VFR.

 

I had forgotten about that.

 

Is their free airspace download any help to you?

 

Regards Geoff

 

 

[Guest carlsnilsson]

Good on you Paul. I'll be interested to know how your solution compares

 

with Peter's. His posting offered promise. I happen to have a copy of

 

OmniPage Pro 14 which says it can convert pdf into Word files. I have

 

not yet installed it, but I presume it will do as it says. Once into

 

Word, all should become straightforward. Together we should be able to

 

arrive at a neat solution which can benefit all members. I haven't

 

heard back from Joe Hovel (Monash Uni) - maybe he has

 

moved on. Neither have I heard from AirServices yet. We should continue

 

to get a system organized ourselves re ERSA and in due course, I will

 

either write formally myself or ask Lee Ungerman to do that or both.

 

One can make a good case as a safety issue. For example, when I packed

 

the Fox to go to Narromine, I took a good look at the size of ERSA,

 

sighed, and then threw it in. With a dinghy, jerry can and other gear,

 

I did not have a lot of office space. I also promised myself that next

 

time I will cut it down to include only the info I need, but probably

 

that won't happen. With an e-version, we could put it on a flash card

 

and/or print out just the info we want.

 

Carl

 

 

[Paul Willett]

Yes Carl,

 

In fact I have an e-version of the data I need and take it on my PDA,

 

which also doubles as a number of other useful tools like Moving Map

 

GPS, MP3 Player for the Intercom etc.

 

I 'believe' one method may be to copy the data from the ERSA electronic

 

pages and paste in to Excel. Then apply a conversion formula to get the

 

decimal Lat Lon, and convert in to a .csv file which some GPS will

 

import (Lowrance definitely). What format do Garmins need to import waypoints?

 

There are some examples 'floating' around out there - I believe.

 

Apparently ERS-A .pdf's are not encrypted as such, but they are

 

password protected. This has either to do with legal liability or

 

intellectual property. I can see no argument for it being IP as it is

 

safety related. Legal liability - I will leave that to the bush lawyers

 

to argue out. How secure is a .pdf password? (A: Apparently not very)

 

 

[Guest carlsnilsson]

Well, here's an example of an ERSA pdf file - VFR waypoints. Garmins

 

can take in CSV data, as best I recall. You can certainly upload to the

 

user database. I don't have a modern Garmin - I still use my model

 

12XL, which only has a user database. My preference is, for a moving

 

map display, to use a PDA or (coming soon in my high-tech Fox ) an 8" high-vis tough screen display off a Single Board Computer (running Win 98 ). With the trusty Garmin 12XL, all I want really is that lovely big arrow showing th direction I should fly!

 

Now, with these data attached, the next step is for someone more

 

experienced than I to put them into a format that is easily used and

 

accessible to modest programmers. Let's have some suggestions - it

 

would be good to arrive at an RA-Aus standard. I had better take

 

another look at Joe Hovel's old site.

 

uploads/20060528_074448_VFR__9-June-200.zip

 

Carl

 

 

[Guest carlsnilsson]

Geoff:

 

I did check out the WinPilot site and saw they had a VFR version. At

 

the moment I'm up to my ass in alligators, as they say, so don't have

 

time to try it out. I'm sure it's very good software, but having just

 

come to grips with PocketFMS, which is free or, if you want to

 

encourage and support them, you can be a donor with some extra

 

downloading privileges for USD70. I'll take a look at WinPilot's

 

downloads later. Thanks.

 

Carl

 

 

[Paul Willett]

The .pdf file posted above, converted to .csv format (in decimal lat/lon) and zipped - attached.

 

uploads/20060528_074742_vfr_waypoints.zip

 

 

[Guest carlsnilsson]

Paul: thanks for that. I've looked at the file in Excel and all seems

 

well. .csv certainly seems a compact format - the previous 122 KB .pdf

 

file went down to 11 KB. The process now seems reasonably

 

straightforward, although I have yet to actually do it myself. Our

 

moderator got back to me and seems happy to host a download site once

 

the new site gets going (in a few weeks). So this seems

 

a way to go and we can use this site for more than just exchanging

 

views. I would like to see a fairly complete set of digital av maps

 

available also, so the site is seen by members as a useful source of

 

nav data. I think the idea of a number of us buying a map or two and

 

posting them should be viable. There is no question of us selling them.

 

We could well cooperate with other aviation bodies like the gliding

 

community and AOPA to put the most complete set of data together.

 

Carl

 

 

[JayKay]

Hi Carl and others,

 

I just chanced on this thread. Has any progress been made since 2006 on establishing a website for members where we could upload and share electronic versions of IFR and VFR Waypoints, Airfield data / templates and Airservices Maps?

 

I'm interested in creating an 'Electroinic Flight Bag' (EFB) or similar.

 

 

[Admin]

JayKay, Recreational Flying will be expanding the airfield data in the Airstrips section http://www.recreationalflying.com/forum/vbgooglemaphse.php?do=list soon. However, in the mean time you may wish to add any waypoints, airfields etc in that section including anything that anyone knows about each airstrip. A great tool to use

 

 

[Guest raptordesigns]

Even small Australian concerns .... take ERSA data ... and hide it in obscure formats

All the Australian companies distributing AIS data do so under the auspices of a strict contract with AirServices Australia that requires that the data be distributed encrypted so that it can't be re-distributed without proper controls on currency and accuracy.

 

AirServices also requires that they keep records on who the data was distributed to so that they can be contacted in the event that there is a data issue affecting flight safety. The programs that use the data should also warn you if the data is out of date.

 

They believe that there is a duty of care from AirServices as well from by the folks providing flight planning software to assure that data is up to date and accurate.