In a previous article, "Robert M. Gary" said:
The reason he gave is that the actual approaches are copywrited,
intellectual property and that the gov't does not allow you to just
print them out yourself.
One of a number of reasons its more expensive to live in Canada.

Actually, I think before they privatized ATC, the approach plates were
not copyright like that. I know that when I first started to build my
navaid.com web site, Energy Mines and Resources Canada web site had
information on access to digital aeronautical data for a nominal fee, the
same way the FAA does, but when I inquired they said that this was under
review pending the transfer of the ownership of the data to NavCanada, and
when I asked a few months later they said "sorry, it's not our data any
more".

It always annoys me when data that your government collects using your tax
dollars isn't available to you for the cost of the materials.

Of course when I first started looking at what would become navaid.com,
the FAA data was available only on 9-track tapes, which were hideously
expensive and hard to find somebody who could read them. I told them that
if they gave me free access to the data, I'd be pleased to donate a
computer with a CD burner so they could come into the current century, and
a few years later they did finally start doing the data via CD. Now I
wish they'd just put it on an FTP site (like I do at ftp://xcski.net/ -
ssshhhh, don't tell anybody). There's no pleasing some people.


--
Paul Tomblin http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
Usenet is a co-operative venture, backed by nasty people -
follow the standards.
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