"Paul Tomblin" wrote in message
...
I'm trying to improve my database generators for CoPilot and other
programs (see http://navaid.com/ and http://xcski.com/~ptomblin/CoPilot/
for details). The problem I'm trying to deal with is that the FAA is
totally inconsistent on how they name waypoints, DAFIF isn't any better,
and there are literally thousands of them. And because of that, I am
having real problems giving people a way to select just the types of
waypoints they want. I look through my databases and find instances of
what I would consider en-route waypoints labelled "WAYPOINT", "REP-PT",
even "RNAV-WP". One guy suggested that I just give the option of only
selecting waypoints if they are 5 alphabetic characters, with no numbers.
The problem I have with that is that I still end up with a lot of IAP
waypoints, including GPS ones, which bloats the database.

Now I don't know about you, but I don't put in the waypoints for an
instrument approach when I flight plan - I generally put the departure
airport, the first fix on the filed route, then I find the last waypoint
on the en-route chart that would apply to the STAR or normal approach, put
that in and the airport, and then apply a fudge factor for how long a
departure procedure and approach should take. Do other people do any
differently? Are you likely to want every named step-down fix and GPS
fly-over waypoint on your flight planning tool?

Another possibility I was looking at was that the FAA waypoint file lists
what charts a waypoint appears on, and DAFIF categorizes their waypoints
as "HI", "LOW", "BOTH", "RNAV" or "TERMINAL". So I was thinking maybe
of categorizing waypoints that way and allowing people to pick any
combination of:
- points that appear on High Altitude En-Route charts
- points that appear on Low Altitude En-Route charts
- points that appear Instrument Approaches ("Terminal")
The only problem I have is with SIDS (sorry, DPs) and STARS - should they
be classified as "terminal" or as "en-route"?

This would be great for me, because I often use the waypoints to
georeference approach charts and enroute charts, (e.g. see
alt.binaries.pictures.aviation "TPL GPS 33").

I remember once before having trouble that you're talking about, with the
categorization WAYPOINT", "REP-PT", "RNAV-WP", etc.

Thanks a lot for your service!

Cheers,
John Clonts
Temple, Texas
N7NZ