Sam Spade wrote:
Roy Smith wrote:
Say what you want about the FAA in general, but it's hard to say anything
bad about the charting folks. The product they produce is excellent, and
they're constantly looking for ways to improve it. You can download the
data for free on the net, or get it in printed form for fire-sale prices.

And, if/when users fees take root, those NACO charts will no longer be free.

That's a good point I never thought about. The biggest difference
between the Canadian user fee-based system and the U.S. is the free
availablility of charts. This has made possible a number of aviation
technologies, such as laptop/PDA based charts and moving maps, Airnav
etc and a huge number of online services. As far as I know, such things
don't exist in Canada. Charts are very expensive and not readily
available. A U.S. pilot who is used to online products will find it
very difficult to fly in Canada (I did).