DoD to remove FLIP's from public

In a previous article, "Dean Wilkinson" said:
Flitesoft, Destination Direct, Aeroplanner, AirPlan, Voyager, the EAA
Planner (provided by Aeroplanner) and FlightPrep are flight planning apps
that all use DAFIF data.

I believe that virtually every Pocket PC moving map application relies on
DAFIF data. This includes Anywhere Map, NavGPS, MountainScope, NavAir, and
several others.

Let's not forget CoPilot, GPSPilot, AeroCalc, and non-aviation GPSes that
can use my GPX data.


--
Paul Tomblin http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
`I was all fired up to write a big rant, but instead found apathy to be a
more worthwhile solution.' --- Ashley Penney

LOL!! Flight Simmers crack me up sometimes..

Dennis

"Peter Clark" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 12:30:59 GMT, "Dennis" wrote:

I highly doubt this will actually take effect.. This WILL cause many
companies their business, and its a safe bet the number will be in the
thousands. Jepp is already known for raping people on prices, they want
$500 a year to include their data in your software per copy! Not to
mention
it will cost lives because people simply will fly with outdated data due
to
the high costs Jepp charges.

So Microsoft is eating $450/copy of their ~$50 Flight Simulator which
contains Jepp navdata? And they're then paying $500/year/copy of FS
sold thereafter?

Well, this is the response I received (I'm still waiting for the AOPA to
respond, the FAA and my congressmen)

First reply:

Thank you for the comment/inquiry regarding the proposal to remove NGA's
aeronautical products from public sale and distribution on 1 October 2005.

In answer to your specific question, the proposed action does not provide
access to any of NGA's aeronautical products/publications to public,
private, or commercial interests. Beginning on 1 October 2005, NGA's
digital and hardcopy aeronautical publications/products will only be
available to Department of Defense and governmental end users.

Please direct any follow-up comments or questions to the undersigned.
Thank
you.


Respectfully yours,

Joseph S. Jarvis
Aeronautical Program Officer
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
Aeronautical Division, MS L-27
3838 Vogel Road
Arnold MO 63010-6238




Then Second when I asked how to become a contractor to the government:

We are not disputing your assertion that some U.S. government personnel
use
your services; however, NGA remains the official source of flight planning
and air navigation material for those users and they will continue to have
access to its aeronautical publications/products through the government
distribution system.
The intent of the action proposed in the Federal Register Notice is to
restrict NGA's aeronautical information, in all its forms, to government
use, regardless of whether it is domestic or foreign coverage. It will
not
be available in any form for dissemination, or as a foundation for second-
or third-party enhancements or exploitation.

The contractors that receive NGA's aeronautical data are those who require
the material to support, or facilitate, the services they are contracted
to
provide to the government. Examples would be R&D projects, charter/cargo
airlift operations, air traffic services, etc. I don't know the process
for
obtaining government contracts, but information should be available on the
Internet.

I hope this answers your questions concerning the proposal. Please feel
free to contact me any time.

Sincerely,

Joseph S. Jarvis
Aeronautical Program Officer
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
Aeronautical Division, MS L-27
3838 Vogel Road
Arnold MO 63010-6238

What's funny? You're the one who made the statement that Jep charges
the software publisher 500/yr/copy recurring for each copy of the
database (apparently regardless of updates or whether the end user
continues to use the program) and I asked a logical question since MS
uses Jepp data and doesn't have a price point anywhere near $500/copy.

And the $800 or so /yr for updates I pay King for my 172's Jepp
derived KLN94 and MFD datacards isn't because I'm a simmer.

On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 22:59:02 GMT, "Dennis" wrote:

LOL!! Flight Simmers crack me up sometimes..

Dennis

"Peter Clark" wrote in message
.. .
On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 12:30:59 GMT, "Dennis" wrote:

I highly doubt this will actually take effect.. This WILL cause many
companies their business, and its a safe bet the number will be in the
thousands. Jepp is already known for raping people on prices, they want
$500 a year to include their data in your software per copy! Not to
mention
it will cost lives because people simply will fly with outdated data due
to
the high costs Jepp charges.

So Microsoft is eating $450/copy of their ~$50 Flight Simulator which
contains Jepp navdata? And they're then paying $500/year/copy of FS
sold thereafter?

Using a "game" as a comparison to my statement was quite funny.. at least
when I thought you were trying to be..

So.. when you purchase Microsoft Flight Sim you get monthly data updates
from Jepp for free? and current, legal for flight data? Crap! I'll make a
trip to CompUSA tomorrow..

Yes, Jepp charges a software Vendor a flat fee of $500 which includes a year
of updates for each product they sell regardless if the user wants cycle
updates or not. That is why you don't see many vendors offering Jepp
outside of the big manufacturers that can afford to negotiate better deals
through volume sales.

Dennis

"Peter Clark" wrote in message
...
What's funny? You're the one who made the statement that Jep charges
the software publisher 500/yr/copy recurring for each copy of the
database (apparently regardless of updates or whether the end user
continues to use the program) and I asked a logical question since MS
uses Jepp data and doesn't have a price point anywhere near $500/copy.

And the $800 or so /yr for updates I pay King for my 172's Jepp
derived KLN94 and MFD datacards isn't because I'm a simmer.

On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 22:59:02 GMT, "Dennis" wrote:

LOL!! Flight Simmers crack me up sometimes..

Dennis

"Peter Clark" wrote in message
. ..
On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 12:30:59 GMT, "Dennis" wrote:

I highly doubt this will actually take effect.. This WILL cause many
companies their business, and its a safe bet the number will be in the
thousands. Jepp is already known for raping people on prices, they want
$500 a year to include their data in your software per copy! Not to
mention
it will cost lives because people simply will fly with outdated data due
to
the high costs Jepp charges.

So Microsoft is eating $450/copy of their ~$50 Flight Simulator which
contains Jepp navdata? And they're then paying $500/year/copy of FS
sold thereafter?

On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 10:46:28 -0700, "Dean Wilkinson"
wrote in
::


I wonder if perhaps Jeppesen didn't lobby the government to have this action
taken to recapture their monopoly position as a flight data provider.

Recall, Boeing (Jeppesen's parent company) still has a lot of clout
with the Pentagon. Apparently all they have to do is offer a DOD
buyer a $250,000.00/year job in order to (almost) obtain a 23 billion
dollar contract.

So how come the alphabet groups aren't raising a big stink about this?

John

On Sat, 20 Nov 2004 03:57:37 GMT, "Dennis" wrote:

Using a "game" as a comparison to my statement was quite funny.. at least
when I thought you were trying to be..

So.. when you purchase Microsoft Flight Sim you get monthly data updates
from Jepp for free? and current, legal for flight data? Crap! I'll make a
trip to CompUSA tomorrow..

Yes, Jepp charges a software Vendor a flat fee of $500 which includes a year
of updates for each product they sell regardless if the user wants cycle
updates or not. That is why you don't see many vendors offering Jepp
outside of the big manufacturers that can afford to negotiate better deals
through volume sales.

OK, so leaving out the arrangement that Microsoft has with Jepp (it
would be nice if they'd make some sort of update arrangement though,
but I digress)...

So, you're saying the system is such that Jepp makes the product
vendor give them a list of subscribers and charges them
$500/user/year? Seems like King has a huge discount then at $380/yr
for KLN94 downloaded updates, which is their retail price after they
get and then post-process the data for their equipment, verify it, and
get it on the website (which also has to include some markup for the
cost of processing and releasing the file, having people who handle
1800 calls, etc). How does Jepp handle the situation of people who
only update randomly, or quarterly? Get a list monthly? The King
system basically boils down to "you have x downloads, use them
whenever you want - consecutively, every other month, once a year for
the next x years, whatever". It seems to me that a license fee per
product would be more sensible for Jepp "we'll license you to make
updates available for product x, $20k/year please" (a-la what I was
assuming with the Microsoft deal - one time fee, regardless of copies,
or even what a normal vendor software update arrangement would be -
a/la Cisco) rather than the nightmare of attempting to administer a
system of a per-cycle/per-user fee, where it seems the vendor will be
charged even if the end user doesn't collect their update, but I
admittedly have no knowledge of the internal workings of a Jepp source
electronic data license, I haven't had to try and license with them
for source data rather than the packaged end-user product.

I have no qualms with the view (and fully agree) that they're
expensive, monopolies are bad, and since they get their data from the
source originators (like the NOS, etc) we should also, at a minimum,
be able to get directly from NOS in an electronic form the source US
data for low/no cost similar to the way they distribute approach
plates now - free website, pretty cheap CD-ROM subscription, or pretty
cheap printed book.

Dennis

"Peter Clark" wrote in message
.. .
What's funny? You're the one who made the statement that Jep charges
the software publisher 500/yr/copy recurring for each copy of the
database (apparently regardless of updates or whether the end user
continues to use the program) and I asked a logical question since MS
uses Jepp data and doesn't have a price point anywhere near $500/copy.

And the $800 or so /yr for updates I pay King for my 172's Jepp
derived KLN94 and MFD datacards isn't because I'm a simmer.

On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 22:59:02 GMT, "Dennis" wrote:

LOL!! Flight Simmers crack me up sometimes..

Dennis

"Peter Clark" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 12:30:59 GMT, "Dennis" wrote:

I highly doubt this will actually take effect.. This WILL cause many
companies their business, and its a safe bet the number will be in the
thousands. Jepp is already known for raping people on prices, they want
$500 a year to include their data in your software per copy! Not to
mention
it will cost lives because people simply will fly with outdated data due
to
the high costs Jepp charges.

So Microsoft is eating $450/copy of their ~$50 Flight Simulator which
contains Jepp navdata? And they're then paying $500/year/copy of FS
sold thereafter?

Peter Clark wrote:
I have no qualms with the view (and fully agree) that they're
expensive, monopolies are bad, and since they get their data from the
source originators (like the NOS, etc) we should also, at a minimum,
be able to get directly from NOS in an electronic form the source US
data for low/no cost similar to the way they distribute approach
plates now - free website, pretty cheap CD-ROM subscription, or pretty
cheap printed book.


Actually, you can purchase source data from the FAA, the main database
is called the National Flight Database:
http://naco.faa.gov/index.asp?xml=na...ts/digital/nfd

The problem is, unlike the NGA Publications (FLIP, DAFIF, ONC and TPC
charts, etc.), the FAA data only covers the US. So, when the NGA stuff
is gone, there will still be plenty of US info. But, if you're in
another country...

--
Shane Partain
http://worldaerodata.com/


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On Sat, 20 Nov 2004 11:26:11 -0500, Shane Partain
wrote:

Actually, you can purchase source data from the FAA, the main database
is called the National Flight Database:
http://naco.faa.gov/index.asp?xml=na...ts/digital/nfd

The problem is, unlike the NGA Publications (FLIP, DAFIF, ONC and TPC
charts, etc.), the FAA data only covers the US. So, when the NGA stuff
is gone, there will still be plenty of US info. But, if you're in
another country...

OK, I had heard/read a while back that NOS were thinking about it, but
I didn't know it was complete. Of course, converting that to useful
data for the devices still needs to either be done by the
manufacturer, or a program published which the end user can run and
then upload processed data to the device, but either should be
relatively trivial since the DAFIF data needs to be processed too.

However, if the NOS is directly publishing the data in electronic form
to the public, doesn't that undermine most of the DOD people's
arguments? All that's really left is foreign source data publishers
who contend the DOD is exceeding the copyright on the foreign source
data. Since the US data is available to the public, they could just
publish a DAFIF US-only dataset to the public and the full database to
the authorized internal users. It's not like the data isn't already
coded as to what country the fix/navaid/airport/whatever is in. It
likely boils down to it being easier for them to just stop publishing
their database than creating two databases and fighting lawsuits, and
the rest of the arguments being (as usual in business) fluff.

It still doesn't address how to get the foreign country data, but
shouldn't local users be working with their local authorities to make
the data electronically available in the public domain like the US so
it could be merged with the other public domain datasets to
effectively replace the DAFIF world dataset?