SUA maps

Below is a reply I got from NGA. It appears that some data may still
be available but a) it will be by subscription payement, b) only US
(?), c) in a different format (It costs $250 to get the format
standard document .... any rich uncles ? )

Henryk Birecki

Dear Mr. Birecki,

Thank you for your recent inquiry regarding the proposal to remove
NGA's aeronautical products from public sale and distribution.

The proposed action will not affect any FAA produced charts and
publications you are currently using. According to the FAA the
National Flight Database (NFD) will be adding Restricted Airspace
records, ARINC 424 "UR" records, in the December 23, 2004 cycle.
This will include SUA and MOA records for the U.S. FAA coverage area.

After initial feedback from the public NGA has determined that a
period of public comment will benefit the final decision on this
policy issue. So the Agency is inviting public comment on its
proposed action to withdraw aeronautical data and products from public
distribution. The period of comment will be open from 3 December 2004
until 30 June 2005. NGA will consider all comments when making the
final decision to go forward with this proposed action, in part, in
whole, or not at all.

Your e-mail has been forwarded to the office collecting public
comments. If you have further suggestions, or wish to express any
other issues or concerns please direct them to one of the addresses
below.

Comments may be returned to:
or mailed to:
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
Mail Stop D-111, Attn: Public
Release of Aeronautical Products
4600 Sangamore Road
Bethesda, MD 20816-5003

Marc Ramsey wrote:

The NIMA Digital Aeronautical Flight Information File web site will
cease being available to those of us who are civilians, sometime in the
next few months. This is the data that has been used for several years
to generate the SUA files for the Worldwide Turnpoint Exchange, as well
as many flight analysis programs, for the US and much of the rest of the
world.

This is apparently being done to keep terrorists from getting their
hands on airspace data they can use to build dirty bombs, or something,
and, oh by the way, it will make the world a safer place for Jeppesen.

Now the FAA promised something like 5 years ago that they would make the
airspace and facilities data freely available on their web site. As far
as I can tell, this never happened. The National Geodetic Survey UDDF
files will apparently continue to be available on the NGS web site, but
they only contain airport, navaid, and obstruction data.

Assuming we have an impending SUA data crisis on our hands, what steps
can we take to make sure valid SUA data continues to be freely available
for the US? Bug the SSA and/or FAA?

Marc

Henryk Birecki wrote:
Below is a reply I got from NGA. It appears that some data may still
be available but a) it will be by subscription payement, b) only US
(?), c) in a different format (It costs $250 to get the format
standard document .... any rich uncles ? )

The US airport/SUA/airway/navaid data is (and has been for many years)
available from the FAA Aeronautical Information Services Division, by
subscription:

http://www.faa.gov/ats/ata/ata100/120/datadistr.html

For soaring use, 4 or 5 of the CDs would be needed at $36/CD, 6 times
per year, or roughly $1000/year. This obviously creates a logistical
problem. Someone would have to subscribe, reformat the data, and
redistribute it. SSA, maybe?

Marc

Next year South Africa again, I hope. Just returned from Argentina.
Natalie