Charts now freely downloadable from the FAA

[1200AGL]

The notice on naco.faa.gov reads:

Effective August 2, 2010 downloadable products, except the National Flight Database (DNFD) will be available to the public free of charge on our public website

I was able to download geo-referenced sectionals and terminal area charts gratis from aeronav.faa.gov. When I tried to do the same last month, I think the FAA was charging a small fee for sectional charts.

 

[AdamZ]

Now that is cool! Take forever and probably not practical for priniting but for a EFB iPad or such it would be awesome!

 

[JeffDG]

Now that is cool! Take forever and probably not practical for priniting but for a EFB iPad or such it would be awesome!

You can get free GIS software that understands GeoTIFF, and hook up a GPS and you've now got a moving map Sectional...

 

[AdamZ]

You can get free GIS software that understands GeoTIFF, and hook up a GPS and you've now got a moving map Sectional...

Wow if I knew what that meant and knew how to do it I'd put it on my 296.

 

[gprellwitz]

Wow if I knew what that meant and knew how to do it I'd put it on my 296.

I don't think that you can put it on your 296 because you have no way to run the GIS software there. However, you could pick up a tablet PC, load the GIS software and geo-referenced charts on it, attach a GPS to that and you'd have an interesting product. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographic_information_system and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geotiff

 

[COFlyBoy]

I use a Samsung Netbook and OZI Explorer in the plane as my moving map. I just DL the sectionals (which only takes about 2 minutes, ~60MB and open them in OZI. Hook up my BT GPS and I'm good to go.

Total investment ~400 bucks and free updates.

 

[maddog52]

We have a Brite Flight Flymap moving map GPS and EFIS in one of our LSAs. The moving map uses sectionals that were updateable via jumpdrive, touchscreen controls, and PC flight planning and logging. Pretty slick piece of equipment. And the sectional moving map meant that the old guys didn't have to translate what they were seeing on the GPS to the chart.

 

[Areeda]

GREAT! Thanks for letting us know Paul.

Joe