FAA Downloadable Aeronautical Charts

These are pretty cool. Total download size is 6.5GB each sectional is sectional is ~50MB so don't try this on a dial-up connection.

I've been working on some software to use these things. If anyone has some, I'd be interested in the details. Note that they are TIFF files so most image viewing software will display them.

Joe
 
I use these with OziExplorer and a BT GPS. On a netbook it fits neatly on my lap in the plane. OziExplorer reads the georeferencing info in the tiff file so set up is super easy.

Here's a screen shot:
picture.php
 
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I'm looking at getting an Asus touch screen tablet PC for this very reason. Do all my flight planning on it, and a very nice accompaniment to the somewhat limited 250XL we have installed.
 
bigred177 said:
Other than having a cable, would something like this work with that software? I don't have BT on my laptop. Seems like an awesome alternative to an expensive handheld that has free updates.
http://www.amazon.com/GlobalSat-BU-...1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1288932665&sr=1-1
Click to expand...

You can just buy a bluetooth dongle to hook up to a BT GPS for about 10 bucks.

Or you can use the USB gps with the wire.

OziExplorer actually doesn't care how the GPS is hooked up. It will work with any GPS that puts out the NMEA sentences over a com port.
 
What is an efficient way to print part of a sectional in a format similar to a purchased chart (legible and similar scale)?
 
This is cool. I'm thankful that the FAA puts out this information. There's no reason they shouldn't, it's just nice to see that they're tech savvy enough to notice a need for it and figure out how to distribute it.

I wish they'd use BitTorrent though.
 
I have been zooming to the area I want, then taking a screenshot, importing into Paint to crop and rotate then pasting into Word for final sizing and printing. The quality is barely acceptable and I have a decent color printer. I think I am getting loss during all the transfers but that is the only way I can get what I want, on one page.
Other ideas to print out portions of these charts which would be crisper?
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
I have been zooming to the area I want, then taking a screenshot, importing into Paint to crop and rotate then pasting into Word for final sizing and printing. The quality is barely acceptable and I have a decent color printer. I think I am getting loss during all the transfers but that is the only way I can get what I want, on one page.
Other ideas to print out portions of these charts which would be crisper?
Click to expand...

Give Paint.Net a try. It will open the .tif directly. From there you can select, crop, mark-up with text, and print. All within one application. Best of all it's free.

I just landscape printed a Sectional swatch 40nm Wide(E-W) x 30nm Long (N-S) and it turned out awesome. Just to add that is approximately a 2x zoom compared to the original paper sectional.

BTW. If anyone else can suggest a way to maintain the 1:500,000 scale that would be terrific.
 
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