US Sectionals have lost foreign detail

So, I guess we need to find a place to make a petition to get this brought back to the old standard. What's the best place to make a petition and get the word out to pilots?
 
RyanShort1 said:
So, I guess we need to find a place to make a petition to get this brought back to the old standard. What's the best place to make a petition and get the word out to pilots?
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Have you dealt with many GS workers before?

Best bet is your congressman and reps, mention safety and the children and all that.

Being it’s nearly impossible to fire federal workers and this would require more of that 4 letter word “work”, I wouldn’t hold my breath
 
Lindberg said:
Your congressman.
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This is what I was going to say. Find a list of Congressmen who are also pilots and email them all. Tell them how the FAA has just made flying near our borders less safe.

I think there’s also a Pilot Caucus.

If you get a mailing list, I’ll send letters as well.
 
TCABM said:
So here’s the documented “why”. FAA employee states it’s resource intensive, uneven, and delayed in currency. Seems the effort got started a few years ago.

https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/fli...eign-Data-Depiction-Enroute-Visual-Charts.pdf
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So less work?

I take it their budget and pensions were reduced for their lack of productivity for the aviation system?


If I told my boss I wanted to do less work, they’d be ok with it, but my pay would be adjusted down
 
Obviously for transitions the FAA and NavCanada (and Mexico, etc) should be working together to have an area of overlap where they both benefit. Surely somewhere in the trillions wasted they can find two people to do this.
 
mcmanigle said:
I'm not sure how to parse this, but from the September 8 charting notice:

Effective November 3, 2023, Visual Flight Rules (VFR) aeronautical charts will no longer make reference to emergency value in private airport charting.

Only private airports with landmark value will be retained and charted beyond February 23, 2023.​
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That sounds like a really bad idea. I often fly into private airports, as do a lot of the low-and-slow and experimental crowd, and not having my destination charted is a serious problem. Not to mention their emergency value...

Unlike a regulation change, presumably there is/was no public comment period... so who can we complain to?
 
Dana said:
That sounds like a really bad idea. I often fly into private airports, as do a lot of the low-and-slow and experimental crowd, and not having my destination charted is a serious problem. Not to mention their emergency value...

Unlike a regulation change, presumably there is/was no public comment period... so who can we complain to?
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In all seriousness, I would say congress. They have a wide-open public comment period.
 
Dana said:
That sounds like a really bad idea. I often fly into private airports, as do a lot of the low-and-slow and experimental crowd, and not having my destination charted is a serious problem. Not to mention their emergency value...

Unlike a regulation change, presumably there is/was no public comment period... so who can we complain to?
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Some more ideas on to whom the safety implications could be pointed out:

1. The FAA Administrator.

2. The Secretary of Transportation.

3. The President.

I think it was after the ValuJet crash in the Florida Everglades that safety was made the sole purpose of the FAA. (I wonder if that was put in writing somewhere.)
 
Palmpilot said:
...I think it was after the ValuJet crash in the Florida Everglades that safety was made the sole purpose of the FAA. (I wonder if that was put in writing somewhere.)
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Found it. It turns out that the end of the FAA's dual mandate (to both promote civil aviation and regulate safety issues) was requested by the Secretary of Transportation, but it got watered down somewhat in Congress when it passed Public Law 104-264:

https://scholar.smu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1583&context=jalc (See page 755.)

By the way, the Inspector General of the Department of Transportation might be another person to complain to.
 
To use a sectional chart properly, the pilot is supposed to check Chart Supplement for the published sectional changes. Very few pilots ever referenced the changes in the Chart Supplement and there were a lot of published changes when Sectionals were on a 156 day cycle.

AOPA pointed this out to the FAA and requested the cycle for sectional charts be reduced to 56 days. This reduced the number of chart changes published in the chart supplement and the number of Notams. It probably got the FAA to look at accuracy of of the charting they were doing in foreign airspace and they may have determined there was a problem with keeping up with data from Canada, Mexico, Bahamas, Cuba, and the Caymans.
 
Looks like you could cut, paste and print your own from Skyvector.
 
SamSES said:
Have you dealt with many GS workers before?

Best bet is your congressman and reps, mention safety and the children and all that.

Being it’s nearly impossible to fire federal workers and this would require more of that 4 letter word “work”, I wouldn’t hold my breath
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Work……

 
Border congress members need to be notified.
 
Clip4 said:
Looks like you could cut, paste and print your own from Skyvector.
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What exactly would one be cutting and pasting from Skyvector?
 
cowtowner said:
If you are looking for Mexico VFR charts, good luck. Doesn't exist on Foreflight

you can find the old WAC charts you can download and import as files on the internet with the right Google search. But Mexico doesn't have standard VFR charts
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I use Garmin Pilot, and they offer... something?... for 109/yr that claims to cover mexico :D

Are you saying MX doesn't do VFR charts? Then what has NACO been using as its source material then? OR were we doing all of the charting work for Mexico? Gross if so, and opens larger questions in my mind.

I'm sort of curious to spring the $109 and do a before/after comparison in the ipad now.
 
Mexico does not have standard VFR charts. I don't know what Garmin Pilot does have.
 
$10 says it’s motivated by some Elon musk type not wanting their private airfield on public charts who called their buddy to make it happen.
 
AKiss20 said:
$10 says it’s motivated by some Elon musk type not wanting their private airfield on public charts who called their buddy to make it happen.
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Plenty of uncharted private fields out there already, so how will you be sending that $10?
 
iamtheari said:
Do you mind sharing the secret to getting Skyvector to show Canadian charts such as their VNCs?View attachment 113772
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EDIT - I'll leave this in in case others make the same mistake I did, "Montreal" is a US Sectional. Thanks Russ R. Move the image so a Canadian portion is in the center. The Canadian VFR chart will show if you select it.Screen Shot 2023-01-07 at 11.53.57 AM.png
 
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This is what Canada looks like on Skyvector. It’s a generic worldwide map that I don’t know the origin of, but it certainly is not a Canada VNC chart:

upload_2023-1-7_12-36-58.png



Looking closer at Winnipeg as an example, Skyvector shows this:

upload_2023-1-7_12-39-30.png


Here is what the VNC looks like (using FltPlanGo on iPad):

upload_2023-1-7_12-38-56.png

Incidentally, at least in the charts that FltPlanGo is showing as of today, the Canada VNC still shows deep into USA territory, to roughly the 48th parallel (~60 nm south of the border):

upload_2023-1-7_12-41-20.png

It goes almost to KGFK, showing the edge of the Class D airspaces for KGFK and KRDR along with the Class E surface area protection the runway 18 approaches to KGFK:

upload_2023-1-7_12-42-4.png
 
RussR said:
Montreal is not a Canadian sectional. It is the name of one of the US sectionals.
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Right you are, it gets obvious if you zoom out. Oh well.
 
Clip4 said:
What is it you need? The airports, VORs, and airspace is shown? If you tap on an airport you get the data. Your nav data in your RNAV is also valid.
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In post #106, you said that the solution to the title of this thread (“US Sectionals have lost foreign detail”) was for a person to cut and paste “a copy of the Canada chart” from Skyvector. I asked how to do that, and the answer is that it’s not possible because Skyvector does not provide Canada’s VNCs. As far as what people need, @Pilawt did a fairly succinct job in post #73 of showing with a picture why the loss of detail for land just across the border from the VFR sectional charts is a net loss to safety of flight for American pilots.
 
iamtheari said:
In post #106, you said that the solution to the title of this thread (“US Sectionals have lost foreign detail”) was for a person to cut and paste “a copy of the Canada chart” from Skyvector. I asked how to do that, and the answer is that it’s not possible because Skyvector does not provide Canada’s VNCs. As far as what people need, @Pilawt did a fairly succinct job in post #73 of showing with a picture why the loss of detail for land just across the border from the VFR sectional charts is a net loss to safety of flight for American pilots.
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Check world low. The IFR charts are still there. If that isn’t adequate spend a couple dollars on a paper chart or stay in US airspace. Surely your safety is worth it.
 
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TCABM said:
So here’s the documented “why”. FAA employee states it’s resource intensive, uneven, and delayed in currency. Seems the effort got started a few years ago.

https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/fli...eign-Data-Depiction-Enroute-Visual-Charts.pdf
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The charts actually got worse for safety than what that FAA committee was predicting back in 2020. They are now monochrome, making it really hard to see airports, and very hard to figure out where dangerous mountains are.

Here's the example they were predicting back in 2020:
upload_2023-1-8_23-0-9.png

And here's what we actually got in 2023:
upload_2023-1-8_23-0-27.png

Okay, so you're flying along that border. How quickly can you answer these two questions:
* where's the nearest airport? (The 2023 chart lacks contrasting color, so it's hard to find an airport, which is not good when your engine starts sputtering.)
* exactly how bad is the terrain west of Snow Mt? (For 2023 color has again been eliminated

Why did they make it so difficult to read? -- does Canada move its airports and mountains frequently, making it expensive for the FAA to chart their location in color? This makes no sense, and it's bad for safety.
 
Clip4 said:
Check world low. The IFR charts are still there. If that isn’t adequate spend a couple dollars on a paper chart or stay in US airspace. Surely your safety is worth it.
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I'm not sure Skyvector's source for low-altitude IFR charts outside the USA. The web interface does not identify the names of charts being shown, so they must have some kind of a worldwide base layer with a format similar to American IFR charts. They are definitely not the Canadian IFR charts.

Here is Skyvector's view of Winnipeg:
upload_2023-1-8_23-5-13.png

Here is what FltPlan.com provides:
upload_2023-1-8_23-5-40.png

You'll note that, among many other details, Skyvector's depiction of Canada provides next to no information about airspace.

Nor does an IFR chart help with VFR flying within the USA, especially the problem described in post #73. At least for Canada there are VFR charts available, although they are fairly inconvenient to get and tremendously inconvenient to use for flights that only go near the border, not across it. For Mexico, it sounds like there is presently no chart of any sort available to civilians that provides any VFR information for the Mexican side of the border.
 
iamtheari said:
I'm not sure Skyvector's source for low-altitude IFR charts outside the USA. The web interface does not identify the names of charts being shown, so they must have some kind of a worldwide base layer with a format similar to American IFR charts. They are definitely not the Canadian IFR charts.

Here is Skyvector's view of Winnipeg:
View attachment 113810

Here is what FltPlan.com provides:
View attachment 113811

You'll note that, among many other details, Skyvector's depiction of Canada provides next to no information about airspace.

Nor does an IFR chart help with VFR flying within the USA, especially the problem described in post #73. At least for Canada there are VFR charts available, although they are fairly inconvenient to get and tremendously inconvenient to use for flights that only go near the border, not across it. For Mexico, it sounds like there is presently no chart of any sort available to civilians that provides any VFR information for the Mexican side of the border.
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Maybe if you are going to fly internationally it is past time for you to get and use an instrument rating.
 
Clip4 said:
Maybe if you are going to fly internationally it is past time for you to get and use an instrument rating.
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The problem is not flying internationally. It is a change to American charts that makes it less safe to fly in America.
 
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