What's some cool aviation data?

ArrowFlyer86

ArrowFlyer86

Pattern Altitude
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The Little Arrow That Could
I've been working on a search utility for a year that I'm going to make public in the next few weeks. As a hobby spin-off I'm dedicating part of the site to just aviation. It doesn't make me any money, just doing it for fun. I previously polled the PoA community in other threads asking about aviation data -- and it was for this.

I already contracted a data-entry guy collect data for planes (performance characteristics, attributes, engine type, etc) to make it easily searchable. That data is now loaded for a lot of SEP, MEP and turboprops. Though it's by no means exhaustive.

Are there other things people would want to search for in aerospace? I was thinking of maybe trying to load in some accident data, airport databases (the kind of stuff you'd see on airnav or foreflight), updated wx data or even IFR plates? Some of the data exists already in FAA databases as premade data products, it's just not always the easiest to find. The goal of this utility is to kind of pull it all together and make it easily retrievable.

Any other things people could envision themselves searching that's aviation related?
 
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eman1200 said:
historical pricing
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That would be the best, I agree. But the best time to start scraping/collecting that was years ago. Not sure how VREF feels about me scraping or piping that data through to my application.
 
Not sure if I’m off topic here but data points I’d like to see are:

Fuel, fuel pricing, fuel availability (hours and payment options), crew car availability (hours, key is there or staffed), pilot campgrounds, any pilot amenities (bicycles, BBQ, firewood, firepit, building, toilet, shower), other pilot reviews. FBO fees (and hidden fees), payment options (physical card, tap, cash, can input CC number without physical card). Airport landing/parking fees.

Alaska, non charted fields (distances / wheel type needed / seaplane or land), air strips near a town or facilities, air strips near Alaska dry cabins.
 
mandm said:
Not sure if I’m off topic here but data points I’d like to see are:

Fuel, fuel pricing, fuel availability (hours and payment options), crew car availability (hours, key is there or staffed), pilot campgrounds, any pilot amenities (bicycles, BBQ, firewood, firepit, building, toilet, shower), other pilot reviews. FBO fees (and hidden fees), payment options (physical card, tap, cash, can input CC number without physical card). Airport landing/parking fees.

Alaska, non charted fields (distances / wheel type needed / seaplane or land), air strips near a town or facilities, air strips near Alaska dry cabins.
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Nope, that's on point! So pretty much a business directory and business services/amenities for various airfields. I'll have to see if that can be ethically extracted and updated from somewhere (i.e., places that are OK with scraping/APIs piping data through elsewhere).
 
ArrowFlyer86 said:
Nope, that's on point! So pretty much a business directory and business services/amenities for various airfields. I'll have to see if that can be ethically extracted and updated from somewhere (i.e., places that are OK with scraping/APIs piping data through elsewhere).
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I find that Foreflight data is awfully outdated, and missing key information. The pilot reviews are great but sometimes they are 5-10 years old, and yet many many airports have no reviews or no data on foreflight.

Airnav is a great resource, but I’m often searching for data in flight (for unscheduled stops, toilet break, hungry, tired, etc), so having something that you could download to your phone and use via an App would be ideal, ideally a GPS map (possibly a sectional overlay) with filters so you can use it in realtime.

I’ve also found airfields by simply overflying them, searching them on foreflight to find no data, then later on Google to find some data that gives an nudge to try that airport but what it offers is unclear until after you arrive.

I found that RAF, https://theraf.org/, airfields are very interesting to explore and offer pilots basic amenities. You might be able to contact them to get some data from them.
 
IMG_3726.jpegIMG_3725.jpegIMG_3724.jpeg

Example from RAF, which I haven’t actually looked at until just now. Thought the data points are spot on!
 
mandm said:
I find that Foreflight data is awfully outdated, and missing key information. The pilot reviews are great but sometimes they are 5-10 years old, and yet many many airports have no reviews or no data on foreflight.

Airnav is a great resource, but I’m often searching for data in flight (for unscheduled stops, toilet break, hungry, tired, etc), so having something that you could download to your phone and use via an App would be ideal, ideally a GPS map (possibly a sectional overlay) with filters so you can use it in realtime.

I’ve also found airfields by simply overflying them, searching them on foreflight to find no data, then later on Google to find some data that gives an nudge to try that airport but what it offers is unclear until after you arrive.

I found that RAF, https://theraf.org/, airfields are very interesting to explore and offer pilots basic amenities. You might be able to contact them to get some data from them.
Click to expand...
mandm said:
Not sure if I’m off topic here but data points I’d like to see are:

Fuel, fuel pricing, fuel availability (hours and payment options), crew car availability (hours, key is there or staffed), pilot campgrounds, any pilot amenities (bicycles, BBQ, firewood, firepit, building, toilet, shower), other pilot reviews. FBO fees (and hidden fees), payment options (physical card, tap, cash, can input CC number without physical card). Airport landing/parking fees.

Alaska, non charted fields (distances / wheel type needed / seaplane or land), air strips near a town or facilities, air strips near Alaska dry cabins.
Click to expand...

The problem is, where do you get the data????

And keep it updated.

AirNav and ForeFlight are already doing most of this, but you still have to call to confirm as things change.
 
When I was shopping for my current plane the biggest thing I needed to know was fuel burn. Would've been nice to have a one stop shop for that.
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
When I was shopping for my current plane the biggest thing I needed to know was fuel burn. Would've been nice to have a one stop shop for that.
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Rich of peak or lean of peak?

What power setting?

What altitude?
 
And fuel burn without speed is sort of nothing.
 
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