WikiAirports.com

[philippevd]

Hi folks,

I'm a private pilot who loves to travel on holiday with my plane (who doesn't?). One of the main difficulties of planning a flying holiday, is picking good destination and stopover airports, where fees are reasonable, fuel is available, and there's a friendly GA atmosphere. There's just not that many such places, and they're not easy to find, when visiting unfamiliar territory.

On the other hand, I've personally visited quite a few amazing landing spots both in Europe and the US, and I'd love to be able to easily share those experiences with the community.

I had a hard time finding online resources, where I could easily find airfields geographically, and find some practical flying information about them. Info such as landing fees, fuel price, opening hours, types of traffic allowed, WiFi available, aircraft maintenance and rental, etc. There are some sites that do collect fragments of info, but not a complete picture.

So I'm trying to build a website to do just that. The goal is to create a "Wikipedia of airports", specifically for the GA pilot community. A website that is accessible to all, and where the content is user-generated, and focussed on what is relevant for a travelling pilot looking for fun destinations.

As you may have already guessed, the URL is WikiAirports (http://www.wikiairports.com) . I would love to hear feedback from you guys about the usefulness of the site, and/or how it could be improved. Right now I am trying to collect info about airfields in Belgium, and others that I've visited, but I would love for you to post some info about your local airfield, and let me know if you thought it was easy and self-explanatory to do so. I would love to have such a resource available for myself, and I hope it can be useful to all of you!

By the way, a nice feature - when you create an account on the site (using facebook, google, or neither), you can start keeping track of all the airfields you've ever visited (by clicking "i've landed here"), and see them on a map on your profile page!

Any feedback is highly welcome!

Thanks

Jean-Philippe

[StuartUK]

Nice work, Jean-Philippe. I'll try and supply more info on my home aerodrome, Shoreham, over the next few days.

[Jonzarno]

Nice idea, although there are a few sites that do similar things.

One thing I would like to see is an entry giving details of instrument approaches available (or confirming "none" if that is the case).

Best of luck with it :ok:

[philippevd]

Well the IFR approaches is a nice idea, however I think that will be difficult to manage official nav info. I'd like to stay focussed on non-navigational info, which is not easily available elsewhere, and invite everyone to contribute their knowledge, experience and opinions.

Thanks for the feedback so far, and your contributions!


JP

[The_Pink_Panther]

Very good looking front page, but how about an zoomable map on the first page above the airfield code search box?

TPP

[philippevd]

Hmm nice idea! How about a map that automatically centers on your current location? I will put that on the list.

Has anyone tried the feature "I've landed here" yet? I think it's particularly cool to see a map of everywhere you've been. See mine (http://www.wikiairports.com/users/userdetail/16).

JP

[riverrock83]

That's just showing off :)

[John R81]

You might also want to add helipads or heli-friendly hotels / restraunt / farm - with an appropriate symbol

[philippevd]

Hi John - that sounds really cool! Do you think the current heli pad feature is not good enough for what you're suggesting?

@riverrock83 - Damn right ;)

[pummel]

Is there any provision to see whether a given airfield has customs? When I'm planning a trip landing fee and customs availability are the first things I check.

[philippevd]

Hi Pummel, excellent suggestion. I agree that this is very useful. I'll add it at the first opportunity.

Thanks!


JP

[philippevd]

There's been over 300 visitors since this message was posted here, with more than 100 airfield updates. Great start! :D. We aren't a very large community, so all help is very valuable. If everyone would post basic info about their homebase, we'd have a complete database in no time!

Please help by giving 2 minutes of your time to post your info :E

Cheers

JP

[Jonzarno]

Well the IFR approaches is a nice idea, however I think that will be difficult to manage official nav info. I'd like to stay focussed on non-navigational info, which is not easily available elsewhere, and invite everyone to contribute their knowledge, experience and opinions.

I didn't mean that you should include plates or any NAV info, only an indication as to whether instrument approaches are available as a minimum or, preferably what type of approach.

[philippevd]

Hi Jonzarno,

At the moment it's possible to state whether an airport has Day VFR, Night VFR, and/or IFR facilities. Currently the database is not entirely accurate though (and need your corrections), but would this satisfy your requirement?


JP

[Jonzarno]

It depends what you mean by "IFR facilities". If it means whether they have IAPs, then yes. Even better would be to say, for example, ILS, GPS or other approach type.

Thanks!

[philippevd]

Yes that's what I mean. Maybe I should rename that section to "Approach types"?

[Jonzarno]

Yes, I agree!

[mikehallam]

Two questions please.

a) Could you list by country - or did I miss that ?

b) Is there a Belgian free access site to read up an airfield's details a bit like the French SIA site ?
https://www.sia.aviation-civile.gouv.fr/html/frameset_aip_uk.htm

mike hallam (England)

[Steve6443]

Hello,

is there an issue with the website?

I have registered, received the link to activate my account but clicking on the link does nothing at all, doesn't even open a window in a browser and deciphering what the hieroglyphics in the link mean (such as%253F - probably \ or /) and so forth is really not my idea of a pastime ;-)

Thanks.

[philippevd]

Hi Steve,

There are definitely still some issues with the website, although this is the first time I hear of this specific issue. I've manually approved your account, so you can start using it right away.

I'll check into what happened (try to reproduce your error), but if you can provide a screenshot to me, that would be ideal! You can send it to jpvd at jpvd *dot* *com*.

Cheers!

JP

[philippevd]

Also approved yours.

Damn technology, why don't things work from the first time...


I'm atill trying to reproduce these errors but can't. Anyway, we're going to keep looking at this until we find it...


JP

[The_Pink_Panther]

No problem with registration, looking forward to some of the positively received comments being turned into reality.

[Katamarino]

When clicking on the "Airports I have visited", the global map cuts off New Zealand. You could slightly change the point that the map centers on, moving it a little East, without cutting anything off in the West or needing to change the zoom level. Then, my NZ airports will show up! :-)

[Katamarino]

Another question; how can I remove an airport from "Airports I have visited"? I added the wrong one which had a similar name!

This is an excellent site.

[philippevd]

New Zealand! Excellent to have visitors from over there, the flying must be great! I'll see what I can do about the map, though you may have to remind me a bit later when things cool down a bit... At the moment, we haven't implemented a means to "unvisit" a visited airfield. If you'd really like to, I could manually do it for you. You'd need to PM me the exact details.

Cheers

JP

[Katamarino]

Thanks, I have PMed you!

Another thought; for US airports, airnav.com already has all the information you're looking to put up. You could include a link to the airport's airnav page as their website address.

I like your site a lot, it could be a really good resource for both the international tourer and the local coffee run!

[philippevd]

I've included links to the skyvector site for the VFR maps. In the future I'd like to include other links to country-specific websites that have airfield information. But there's still many things to do before we get there :O

[Katamarino]

Further feedback; your site appears to be inaccessible from Sudan :p

This is probably not something to place high on the list of priorities :E

[philippevd]

Sudan?? I think you must be the only visitor of the website from such exotic flying destinations. I saw your latest airport updates, and again, I'm amazed at where you've been hanging out!! You must love it.

We've made some updates to the website, such as adding runway info, but especially also add lists of members based at a particular airfield, or people who've visited any particular airfield. I'm guessing that might be a good way to find information about airfields - just ask the folks who are based there or have been there before...

Cheers!

JP

[flarepilot]

isn't there an air nav dot com?

I seem to recall that it has good info and links to PDFs of instrument approaches....might only be for USA though