Online info and planning

[drauk]

I needed an online application to test out some new software infrastructure ideas, so we've put together an information and planning system. Online GA people might find it useful, if only once in a while...

It's designed to give fast answers to questions like "what's the nearest airfield to the small town where my friend lives (http://fly.dsc.net/u/Info?id=16133409)?", "what is the (closest available) METAR/TAF for this small grass airfield I'm heading to this afternoon (http://fly.dsc.net/u/Weather?id=11252630)?" and "roughly how long will it take me to fly to Cardiff (http://fly.dsc.net/u/Plan?point1=EGTR&point2=EGFF)?".

It has a worldwide database of places, airfields and navaids. It's text based so it should be quick to use and could be used on a wireless device.

The links above will take you straight in or go here (http://fly.dsc.net).

[jezbowman]

Nice work. I have a spreadsheet that does pretty much the same thing, but without all the waypoints, so each waypoint has to be entered as a Lat/Long. In otherwords, I appreciate the maths behind this!

The thing I wanted to add to my spreadsheet was the ability to enter the winds aloft from a F214 at 01 / 02 / 05 / 10 and get it to work out the most economic altitude to fly at for the leg. Not always an option to fly at that level of course, but always interesting to know.

I like your web interface though - so when I'm thinking "'how long would it take to get to x?" I dont have to start entering Lat Long into my xls!

Fantastic, thanks for sharing!

[drauk]

Thanks.

If I could find a source for (text based) winds aloft we could (a) automatically put those on the plan rather than have you type them in and (b) more interestingly perhaps, implement your idea of showing the most efficient altitude for the proposed route.

Anybody have any ideas as to where we can get winds aloft from? I've found one source, but it is US only.

[Algirdas]

Thanks Drauk, this is a really nice piece of work.:ok:

[englishal]

Nice piece of work!

I got these from NOAA Atmospheric Research lab for EGHH:

PRESS HGT(MSL) TEMP DEW PT WND DIR WND SPD
HPA M C C DEG M/S
E = Estimated Surface Height

1006. 59. 16.1 15.3 170.8 2.0
1000. 105. 16.4 15.0 190.2 2.4
975. 321. 16.5 14.3 187.5 4.5
950. 542. 16.7 13.6 193.9 5.1
925. 770. 16.4 12.8 189.8 5.2
900. 1003. 15.6 11.5 178.8 6.0
850. 1487. 12.8 8.3 171.8 7.9
800. 1993. 9.4 5.5 171.7 8.7
750. 2526. 5.6 2.9 170.4 9.3
700. 3087. 1.8 .0 162.7 11.1
650. 3681. -1.7 -4.4 155.9 13.8
600. 4314. -5.3 -8.7 154.3 16.6
550. 4993. -8.9 -11.7 156.3 17.8
500. 5726. -12.8 -15.7 163.9 18.2
450. 6522. -17.9 -20.4 167.1 18.7
400. 7392. -24.2 -26.4 167.3 19.2
350. 8351. -31.8 -33.8 166.1 20.2
300. 9420. -40.6 -42.7 164.8 24.0
250. 10634. -50.5 -53.2 164.2 29.2
200. 12065. -56.5 -64.8 172.6 22.4
150. 13884. -57.2 -75.5 194.5 10.2
100. 16434. -59.2 -85.1 249.7 4.8
50. 20787. -58.6 -273.1 13.0 3.1
20. 26604. -53.7 -273.1 89.2 3.1

Not sure how you could incorporate them into your site, and whether you could, but the data is out there.....

(Editied to say it looks a bit messed up when posted, but comes out in a nice tabular format when generated)

Cheers
EA

PS
NOAA ARL (http://www.arl.noaa.gov/ready/cmet.html)

[Confabulous]

drauk,

Absolutely superb! Will come in very handy for rough planning etc. Good idea to use fuel 'units' as well, very handy!

Con

[drauk]

Thanks for all the positive comments. Any suggestions for improvements?

EnglishAl, did you have to enter a passcode based on a graphic image to get those winds aloft? If so, I suppose we could display that to the user and have him do it before grabbing the winds, but it would be nicer if it wasn't required. And exactly where on the site did you find the data you presented? I did find text winds aloft but it wasn't in as simple a format as yours.

[drauk]

You can now print your plan (plog) as an A5 PDF document.

Also, on the detailed information page for an aerodrome the current aerodrome NOTAMS are now displayed.

[englishal]

Yea, I did have to enter the Key, I'm not sure if there is any way around that. I used to "tap into" the ARL website, submitting the info direct to their perl script from my website (for metograms) but can't do that now;)

I selected the "text only" output format, then the text appears as a nice cut+pastable text rather than the image.....

(I've got a nice PHP script you can have if its any use to you, to retreive and decode METARS from the NWS servers, which I display on a map of the UK - or rather will when its finished- , and as you hold your mouse over the airfield a dhtml pop up window displays the decoded metar....)

Cheers

[windy1]

great idea!

am I right this only works for all waypoints in the same country?

[drauk]

windy1, I am pleased to say: no! If you select 'Any' from the drop down list of countries you can enter waypoints from any country in each field. Thus you can see how long your favourite round-the-world route would take in a 152.

The only thing to keep in mind is that the algorithm we use to match misspelt words is switched off if you don't select a country. Also if you type certain common words or phrases you might get a long list of possible matches. If you use idents you'll be fine of course.