CAA digital charts

[Oldpilot55]

Does anyone else think this is not right?

I bought CAA charts of the UK..three charts at £50 each. OK, OK it also includes the 1:250000 charts but I have no option to buy the 1:500000 only. THEN I have to buy the software to use the charts..another £30 or so. THEN the charts go out of date every year so I have to start again. Safety goes out of the window..do you think I will spend £150 a year for three digital charts?

We had a long fight with the Met office (and their minders) to get decent met at a decent price. So my point is once I have bought the charts should I not be able to get updates at a reasonable price?

Apologies if this has been done to death previously on the forum but in the States I can get the equivalent charts on a monthly CD for $15 or less that covers a country that is a zillion times bigger than the UK.

[J.A.F.O.]

I don't think that anyone could do anything other than agree.

I don't know where the fault lies; OS, CAA or elsewhere but I do know that it shows scant regard for safety or are we, once again, seen as billionaire playboys with pots of cash?

[fernytickles]

Easier said than done, but how about creating some competition? Produce them and market them yourselves? Not sure if its an option, but I am sure you'd make a lot of pilots very happy :ok:

[tangovictor]

I would imagine, the problem is, the UK market is very small, compared to the US,

[Kiltie]

I spoke to the CAA at the SRG stand at Aero Expo regarding this apparent rip-off. They explained it was memory-map, the software retailer, who set the charges of their own free will, but were confident prices would become much more realistic soon when the rights are released to other suppliers, creating much needed competition as you rightly say.

[IO540]

They explained it was memory-map, the software retailer, who set the charges of their own free will,

That's quite a funny comment from the CAA since it is the CAA who licenses the data to Memory Map !!

MM can indeed charge what they like and perhaps they (like most people) have no clue about aviation and really believe that UK pilots are rich, when in fact most are skint.

Or it could be that MM are factoring in the extensive bootlegging that goes on, with all their map products which are mostly the Ordnance Survey 1:25k and 1:50k stuff.

I have spoken to the CAA too and they claimed the problem is with the O/S and their ridiculous licensing policy (which itself is ridiculous - e.g. the mandatory parity between the MM program date and the O/S map date).

You can get much cheaper charts from Jeppesen although IIRC not for a UK-only pilot. The whole Jepp CD for Europe (VFR Raster Charts) is about £200. You need Flitestar to view them, and currently there is no (legit) product (other than Flymap) which can run them as a moving map. However, for the UK, the CAA charts are much clearer.

The biggest problem is that the CAA has entered into these commercial deals and if they wanted to change this restrictive practice and e.g. offered them directly, or even free, they would probably get sued for damaging MM's business. But you can rest assured that anything from O/S will never be free ;)

Another tack would have been for the CAA to make their own charts, not using O/S data. That would have been much smarter, and for that little backwater called UK would have been pretty easy.

[BEagle]

You can always go to http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/jsp/aboutus/opinion.jsp and explain your points directly to the OS!

[Mike Cross]

CAA own the aeronautical data, which is freely available. They do not own the base map, which, as others have pointed out, is owned by Ordnance Survey.

Given the reduction in detail on the half mil base map one would expect OS to charge less.

An idea of the value placed on the data can be drawn from this press release. (http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/media/news/2001/march/centrica.html) In 2001 the AA agreed to pay Ordnance Survey 20 million pounds to settle a dispute over copyright.

Another tack would have been for the CAA to make their own charts, not using O/S data. That would have been much smarter, and for that little backwater called UK would have been pretty easy.

You don't half talk rubbish sometimes. It takes a small army of surveyors to map something the size of the UK and to keep the data updated. OS recovers that investment by sales of a humungous range of products (which go far beyond maps) both within the UK and overseas, which bring in a revenue of over 100 million pounds pa. If it's "pretty easy" to map the UK and recover the cost from VFR chart sales then I'm Saint Francis of Assisi. For Comparison the entire CAA Group turnover in 2006 was 173.4 million.

[Fuji Abound]

I dont know why pilots would want to use MM any way. The maps files are large, cumbersome and incoporate none of the advantages of moving to a digital media.

PocketFMS for example provides maps that are in my opinion far better at a fraction of the cost, with updates throughtout the year and they take full advantage of the move to a digital media.

In almost every way the most significant drawback still remains the availability of displays that are adequate for in cockpit use in terms of size, viewability of the display and battery life.

[IO540]

You don't half talk rubbish sometimes. It takes a small army of surveyors to map something the size of the UK and to keep the data updated

No need to get rude, Mike. Take that to the Flyer forum.

We are talking about aviation charts, not maps of footpaths, bridleways, property boundaries, etc etc etc.

The UK has been surveyed countless times over the centuries. The basic terrain data is copyright-free from e.g. the ONC/TPC charts, and you can get it cheap from the shuttle radar database. There is also extensive and cheap to license photographic imagery.

Times have changed.

I would also argue that much of the detail that appears even on the 1:500k chart is superfluous. I see every little road - does anybody really fly and navigate at 30mph? Some do I know but they can buy the appropriate chart.

Believe me, there is a lot that wil change over the next few years, and the CAA or O/S will not be able to do anything about it. The cat is out of the bag.

[bigfoot01]

...but I am afraid I still use them! I find it a very easy way to pinpoint exact way points, e.g. if I want to fly over somebodies house etc.

I don't know why we don't have Google Aviation...

I haven't updated mine for ages, and am thinking of doing so shortly, but I just wondered is it me, as on all the adverts they do not have the chart release/version numbers on them....

[Quarto]

Why are the electronic charts so expensive though? I'm not saying they should be less expensive than paper charts but they miss out the printing process and if they are available for download there is no transport issues to think about.
To have a chart when flying is a legal requirement and I think they should be more freely available and easier to work with. Having electronic versions would allow easier and quicker updates to be made and would hopefully mean that you were safer.
I myself am put off by the high cost of the electronic charts, especially when you have to buy new ones every couple of years.

[IO540]

Why are the electronic charts so expensive though?

My guess is that Memory Map has a certain pricing policy which they run on their main product (the O/S 1:25k etc maps for walkers, etc) and they have applied it to the CAA data.

And they probably didn't know anything about aviation so took a stab at what they thought the market would stand.

To say more, one would need to know CAA's pricing on the data they sell to MM. It is possible that much of the £50/CD price tag is the CAA fee, but I doubt it.

One thing is for sure: the sales of the MM CDs are far far lower than the sales of the CAA paper charts.

To have a chart when flying is a legal requirement

It isn't actually, and this is true in the UK and the USA. I think there are some 3rd world countries where you have to carry the printed chart. Here, you just need sufficient navigational data, in any form.

I agree entirely that downloadable electronic charts (which the pilot could print off for the required area) would be a big safety improvement, especially ones that could be run on electronic gizmos as a moving map.

[Flap40]

Having just checked, MemoryMap charge £69.99 for first issue per chart (including the reader software) and £50 for updates.

To upgrade a complete set of 1:500,000 and 1:250,000 from MemoryMap will therefore cost you £150 (+p&p) and the paper version from Transair will cost you £153.89 (again +p&p).

The problem really is why the 500,000 and 250,000 are packaged together. I think most of us would prefer to only buy the 1:500,000

[IO540]

I think most would have one or the other, with very little overlap in usage.

[VP959]

It is a daft pricing policy, but I suspect it's as much to do with the way the OS works as any excessive profits being made by MM, as I believe that the underlying CAA chart map data is still owned by the OS.

All it's achieved, as far as the OS mapping is concerned at least, is a host of download sites and hacking instructions so that more and more people can get the maps for free. This is nonsensical, as most would probably pay a reasonable price rather than spend hours downloading OS maps and faffing around editing the dates in them using a hex editor, not that this is how you do it, mind.........

Similarly, the costs of producing CAA charts digitally is very modest, as the data starts off as being electronic before it gets printed anyway. The only extra cost is that of pressing and distributing CDs, which cannot be more than a few pounds per copy.

As we are all required by law to have an up to date paper map anyway, distributing the electronic versions at a lower price wouldn't really impact paper chart sales a great deal, I would have thought.

VP

[Mike Cross]

To say more, one would need to know CAA's pricing on the data they sell to MM.

AFIK the figure is zero. The aeronautical data is assembled at CAA DAP in Kingsway by the VFR Chart Editor who, as well as being a cartographer, is also a PPL. The previous Chart Editor was also a pilot, and has gone on to a career in commercial aviation.

I don't like it any more than you do but it is a fact that mapping data is jealously guarded by those who produce it and high fees are demanded for licensing it. A goodly chunk of the 15 quid you pay for a paper chart will also be going to OS because the CAA have to pay for it, just like MM. I've also looked at Memory Map but haven't been tempted. I suspect the attraction for most is that it uses the familiar CAA chart, making it easy to relate what you see on the GPS to the map, were it otherwise we'd all be happy with the mapping in our GPS's.

I suppose there's an opening for Jep there if they feel it worthwhile.

Sorry you thought me rude, please feel free to tell me I'm talking bollox when I do (it's a fairly frequent occurrence).

Mike

[IO540]

As we are all required by law to have an up to date paper map anyway

(my bold)

The above is not the case - there is no legal requirement for paper charts.

It is obviously sensible to have a backup to some electronic presentation, but the law doesn't require this.