Calling all UK pilots, request for help......

[DonaldSam]

Guys, we have had the website, REF: http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/369543-new-useful-website.html up for a couple of months now and we've had a excellent response pilots around the UK which is great.

We have spent some time now trying to collect information about airfields, but searching the web takes lots of time, this on top of all the data entry.

If people could check there local airfield and email [email protected] if they have any more information it would be much appreciated.

Thanks for all the great support and hopefully together we can make this a great FREE resource for all pilots in the UK!

[hightower1986]

Yeah looks like a good site, I find it hard on the eyes with the grey background and Red text, oh and check the spelling on Welcome to.... sorry not trying to be nasty. Just positive criticism

[DonaldSam]

Did you find any problems with airfield information? We really need everyone to help us collate all the information as there doesn't seem to be a good, reliable resource on the Internet.

We run the site out of our own pocket but need the help of everyone to ensure that we can get the site running with reliable information which we can offer FREE to all users.

Thanks for checking the spelling, which has now been fixed, any help is appreciated.

[Floppy Link]

Nearest Airfield's and Change Airfield's could do with losing their apostrophes or the punctuation police will have yer guts!

Speelong of "variable" in METAR Varirable Wind

I do agree with the red on black comment as well, maybe it's just my old eyes, but it's difficult to read.

Would you be able to highlight more prominently that the NOTAMS you see are just page one and there are millions more hiding, perhaps something like...
"Local NOTAMS - CAUTION, MULTIPLE PAGES" or similar.

Perhaps a link coded to open all the NOTAMS in a separate tab/page?

I couldn't find Peterculter helipad - not under Aberdeen (Peterculter), Culter or Peterculter...but you do have Glasgow Heliport.

The Google Map for Knockbain Farm shows the strip in the wrong position. (Your location is Scotland, so maybe it's YOUR strip and the error is deliberate??)

Perth Cautions:
"sever downdrafts" should read "severe downdrafts"

Your site has the potential to be superb.

[Crash one]

Fife EGPJ landing fee is now £10 & no voucher.
Airfield elevation is 399 ft amsl.
Noise abatement circuit procedures to avoid housing.
Do not overfly Glenrothes. (Long final 25 not allowed, you will get moaned at if you do) more or less follow Golf Course Road, or extend to Kinglassie graveyard.
I think Dundee has Jet AI fuel.
Cumbernauld is EGPG.
Edit: Perth have cut down a lot of the offending trees so the downdrafts are not so severe.

Useful good site.

[jxk]

Thruxton airfield west of Andover not included.

[kevmusic]

Hi DS. Keep up the good work - looks like a really useful resource. :ok: Headcorn (Lashenden) is missing.

[englishal]

Nice site, I'll send some updates when I get a chance.

Nice feature of having the Notams when you look at the airfield card. One other thing which would be really great is when you view the airfield card to have local weather displayed (METARS and TAFS for nearby airports).....

Keep up the good work! :ok:

[vabsie]

Stapleford in Essex

:ok:

[Floppy Link]

..the weather's there, just on the right.

[DonaldSam]

Yeah if you hover over the airfield name on the METAR it will show you a decode of all the values. Let me know if you have any other idea!

:):):)

[nosignificantweather]

Very useful website DS. All the best with its ongoing development.

One suggestion I have for further enhancement is to integrate to streaming of the radio frequency at each field. In other words, include a link so you can listen to what is happening on frequency at the field you are viewing. This will make the site feel more interactive.

NSW

[Floppy Link]

DS

the nearest Jet A1 panel doesn't seem to be updating for certain airfields. Mine has been stuck on Sleap, Haverfordwest, Caernarfon, Barton, Breighton - it's just the order that changes depending on which airfield I'm looking at.

I tried it on two separate computers and in both Firefox and IE with the same result. Nearest Avgas panel is working fine.

Also I can't select Abbots Bromley from the drop down list on the individual airfield card - the drop down list on the airfields page starts with PLEASE SELECT AN AIRFIELD but this text is missing on individual airfield pages so Abbots Bromley is at the top of the list in the inactive slot (hope this makes sense) - I have to select from the map or from the list on the selectairfield.aspx page to see where my old aircraft crashed :uhoh:

Shouldn't have sold it....:\

[englishal]

Yeah if you hover over the airfield name on the METAR it will show you a decode of all the values. Let me know if you have any other idea!

Ah yes, I see it now :O Cool site!

Couldn't get decode to operate in Firefox though?

[Pete Dog]

Thanks for the site. I've just been looking through it and it seems great. I can't got the decode to work on TAF's either. I'm using Chrome and Firefox. Maybe it only works on Explorer. Keep up the good work. I used to use a site fly.dsc.net but that is no longer up. Shame. What sites do people use for flight planning?

[DonaldSam]

Thanks for all that!

There is a problem with the METAR decode in firefox/chrome/etc.... which I'm currently looking into.

The JETA1 panel is only showing what little info we have for JETA1 prices, which I'm trying to sort at the moment. If anyone knows local prices please let me know.

All other problems we will sort ASAP :):)

Once again thanks for the great feedback and people sending airfield information, we are still working through the backlog of updates but please do keep sending them! :D:D:D to you all!

[ahendry]

Hi guys,

Once again, thanks for all the updates and information from everyone has sent to us over the last couple of months, we now have over 290 airfields and have had over 37,000 airfield cards viewed over the last 3 months. But remember to keep send information in, the more we get the better the system for everyone!

To help you out, we have added a "Quick flight plan" feature to the website Quick Plan : Flightnav.co.uk (http://www.flightnav.co.uk/FlightPlan/) to allow you to quickly add way points to the interactive map and print a paper flight plan. I hope you find it useful.

We have also changed the NOTAMs within the airfield card to make the information more relevant to that airfield.

Thanks for the great support from eveyone,
Alasdair

[ahendry]

Guys,

Just a quick update, we have now added GPX and KML downloads to the site so that you can use tools such as Google Earth or upload all airfields to your GPS if it supports GPX.

UK Airfield positions released for GPS and Google Earth : FLIGHTNAV.CO.UK (http://www.flightnav.co.uk/website-news/uk-airfield-positions-released-for-gps-and-google-earth/)

If you need any other format just let me know.

Just as a reminder for everyone - Please send details on any airfield missing from the list as the more we get the better the resource will be and the more people will use it. The website needs people to send details and share information or we won't get anywhere!!!!! Just remember it's free for everyone!!

Regards,
Alasdair

[Hafrsfjord]

I've been collecting airfield information too, for personal use. It makes me wonder about the copyright of all this information and who actually owns it. Is it public domain? What about all the various airfield diagrams presumably they are copyright of the publishers like Pooleys but all that data on the Pooleys cards must come from somewhere or is it just a matter of collecting as much info as possible and claiming Database rights under the UK IP rules? What about liability if the data is wrong? It looks like a minefield to me.

[10W]

One suggestion I have for further enhancement is to integrate to streaming of the radio frequency at each field. In other words, include a link so you can listen to what is happening on frequency at the field you are viewing. This will make the site feel more interactive.

Please don't. It would be illegal and may cause the authorities to take action to close down a useful site.

[ahendry]

Hi Hafrsfjord,

Good to hear that other people are on the same mission! :D:D

My view is that any information contained in any published flight guide i.e. Poolyes, is the property of the publisher. They have spent the time collating and writing this information and have the right to publish it. I know how long this takes!!!!

As all flight guides essentially publish the same information, written slightly differently, it's down to the trust the pilot has in the information he is reading. I think this and the layout of the information is what makes the difference between peoples choice in flight guide.

Just as a point, we collect all our information from pilots, airfield owners, and websites which are all public domain.

On the point of data quality, I totally agree that this is possibly our biggest issue. We are hoping that with more and more people using the website and sending more information in all the time when someone finds something wrong the good British public are normally fairly good at telling you. The point of the website is the more information we get from pilots the better the information is for all pilots. On the other side, printed flight guides are only as up to date as the point they are printed while we update the website on a daily basis.

We also have a cover note on the website that says details in the website is for information only and not for flight planning. (covers us)

Hope this helps
Regards,
Alasdair

[IO540]

Most guides get their data from the national AIPs.

Copyright wise nobody cared much until the Australian CAA sued Jeppesen. Nobody seems to know the settlement details but one assumes that Jepp have done a deal where they pay some money to the Australians, and as a result perhaps to some others.

I very much doubt the CAA cares who uses the AIP data.

[ahendry]

10W - we did look into it but as you say it's currently illegal

OFCOM has stated on numerous occasions: "It is an offence to listen to any other radio services unless you are authorised by a designated person to do so."

maybe someone should start a petition - if you get the law changed we will do the rest!

[ChampChump]

On a point of pedantry, as I added some detail to my local airfield, I noticed that you spell hangarage differently.

You did ask......

[Munnyspinner]

Hangar is derived from the French word for a large ( agricultural ) shed / goods warehouse. Le Hangar.

I think this is a great website and would commend it to all pilots as an aid to flight planning. Well done to all.

One small point, the Aircraft speeds in the quick flight plan section are given in MPH whereas , where I come from, we use Knots as that is how the ASI is calibrated. As you are also using Kts for wind and Nm for distance would it not be convention to use Kts for Airspeed? Ground speed should also be Kts otherwise there is a mismatch between distance covered ( nm) and speed over the ground MPH.

All the best.

[ahendry]

That's a fair point, i'll make sure that users have the choice of speeds and distance measurements so that they can choose preferred.

:)

Cheers
Alasdair

[ChampChump]

Very speedy corrections to the errors were impressive. 'Hangerage' had gone by the time I'd snuck back in to look....!

So many websites (etc) are spoiled by poor presentation; just getting the spelling right will stop me from clicking the X.

Good luck with this project.

[Munnyspinner]

Thanks Alasdair,

seldom have I recived such a speedy on positive response.

If you do as you suggest then I will be struggling to find any faults with your website! - But, in the spirit of continued product development, I'll keep looking.

Any plans to extend this beyond the UK? It looks like a great model and if it is pilot updated then is should live in realtime. The one criticism of paper guides is that they are only really updated once or twice a year at best and the world is a dynamic place. Also, feedback from actual users has to be preferable o returns made by Airfield operators which sometimes include a degree of wishful thinking.

All credit to you and your team.

[Union Jack]

Good stuff indeed and, so far as spelling goes, my current favourite is

Pilot crashes into Dundee gold course (http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Flightnav/~3/u_FhqdxS9rY/) !

Jack

[ahendry]

Guys, thanks for the positive comments! :ok:

There are lots of plans in the pipe line, one of which is to move outside the UK into Europe, but so many projects have failed trying to run before they can walk!!!

Our first focus is ensuring that the system works for the UK and that we are properly collecting data and data the users require.

If there are any features or data items that people think would be useful please let me know and I will see what I can do.

Once again thanks for all the comments.

Regards,
Alasdair

[Crash one]

If there are any features or data items that people think would be useful please let me know and I will see what I can do.


Kingsmuir (Sorbie)
According to Pooleys rwy is Grass 06/24 620 metres X 25. This is correct.
The parachute operations have ceased. The airfield is open at pilots discretion & is not manned. No radio. Landing fee, Donations in the honesty box. Toilet & kitchen facilities on site. Mogas, check with owner. Local garage 2 miles. Avgas, Fife (EGPJ) 17nm west.
Circuits to the south. Aeromodellers may be at 06 threshold, overfly to alert them!! Try not to damage their small patch at 06 theshold.

Keep up the good work.

[ahendry]

Updated!

Regards,
Alasdair

[Crash one]

Thank you,
But you missed the runway length, 620metres:D

[Crash one]

Thank you.
Quick response!!:D

[liam548]

Excellent website, keep up the good work.

Although when i click Sherburn on the flightplan page it names it Sandtoft.

It would be useful if more airfields are added to the map and also nav aids VRPs etc.. just a thought..

:)

[Munnyspinner]

Having been so impressed with the Flightnav website I went to show few mates yesterday and it was gone - has the site been deluged by PPRuNers doing the same?

Alasadair, can you shed any light on the matter?

[ahendry]

Firstly let me apologise for the website being down over the last couple of days and explain the problems.
On the 23/24th, the website was attacked by hackers using a denial of service attack. After 2 days of this attack and many, many phone calls to the hosting company the website was taken down and errors started to appear. Over the last couple of days I have spent many hours on the phone trying to get the problem fixed which we now have.:):):)
To ensure that this doesn't happen again in the future I have already started the move to a new hosting company who can give a better guarantee regards website protection.
Once again please accept my apologise for the site being down and I hope it doesn't affect everyone’s future use of the site. Hopefully this is a one off problem which I am working hard to fix.

[ahendry]

Munnyspinner - just to also let you know what I have changed the AIS to Kts within the flight plan section of the site - it will also display MPH for whoever requires.

Cheers
Alasdair

[fernytickles]

A website like this has been a long time in coming for UK pilots, great that someone is willing to put in all the hard work and field all the (hopefully constructive) criticism :ok: ... of which I am going to add more.

I noticed someone had posted early this summer about the colours & background used, so I had a look at the website, and compared it to a couple I use here in the US. I realise that I am more familiar with the US website as that is what I use on a regular basis, so my eye is quicker to pick up the info I need, but I think even allowing for that, the plain white page is an awful lot easier to read....

AirNav: KOSH - Wittman Regional Airport (http://www.airnav.com/airport/KOSH)

ACHERFIELD Airfield : FLIGHTNAV.CO.UK (http://www.flightnav.co.uk/Airfield/ACHERFIELD)

FltPlan.com Flight Planning & Flight Tracking for General Aviation. (http://www.fltplan.com/)

In building a website such as flightnav, presumably the purpose is to supply the "customer" with a usuable website. Take pprune for instance, most of it is on a white background, with good reason. Keep the cool grey and brick red colours, but make the background white. I've got all three websites open, and when I go to the UK one, my eyes :uhoh:

Having said that, I wish you all the best. We are lucky here to have such a choice of websites to use, the two which I've linked to are just a small selection that can be found in the US. Keep up the good work!

[Ryan5252]

Im no critique, not by a long mile, but just an observation from the homepage which may required amending...

Military low flying aircraft will always excist in the UK

Poor spelling is one of peeves sorry, but do not that detract from an otherwise excellent site! :D

[Munnyspinner]

Thanks Alasdair,

I thought it might be an reemergence of the same problem you had reported in your news page. I hope all is well and that the site reminas up and running.

FWIT I don't mind too much about the odd smelling pistake - I'm sure you will catch them in due course. It will take time! Generally, the content and presentation matter most and I suspect, like me, you have other things to focus on than spelling. Clearly, though there are plenty who will ignore the positives and find the typos!

All the best.

[Ryan5252]

I hope you did not take my previous post to heart! I was simply browsing through the site and happened to stumble across a typo and thought it would be best to bring it your attention. I certainly did not want to appear negative, the site truly is excellent and I thank you for taking the time to put this together and really wish you all the best. Apologies if I appeared to focus only the negatives. Keep up the great work!!

Ryan

[ahendry]

I'll take all the criticism!!! at the end of the day if people don't tell me what they want from the site, the site won't be a success as people will stop using it.

On a worse note, the website is currently down again. I'm work hard to move to the new hosting company but sleep keeps getting in the way. I'll let everyone know once the server is back up and running.

Once again please accept my apologise for the inconvenience caused.

Regards,
Alasdair

[Munnyspinner]

Alasdair,

every time i go to show my mates you website it is down! It's OK, I have explained the site is great but the webhosting package is not. Presumably, your advertisers will be getting a bit hacked off with this so I'm sure you will be doing all you can to get it sorted. Best of luck. I will hold fire on the word of mouth recommendation until you feel that you have found the solution.

Keep up the good work

[ahendry]

Guys,

Once again sorry to everyone for the hassle of the website being down!!!! :\:\:\

Munnyspinner, I've given this and next month free for the advertisers due to the down time we have had.

I totally appreciate the good work that word of mouth does! It's the only form of advertising that works well within the aviation industry. A good review or someone saying "have you seen that site" will help us more than anything. Thanks!!!!

Hopefully this down time hasn't put everyone off the site, I am trying to solve the problem ASAP. I do understand that a site like this needs to be there when you need it, not when it suits a hosting company or myself! This kind of bad press will not help people 'trust' the site thinking 'oh it'll be down again anyway'.

Once again, thanks for the support and i'm looking forward to everyone criticism (good and bad)........

Alasdair
p.s. the website is currently UP! :):):)

[juliet india mike]

Had a quick look, will be very useful IMO.

Comments so far:

Can't find a way of deleting a waypoint to change the route.

Can't see how to print plan on A5 so it will fit Kneeboard

Would be good to have list of en route suggested frequencies for ATC

Suggest a 'Help' button for numpties like me, linking to simple instructions

BTW Full Sutton A/G now 120.10 since March 09

Will keep playing with it to see what I can get it to do. Keep up the great work!

[ahendry]

juliet india mike, thanks for the comments.

Currently the only way to delete a waypoint is the ability to delete last waypoint using the button on the top right of the screen. This will only delete the last point so you would have to delete several to get back to the one you want to change. not ideal i know but on the list of things to change/sort.

You can changed your printer setting to force the print to use A5 if required, another item on the list is to get all flight plans printed as PDF so that we can control paper size better.

As with Freq on route, it's in the pipeline, and yes a help page would be useful.

Thanks for the great feedback, I'll do my best to get these features added as soon as possible.

Regards,
Alasdair

p.s. Full Sutton has now been updated.

[ahendry]

Hi Guys,

Just to let you all know that we have a new version of the website up and running. We have introduced a features such as:

1. Print airfield card (pdf download)
2. Airfield diagram showing actual runway layout - soon to contain more information such as roads, natural features, windsock positions, etc...
3. Much more data for the UK
4. Skeleton data for France & Ireland added.

Hope you find it all useful and thank again to everyone who has put a ton of effort in to get the site to the position it is.

www.flightnav.co.uk (http://www.flightnav.co.uk)

[AdamFrisch]

Not bad, but it did load very slowly for me.

Also, Spilsted Farm airfield north of Hastings is not in the database.

[ahendry]

Hi AdamFrisch,

I have added lots of new data but we are still far away from having every airfield in the UK, Ireland, and France. We rely on pilots & airfield owners providing up to date information to ensure that we provide the latest information to everyone.

If you send an email to [email protected] with the details of any airfields missing they will be added as soon as possible.

Thanks for the support,
Alasdair

[papa oscar]

Try the AIP for data!!! I checked my local international airport and there is very little data. The NOTAM's didn't even show that the airfield was closed due to snow!!!

Not for me thanks, but good luck.