AOPA Pushes To Keep Charts Public
After hearing from AOPA and other
users, the Department of Defense (DOD) is going to accept comments
on its proposal to stop public distribution of Department of
Defense flight information publications (FLIP) and the digital
aeronautical flight information file (DAFIF) in October 2005.
"We've had discussions with the military and a meeting with the
FAA last week, and the ramifications of this decision were
dramatically underestimated," said Melissa Rudinger, AOPA vice
president of regulatory policy. "While we're still analyzing all of
the impacts, we will be asking the Department of Defense to revise
its decision, and we'll offer some realistic alternatives."
The most immediate impact of the decision on AOPA members will
be the loss of Department of Defense-National
Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) oceanic navigation charts
(ONC), enroute charts for the Caribbean and South America, the
supplement of Caribbean airport information, and instrument
approach charts for the Caribbean and South America.
NGA navigation products also cover much of the rest of the
world. If the military navigation charts are withdrawn from the
public, pilots flying outside of the United States will have to buy
charts from private vendors, usually at a higher cost than the NGA
charts.
But there is a hidden cost as well.
Some vendors of electronic flight planning programs rely on the
DAFIF database for navigation and airport data even for the United
States. If their access to that free information were cut off, they
would have to turn to more expensive alternatives.
However, this won't affect AOPA's Airport Directory and AOPA's
Airport Directory Online. AOPA starts with FAA, not NGA, airport
data that it then augments through its own data collection. This
value-added data includes FBO and weather information; nearby
hotels, restaurants and attractions; and rental car information.
All of the information is free to AOPA members.
Ironically, commercialization of navigation data is one reason
why the Department of Defense feels it has to withdraw NGA products
from the public. Some countries have transferred responsibility for
this safety of flight information to commercial or
quasi-governmental agencies. "Some of these foreign agencies are
beginning to assert intellectual property rights to the
aeronautical data within their territorial limits and are refusing
to provide such aeronautical data to DOD so long as the NGA makes
it available to outside interests, whom these agencies view as
possible competitors in the international marketplace," DOD said in
its notice of proposed rulemaking [notice modification].
DOD also contends that its critical navigation data, currently
available to the public on the Internet, is "vulnerable." And the
military says it wants to eliminate "unfettered access to
[navigation] data by organizations and individuals intent on
causing harm."
"It's a remarkable contradiction that at the same time the
President has ordered the military to improve the reliability and
availability of the GPS navigation signal to the worldwide civilian
market, the military is proposing to withdraw the information
necessary to make complete use of GPS," said Rudinger.