Aviation Waypoints

Data for 24 November 2005 to 21 December 2005

Disclaimer and Data Source

Use this data at your own risk, I can accept not personal responsibility for this data. Used wisely with common sense and cross checks, I believe that prudent use of this data is a safe. But again, the responsibility is yours.

This data is from the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency data, NGA: Digital Aeronautical Flight Information File. However, this product has not been endorsed or otherwise approved by the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, or the United States Department of Defense. There is no guarantee of the accuracy both from the standpoint of the original data and any manipulation that I have done to format it. You must take responsibility for using common sense and airmanship to verify this data.

I have no plans of updating the data on this site on a regular basis. It will be updated as a function of available time and interest on my part.

What is on this page

I have several text files with waypoints for uploading into a generic GPS using free software available for download on the Internet. The waypoints are in a format so that you can simply copy and paste text to create the files necessary to load into a free program that can then load them into a GPS.

Feedback

Drop me a line if you find this useful at handheldgps@hotmail.com.

Introduction and background

I have a book on using GPS at www.cockpitgps.com, which I would encourage you to read. One of the points that I make is that a generic handheld GPS can be a great navigational tool in the proper context. I also think aviation specific models are good and in many ways they are a bargain, but not every pilot needs or has the budget for one.

Magellan

One of the biggest problems is that non-aviation models generally do not have an extensive database of aviation waypoints. Most of the Garmin mapping receivers have municipal and county airports and larger. These can be found by zooming in on the map display. The Magellan mapping receivers offer a good lookup capability in the basemap database, these are filed by the airport name, not identifier. However, you can use the find near function to reference a city or cursor position. Obviously, this data is not meant for aviation, but when verified properly it can be useful in the context of something like a VFR flight.

The Magellan 315, 320, and basic SportTrak allow you to load in close to 20,000 points of interest using Magellan’s DataSend software. The following are some sources of data to use with Data Send: http://home.stny.rr.com/bkw/315/, http://fly.to/gavdb, http://pages.infinit.net/smdaoust/gpsnav/. This is not to say that I necessarily prefer Magellan receivers, just that if you have one that you should use some of the features to your advantage.

Garmin

I generally prefer the Garmin receivers. Aviation data can be uploaded into the user waypoints. Depending on the model, they generally offer between 500 and 3000 available user waypoints. If you have an eTrex Legend or Vista or any of the 76 series, make sure that you update your software from www.garmin.com so that you have 1,000 instead of the original 500 user waypoints. There are some good sources of aviation data such as http://navaid.com and Data Chunks from www.aeroplanner.com or flight planning programs such as Air Plan.

Lowrance

Recently I became intrigued with the Lowrance iFinder. The price, under $150, for a mapping receiver. The aviation waypoints must be loaded into the user waypoints like most other GPS receivers. The iFinder has 1,000 user waypoints. What is especially intriguing is that the iFinder loads waypoints from a MMC/SD memory card, which is in turn loaded from the computer. Even though the iFinder is limited to 1,000 waypoints, a card will store many sets.

The iFinder turns out to be a decent GPS, especially with the possibility of storing multiple sets of data on a memory card. Unfortunately, I have not found an easy way of getting data aviation data that was in a format that could be saved onto a memory card for using in an iFinder. Hence, the genesis of this project.

General Directions

First of all, you are going to need a program to get the data from your computer into the GPS. Which one you choose will depend on which GPS you have. This in turn will determine which data files you use:

G7toWin, http://www.gpsinformation.org/ronh/ This is an excellent free program for interfacing your PC with a GPS. I have used it with various Garmin receivers with good results. Needless to say, you will need a cable. If you want to connect a Garmin receiver on the cheap, here are my instructions.

G7 to Win

If you try to connect a Magellan, you have to make sure that G7toWin is set up for it. Select FILE->CONFIGURATION->GENERAL tab. You can save the configuration with TILE -> SAVE CONFIGURATION. I did not change the icon properties and they seemed to upload fine into a Magellan 330 as airplanes for airports and generic waypoint symbol for navaids. For more detailed information, you can go to: http://gpsinformation.net/main/g7to-mag.htm. G7toWin will not work with all Magellan types, but it appears to support the 315, 320, 330, 410, SporTrack series, and a couple of others. Although I have not seen any documentation that it will work with the Meridian series, if it works with the 330, I highly suspect that it will support the Meridian. I know that it will not work with a 310 (no great loss).

Lowrance Map Create (GDM)

For the iFinder you need GPS Data Manager 6 or perhaps Map Create. I have only used the Data Manager which appears to be derived from Map Create. In fact Lowrance recommends not installing Data Manager if you already have Map Create. Data Manager is free at: http://www.lowrance.com/software/default.asp.

For other Lowrance receivers, you can see which version of data manager will work. You may also use G7toWin. I have found the files will work with Data Manager 3.1, you can try either G7toWin or

Data files and how to use them

I have taken National Geospatial Intelligence Agency data, sorted, and formatted the U.S. data for use with G7toWin and Lowrance GDM. If you need points for outside the U.S. and are comfortable with a spreadsheet or database, I have the raw text files near the bottom of the page.

Files for G7toWin

AirportsG7.txt
VOR_NDB_G7.txt

Files for Lowrance GDM

AirportsGDM.txt
VOR_NDB_GDM.txt

If you have a PC with Windows 95 or later, you should have a text editor called Notepad. Notepad is most likely found by going to START -> PROGRAMS -> ACCESSORIES. When you click on one of the above files, it will most likely open in your browser. If not, you can download the files and open them in WordPad which is also usually in the same place as Notepad. You may simply copy and past lines directly from the browser into a text editor such as Microsoft Notepad.

The files U.S. files divided up into blocks of text sorted by country and state. The nav files are additionally sorted by VOR and NDB.

If you want more information on the country and state codes, you can refer to http://earth-info.nima.mil/gns/html/fips10-4.html. However, the easiest thing is to just use the search function of your editor to find an airport or navaid for the country and state that you are looking for.

Blocks of waypoints can be copied and pasted into a new text file. Although it appears to work if you do not, I recommend that you also copy and paste the top header lines into the file for G7toWin files. You will end up with a text file something like either of these two examples:

G7toWin

Version 2:CSV
Datum:,WGS-84
ZoneOffset:,0.000000
"Type","Name","Lat","Long","Month#","Day#","Year","Hour","Min","S..........(I cut the rest off for the example)
W,KMCO,28.428889,-81.316028,12,6,2003,0,0,0,ORLANDO INTL,16384,,,8.92
W,KMIA,25.793250,-80.290556,12,6,2003,0,0,0,MIAMI INTL,16384,,,0.74
W,KMKY,25.995028,-81.672528,12,6,2003,0,0,0,MARCO ISLAND,16384,,,0.46
W,KMLB,28.102753,-80.645258,12,6,2003,0,0,0,MELBOURNE INTL,16384,,,3.07

Lowrance GDM

25.325394, -80.274775, 07FA
25.647889, -80.432778, KTMB
29.061778, -82.376583, X35
30.483250, -86.525400, KVPS
24.556111, -81.759556, KEYW
28.428889, -81.316028, KMCO

G7toWin notes

The G7toWin files must be saved with a .csv extension. When you open the files in G7toWin, you will need to specify .csv in the dialogue box.

Lowrance GDM notes

The Lowrance GDM files can be saved as .txt. You do not open these files but choose FILE -> IMPORT GPS DATA. Before importing, you might want to change the default icon -- go to Views -> Map Display Options -> Display tab. The background map in GDM is not terribly accurate. You will see things like Glades airport well into Lake Okeechobee. The problem is in the map in GDM. From the points that I verified in the GPS, the uploaded points in the GPS should be accurate. These points are then saved from GDM onto a SD/MMC card in the case of the iFinder.

Any of the GPS receivers can only store as many user waypoints as it has available. You can put up to the full amount into a single text file and then load it. However, another option is to separate the files further, this is especially useful for the iFinder. Perhaps divide the files up by state and then further into airports and navaids. For example, you could have a file for Florida Airports, Georgia Airports, Alabama Airports, Florida navaids, Georgia navaids, and Alabama navaids. Perhaps you might combine the airport and navaid files into one so that you just have one file for each state, or you can further divide the navaids into VOR and NDB for each state. I will leave this to individual tastes.

As I mentioned, dividing the files is especially useful with the iFinder. A file with 470 airports for the state of Texas takes about 24 kilobytes. You can load a lot of these sized files onto a memory card that is measured in megabytes. If you have several sets saved on a memory card, you can load them from the card when needed rather than needing a computer. When the 1,000 waypoints fills up, you will have to erase all of the the waypoints and reload files. For example, if you were making a long cross country from Florida to Indiana, you might have data for FL, GA, TN. If you make a fuel stop in GA, you could erase the waypoints and load GA, TN, KY, IN. This is not nearly as convenient as having an aviation GPS, but it is still pretty useful.

A couple of text editing notes

I have had some problems when I have copied blocks of text from Internet Explorer to WordPad. I would suggest copying to and creating the files in Notepad whether you copy from your browser such as Internet Explorer or download the files and open them in WordPad.

Neither WordPad nor Notepad allow multiple documents to be open. However, each time you open WordPad or Notepad, you open a new instance of it. So you can have multiple instances of WordPad or Notepad with different documents open in each, but you cannot have one instance with multiple documents -- thus, the net affect is similar.

Some Magellan Notes

The user waypoint lookup on the mapping Magellans that I am familiar with is poor. You have to scroll through the whole list. There is no provision for scrolling page at a time or looking up by name. I would suggest only loading in navaids if you desire them and using the lookup feature of the basemap for airports. The airports are listed by name which can be confusing, but the nearest feature to a city or cursor position can be helpful. The basemap is definitely not official aviation data, so thoroughly verify the data.

If you have a 315/320 or basic SporTrak, load the aviation data as Points of Interest as I described earlier.

iFinder Note

Make sure that you select MENU->ADVANCE MODE. The main navigation display is somewhat of an HSI type of device, but the map is even better. You can customize what data fields are displayed. Also the route setup is good on the iFinder.

To load the data from the card select MENU->MENU->SYSTEM SETUP->TRANSFER MY DATA.