Airspace Project

Welcome to the Airspace Project

The purpose of this project is to produce tools for the creation of GPS compatible airspace files from NZ CAA airspace documentation. The NZ CAA produces printed airspace maps which may be used for flight planning and in-flight. They also publish PDF documents that contain a textural description of the airspace boundaries. These documents are of no practical use to pilots because they cannot be read by any device or software.

 

It is possible to create airspace on your GPS by manually entering routes. The effort required to do this is huge as is the potential for error. Maintaining any more than a handful of airspaces is impractical. This project is creating software tools that are capable of reading the published airspace definitions and turning them into airspace files that can be loaded into a map capable GPS or flight instrument for use in-flight.

Disclaimer
  • All data and information contained in any of the data files are provided without guarantee as to their completeness or correctness. Any conclusions drawn from these data and information are the sole responsibility of the user.
  • This information may not be accurate or current and is not valid for navigation or flight planning. No warranty of fitness for any purpose is made or implied. Always consult the official publications for current and correct information. This service is provided free of charge with no warrantees, expressed or implied.

 

Documentation

You should be able to find out everything you need to know about the GPS Airspace Project here. It explains how to obtain prebuilt airspace files, how to used them, how to build your own files and how to contribute to the maintenance and development of the software.

If you cannot find the answers to your questions here please check the forum where you can search for answers or ask new questions.

These pages are editable so, if you find inaccuracies or areas where the documentation can be improved, please roll up your sleeves and contribute.

 

Obtaining Airspace Files

You can either download prebuilt airspace files, or build them to your own specification. Prebuilt files can be found on the Downloads page. Instructions on the use of the airspace files can be found on the Downloads page for each specific format. If you want airspace files that cover specific areas or specific types of airspace you can download the airspace converter software and use it to generate your own files. A description of the process for building airspace files can be found on the Build Your Own Airspace Files page.

 

Using Airspace Files

The instructions for using airspace files vary depending on the type of device or file format. Basically you want to download the files from the downloads page to your PC then upload them to the GPS receiver using the software that came with your device.

Brief instructions for doing that can be found on the download page for each specific format.

 

Building Your Own Airspace Files

The source information for the airspace files is the CAA website at Permanent Airspace or Temporary Airspace. This information is in PDF form which is not very useful for our purpose. Therefore it needs to be converted into a form that can be used by the software that loads the maps into the GPS. The basic process is to:

  1. Download and save the file(s) you want form the CAA website (links above).
  2. Open the PDF file in Adobe Acrobat and choose Save as Text... from the File menu.
  3. Make any necessary corrections to the text files.
  4. Use the converter to convert the file into the required format - see detailed description below.
  5. Use the GPS software to load the file into the GPS - needs a more thorough description.

1. Download the CAA Files:

The source information for the airspace files is the CAA website at Permanent Airspace or Temporary Airspace. The files are named according to the type of airspace they include. Click on the files you are interested in and choose to save them to the local disk.

2. Convert the PDFs to Text:

Open each PDF file in Adobe Acrobat then choose "Save as Text" from the File menu. This option is not available in all versions of Acrobat, it is available in version 8. I recommend that you keep the same file name but change the extension to "txt".

3. Correct the Errors in the Text Files:

The airspace definitions published by the CAA are in a set of documents. These files are not in a format that can be loaded into a GPS directly. They must be converted into a different format first. Unfortunately the files are not easily machine readable. They loosely follow a format but there are many variations and inconsistencies in the syntax. This Airspace converter software is very forgiving of these inconsistencies and can read most of the CAA's files directly. There are however a few errors that cannot be resolved and these need to be corrected by hand before running the airspace converter. The errors I have discovered so far and the corresponding corrections are documented on the Corrections page.

4. Using the Airspace Converter:

Once you have converted the CAA's PDF files into text files and made any necessary corrections you are ready to convert the format. To do that you use the airspace.exe file which you will find attached to this page. To run the airspace converter open a cmd window (in Windows click Start, Run then type "cmd" and click OK). In the cmd window change to the directory that contains the text formated source files (this is the working directory). Then execute the airspace converter...

<path to airspace converter>\airspace.exe

You will need Java version 1.5 or later installed on your computer to use this software.

Modifying the configuration:

By default the airspace converter will convert all available input files into all the available output formats. You can modify this configuration by putting a file named airspace.xml in the working directory and customising the contents to suit your needs. An example airspace.xml file (equivalent to the default configuration) is attached to this page. Simply save this file to your working directory then edit it to comment out the features you do not need.

5. Load the File Into the GPS

When the conversion is complete you will have a bunch of output files in the working directory. The filenames and formats produced will be as configured in the airspace.xml file. Currently the supported output formats are TestFormat, which is used only for testing purposes, Polish Map (with .mp extension) which can be read by cGPSMapper and turned into Garmin format, fa5 which can be loaded directly into Brauniger and Flytec GPS/Varios and KML which can be viewed in Google Earth.

To produce maps that can be loaded into Garmin GPS devices we need to perform one additional step. To find out how to produce Garmin files from polish map files have a look at Building Garmin Map Sets.

The process for loading other formats will be documented later.

 

AttachmentSize
airspace0.3.zip191.93 KB
airspace.xml8.67 KB

Corrections

This page lists the changes that were made to the airspace definitions supplied by the CAA before running them through the airspace converter. Some of these changes are just the removal of airspaces that are of no relevance to hang gliding and paragliding activities. Some changes are to fix inconsistencies in the syntax of the data so that it can be parsed and converted correctly. Some changes are are to fix errors that have be discovered in the airspace definitions.

 

Control_Areas

 

NZA 040, NZA 041, NZA 149

The airspaces were removed because they cross the antimeridian and are not handled correctly by the Garmin and Google Earth software. They are not useful for hang gliding and paragliding purposes anyway.

 

NZA 143

Added "anticlockwise" to the last arc so that it reads:

"S 36 43 25.6, E 175 02 17.5, the arc of a circle of 20 NM radius centred on
S 36 47 12.5, E 174 37 52.4 (Whenuapai VORTAC) from
S 36 43 25.6, E 175 02 17.5 anticlockwise to
S 36 36 36.6, E 174 58 57.3 (transponder mandatory). "

 

NZA 145

Changed "S 38 54 22.7, E 176 47 43.0; the arc of a circle, 33 NM radius, centred on "
to "S 38 54 22.7, E 176 47 43.0; the arc of a circle of 33 NM radius centred on ".

Added a ";" to the end of the first arc i.e.
"S 39 05 55.3, E 176 19 39.8; a line joining" .

 

NZA 340

Changed "S 39 05 55.3, E 176 19 39.8; the arc of a circle, 33 NM radius, centred on "

to "S 39 05 55.3, E 176 19 39.8; the arc of a circle of 33 NM radius centred on "

 

NZA 341

Changed "S 177 45 18.8" to "E 177 45 18.8"

 

NZA 637

Deleted the struckout text.

 

NZA 657

Added the ";" to
"S 41 34 05.7, E 172 57 22.0; a line joining "

 

NZA 735

Deleted the struckout text.

 

NZA 841

Removed the ";" from
S 43 49 05.5, E 172 21 38.5; clockwise to

 

General_Aviation_Areas

 

NZG 271

Changed this...
"All that airspace bounded by a circle of 0.41 NM (0.75 km) radius, centred on
S 37 37 49.3 E 176 10 18.9. "

to this...
"All that airspace bounded by a circle of 0.41 NM radius centred on
S 37 37 49.3, E 176 10 18.9. "

 

NZG 275

Refactored this into two sectors as in NZA 633 so that it could be parsed correctly.

 

Mandatory Broadcast Zones

 

NZB 273

Changed this...
All that airspace bounded by a circle of 3 NM radius, centred on

to this...
All that airspace bounded by a circle of 3 NM radius centred on

 

NZB 374

Added "by" to the first line...
All that airspace bounded by...

 

NZB 682

Removed the "," after 'radius".

 

Building Garmin Map Sets

Building the Garmin specific files and loading them into Garmin GPSs is the most difficult part of this whole exercise. Luckily there are a few tools available that make the process easier. Also the Airspace Converter is hardwired to produce maps with sensible default values that have been tested and proven to work.

The tools required are:

  • GPSMapEdit for visualising (and editing) maps.
  • cGPSMapper for building the Garmin map files.
  • MapSetToolKit for installing Garmin map database files into MapSource.
  • MapSource or SendMap for collecting several maps together and loading them into the GPS.

The basic process is to use the Airspace Converter to convert the airspace files you want into Polish Map (*.mp) format. Then you can usecGPSMapper to convert the mp files into Garmin database files. Then you have a choice - you can use either SendMap or MapSource to load the files into the GPS. Caution: both of these techniques will replace all the maps already loaded into the GPS. Since I already use MapSource for installing other maps, that is the technique I use. The MapSource technique is discussed below. You can find documentation on SendMap at the cGPSMapper website.

1. Checking the Conversion with GPSMapEdit

If you want to check the conversion to Polish Map format before you move on to building the Garmin files I recommend using GPSMapEdit available from http://www.geopainting.com/en/. Using GPSMapEdit you can open the *.mp files directly to view them. You can also edit them but I recommend editting the source text files and re-running the airspace converter instead, so that the conversion can be repeated later without loosing any edits made in GPSMapEdit.

2. Using cGPSMapper to create Garmin map files

The first step towards creating Garmin files is to use cGPSMapper to convert the Polish Map files into Garmin img files. To do this simply open a cmd window (On Windows click Start, Run then type cmd and click OK), and change to the directory where the *.mp files are. Then run the cGPSMapper executable and tell it the name of the file you want to convert, like this...

<path to the location of cGPSMapper>\cGPSMapper.exe ac filename.mp

Repeat this for each mp file. Each time cGPSMapper will write a new file to the current directory with an 8 digit file name and the img extension. The filename is taken from the ID field in the mp file.

3. Installing maps into Garmin MapSource

To load the maps into MapSource you first need to build a preview map and database file. You can use cGPSMapper to do that, but it is much easier to use MapSetToolkit instead.

Open MapSetToolKit and you should see a screen like this...

MapSetToolKitMapSetToolKit


  1. It is best to set up a single folder to hold your img files and some other configuration files that will be created by MapSetToolKit for use by MapSource. That folder is the 'Mapset directory' (C:\GarminMaps in the example above).
  2. You can send multiple map files (see the previous section for naming requirements) into one Mapset (with any name you like). Actually this corresponds with one named 'Product' rather than one named 'Map set' as these terms are used in MapSource.
  3. 'Product Code' does not matter for personal use, except that it should differ from any products already installed and any products to be later installed.
  4. The Families Mapset section is important if you want to use custom type files. These are used to define your own lines and polygons. Choose a faimily ID (FID) that is not already in use (look in the Mapsets Installed window). The custom type File I have used is attached below as an example.
  5. Tick the 'Install in MapSource' checkbox in the Options section then click 'Start'. MapSetToolKit will then build the preview map and database file, and install it all into MapSource.
  6. If you subsequently seek to add further maps to your new mapset/product using MapSetToolKit, you may get an error message requiring you to first 'uninstall' that mapset. This takes out the previous registry entry, so be careful not to uninstall the wrong mapsets! (Hopefully in later versions this 'uninstall' step will not be needed simply to add maps).

4. Building a map set and uploading

If all has gone according to plan, when you next open MapSource, it should include your new 'product' (NZAirspace in our example), with whichever maps you have included, available for display and for transfer as usual to your GPS receiver.

MapSourceMapSource

Unfortunately, MapSource can not display multiple layers, so you can not see your excellent work in full glory combined with other layers over a basemap on the computer screen. For that you have to transfer your maps to your GPS.

But before you hit 'Transfer' > 'Send to device' > 'Maps':

Caution: every current method of transferring maps into Garmin GPS receivers overwrites the previously transferred maps.

Make sure that all of your maps are available in your MapSource program, and assemble those that you need into one group (this is what Garmin calls a Map set) for transfer together into the GPS. To do that you need to select the Map Tool icon on the tool bar (with a picture of a polygon) then select all the maps you want from the map display window. Hint - when they are selected they turn pink on the map display and they are listed in the maps tab on the left. Then you can upload the map set to the GPS receiver.

If you do not use MapSource, there are various free or shareware programs to assemble img files into mapsets and transfer them to your Garmin GPS unit. Examples include SendMap and GPSExplorer.

 

AttachmentSize
custom.txt5.96 KB

Open Issues

MBZ Upper Limit

In some instances Mandatory Broadcast Zones are located immediately below controlled airspace. If the area of the MBZ spans multiple CTAs with different lower limits then the upper limit of the MBZ is defined as the lower limit of each adjacent CTA. This is extremely difficult for the airspce converter to parse.

To avoid overly complicated logic the airspace converter makes an approximation. It takes the conservative approach of making the upper limit of the MBZ equal to the highest lower limit of the adjacent CTAs. The nett affect is that the upper surface of the MBZ extends slightly into some of the CTAs, so this is not expected to have any significant affect on flying activities.

MBZs affected by this issue are: NZB 175, NZB 273 and NZB 371.

 

GAA Lower Limit

In some instances a General Aviation Area spans multiple CTAs with different lower limits. In that case the lower limit of the GAA is defined as the lower limit of each intersecting CTA. This is extremely difficult for the airspce converter to parse.

To avoid overly complicated logic the airspace converter makes an approximation. It takes the conservative approach of making the lower limit of the GAA equal to the lowest lower limit of the intersecting CTAs. The nett affect is that the lower surface of the GAA extends below the lower surface some of the CTAs. Given that in most instances the GAA will be either automatically open, or have been manually opened, this is not expected to have any significant affect on flying activities.

GAAs affected by this issue are: NZG 357, NZG 358, NZG 370, NZG 852 and NZG 976.

Change Log

0.3 24/8/2008

  • Added support for Google Earth (kml) output format.
  • Fixed an altitude handling bug that affected some of the MBZ's and GAA's. Refer to the issues page for more detail.
  • Refactored the code that handles airspaces with multiple sectors to produce more accurate results.
  • Added support for the effective date attribute so that only airspaces that are currently effective are written to the output.
  • Updated the exe file that was missed in the previous release.
  • Updated the source data files to the latest version published by the CAA.

0.2 19/7/2008

  • Added support for Brauniger (fa5) format.

0.1 15/4/2008

  • Initial release supports CTA, GAA and MBZ airspaces.
  • Produces polish map format files that can be converted and loaded into Garmin GPSs.

Downloads

This is where you will find the pre-built files that you can download and install in your GPS.

Currently only Brauniger/Flytec and Garmin formats are supported, but you can expect to see other formats in the future.

Brauniger / Flytec

This file can be used to load airspaces into the Brauniger Competino or Compeo and Flytec 5020, 5030, 6020 or 6030 vario/GPSs.

To load the airspace file you must use the Flychart software package that comes with these GPSs. If you don't have it Flychart can be downloaded from the Brauniger website.

Instructions:

  1. Download the file attached below and save it to your computer.
  2. Open Flychart and select "Extras > Flight instrument options..." from the menu.
  3. Click on "Restricted areas" in the list on the left.
  4. Click on the "Load..." button, browse to the file that you downloaded and click "Open".
  5. All the airspaces contained in the file will be listed at the top of the window. When you click the "Upload..." button all the selected airspaces (those with a green tick) will be uploaded to the GPS. By default all airspaces are selected. You may choose to deselect the airspaces you are not interested in. To do that right-click on an airspace and use the "select" menu options. If you have a 5020, 6020 or Competino you will have to deselect some airspaces because those models support a maximum of 20.
  6. When you have the necessary airspaces selected click on the "Upload..." button to load them into the GPS.
AttachmentSize
NZ_Airspace-Nov2009.fa5178.54 KB

Garmin

The file attached below has been built specifically for loading into Garmin GPS devices.
Previous versions of the Garmin Maps have been difficult to install, but they now have an installer to make it easy and painless. 

  1. Download the exe file and save it to your PC.
  2. Double-click on it and follow the prompts, this will install the maps into Garmin MapSource.
  3. Open Garmin MapSource, select all the maps you want in your map set and upload them into your GPS. For detailed instructions on this step refer to the Garmin MapSource documentation.

 

AttachmentSize
NZAirspace-Nov2009.exe372.95 KB

Google Earth

This file can be used to view airspaces in 3D using Google Earth. You can fly through the airspace you intend to use to familiarise yourself with it before you fly. If you have GPS track logs you can load them into Google Earth at the same time and check to see if you have made any airspace infringements.

If you don't have Google Earth installed you can obtain it at earth.google.com. Then just click on the file below to launch Google Earth and load the airspace. You can turn individual airspaces on or off in the panel on the left. Leonardo is a easy way to convert your track log into a Google Earth kml file if you want to view it on Google Earth at the same time.

 

AttachmentSize
NZ_Airspace-Nov2009.kmz163.33 KB

Contribute

Everyone is invited to join the project and contribute some time towards making this a valuable resource for pilots. The best way to get involved is to download the files, try them out and report and discrepancies or other issues.

Another way to contribute is to suggest new features or other changes that would improve the software. Please use the Airspace Project Discussion forum for this.

If you want to try editing the data files to test things out or build subsets of airspaces a description of how to build airspace files can be found in the Documentation section.

 

Todo List

  • Build the initial set of map files - CTA, GAA & MBZ - Done.
  • Add support for other types of airspace i.e. VTLs, CFZs etc.
  • Extend the documentation.
  • Add support for other output formats such as:
  1. Google Earth KML files - Done.
  2. GPX files.
  3. Competino/Compeo format - Done.