Tag Archives: numbers

Data wants to be free

Posted on February 2, 2008 by David Megginson

I’ve finally gotten around to adding free data downloads to OurAirports. You can now download nightly CSV-formatted data dumps of all the airports, countries, and regions in OurAirports at http://www.ourairports.com/data/ These will open with most spreadsheet and database programs (make … Continue reading →

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What makes an airport 'important'?

Posted on May 25, 2007 by David Megginson

If you were building a mapping application that could show only (say) 20 airports on the screen at once at any given zoom level, how would you decide which airports are most important, using only publicly-available data sets? Here are … Continue reading →

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Assault by battery

Posted on March 9, 2007 by David Megginson

Recently, in the cold weather, my Warrior’s battery has barely managed one try starting the plane — any more, and it goes flat. Most recently, it happened after I’d just been flying 1.7 hours and tried to restart after a … Continue reading →

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North up or track up?

Posted on January 13, 2007 by David Megginson

I was reading through an article on pilotage [Wikipedia] in the December AOPA Pilot. In general, I found the article enjoyable, but one thing stuck out like a wart — the author’s assumption that people should always read a chart … Continue reading →

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Serious upper winds

Posted on October 29, 2006 by David Megginson

Check out the low-level upper wind forecast (FD) for Ottawa tomorrow — it looks like the gales of November are coming calling a couple of days early: STN YOW – for use 3000 6000 9000 12000 18000 FDCN03 CWAO FCST … Continue reading →

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V speeds

Posted on February 12, 2006 by David Megginson

(kias: knots indicated airspeed; kcas: knots calibrated airspeed; ktas knots true airspeed) V speeds [Wikipedia] are the critical performance speeds of an aircraft — while some of them are illustrated on the face of the airspeed indicator using lines and … Continue reading →

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LOP debate goes mainstream

Posted on December 6, 2005 by David Megginson

The lean-of-peak debate, which I’ve written about before, has just gone mainstream — check out this Forbes piece, part of a series of online articles about institutional stupidity. The focus is on Lycoming’s business practices (deny evidence that you cannot … Continue reading →

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Wind and the TAF

Posted on November 12, 2005 by David Megginson

I just read this TAF for Watertown International Airport (KART): KART 121738Z 121818 19008KT P6SM SKC FM0600 17006KT P6SM SCT250 WS015/23035KT FM1400 19012KT P6SM BKN250 WS015/23045KT The tricky parts are the phrases “WS015/23035KT” and “WS015/23045KT” — those might be common … Continue reading →

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Know your fuel consumption

Posted on November 9, 2005 by David Megginson

Update: WordPress tells me that this is my 100th post. Whoopie! Update 2: I went for another test flight on Friday, and the problem is fixed. When you land after a flight, do you know — within a gallon/a few … Continue reading →

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Flying and the Metric System

Posted on October 28, 2005 by David Megginson

The featured article of the day on Wikipedia for Saturday 29 October is Metrication, the process of converting a country to metric from various historical units of measure. Now that Ireland has switched, the only three countries left not officially … Continue reading →

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