I found this site which has a Google-maps style interface to the U.S. sectionals. Pretty neat. Would be cool to see a Flightaware track overlaid on a sectional or an IFR chart as an option.
Hi, boone and welcome to the FlightAware discussion forums.
That’s a nice site with a good interface. You can expect FlightAware’s maps to have pan & zoom like that in the near future as well as the ability to overlay navaids, airports, VORs, roads, etc.
I think having sectionals or enroute charts would be fantastic and although that’s not in the short term plan, certainly coul dcan expect to see that on FlightAware.
I find Skyvector.com to be an interesting concept with a poor execution. If FlightAware wants to emulate them, FA needs to watch out for a few pitfalls.
Skyvector absolutely needs to display those maps at full screen. Zoomed in, the maps are great but there’s not enough square mileage to show geographical context. It’s like tunnel-vision. Larger display is necessary.
When one zooms out, the map detail quickly become illegible. With a larger display, it’s unnecessary to zoom out to the point of illegible type.
At maximum zoom out, in the Denver area, less than 50% of the display area filled in. When I went to pan the map, it immediately recentered and zoomed in. I never did get a full display of the Colorado area in maximum zoom out.
I think Google Earth fans would love to see the Skyvector charts superimposed on a GE display.
Never seen this SkyVector site before, but it looks good to me. Sectionals are extremely busy maps, as are VFR terminals. You’ve got terrain color, airpspace lines, victor airways, airports, and so many other things, it couldn’t get more crowded.
I for one would not like to see sectionals underneath the map here on FA. They’re too difficult to read unless you look at them in person, and try to display them under the track would be a waste of time and money. They come out every six months and are expensive when you add the whole U.S. to the mix. Plus they’re for VFR, and the IFR maps, which are much easier to read (e.g., less busy looking) are different. Some of the waypoints even have different names for jet airways.
I’d like just the waypoints in the flight plan personally.
Press F11 then F5.
Check out runwayfinder.com/ for google maps sectionals. (Mercator projection sucks, tho)
I’ll second what Orlaam says.
I guess you guys are right about the sectionals being busy and quickly out of date. I would like to see some of the waypoints and nav aids on the Flightaware map. Or even better, have Flightaware let me choose which items to display.
Amen to that, boone. I understand that FlightAware does have plans to implement what you are suggesting. The only question is ‘how soon?’.
Me too!
As I see it, FA has no choice but to implement them ALL with a hot-key to switch back and forth. Better get busy dbaker! Lessee, can it be ready by February? 
(just kidding, of course!)
I personally would like to see a sectional overlay, HOWEVER, I would like it to be an option.
Maybe Flight Aware engineers can create overlays like NOAA did.
If you go to srh.noaa.gov/ridge/dgx.shtml you will see what I mean. At the bottom, uncheck the options you don’t want to see.
I hate the topo overlay as it makes it heard to see the weaker rain echos, but remove the topo overlay and presto, you can see all echos.
Food for thought anway.
Allen
Everytime I try to zoom in on a Google Earth display…say down to 1000 feet the map goes out of focus. Is there a way to remedy this?
Not sure how much experience you have with Google Earth, so apologies if this is too basic.
GE is made up of lots of pictures that basically cover the entire planet. They are taken at different times and from different sources. Some of them are much better than others. Mostly the pictures of large cities are very good, so you can zoom way in and count people on the sidewalk. Most of the pictures out in the country and small towns are pretty poor, so zooming lower than a couple of thousand feet make them very difficult to see at all.
When you zoom into a new area, it takes a while for the pictures to load. You will notice a number on the bottom of the display that is a percent. Once this says 100%, that’s as good as it’s going to get for that area. If you are on a dial up connection, it is going to take a really long time for the pictures to load.
If this doesn’t address your problem, then try GE’s online help. From GE, click Help, then Help Center.