DAVID LEARMOUNT / LONDON
Eurocontrol database for pre-flight planning will be available online from 6 June
From 6 June general aviation pilots will be able to access notices to airmen (NOTAM) and all other forms of aeronautical information from a single point-source through the internet, free of charge. Eurocontrol is launching its European aeronautical information service (AIS) database (EAD) to make pre-flight planning easier for all aviation operators, including individual owner/pilots and small organisations like private aerodromes.
The original source of the data continues to be the states and aviation agencies that provide it, but Eurocontrol is collating it all into a dynamic database to improve its accessibility, and hopes to improve its quality and reliability. Eurocontrol's head of airspace management Alex Hendriks says: "The aeronautical information system is safety-critical, but we have tested AIS information entered in flight-management systems and found that the incidence of erroneous information is one in 10,000 instead of one in 10 million. We are aiming at one in a million." He says the opportunities for human error in collecting, recording and disseminating AIS are legion, and that the fewer people who handle it the fewer possibilities of error.
The European AIS will provide NOTAMs worldwide, but complete static data from national aeronautical information publications (AIP) only from the European Aviation Conference (ECAC) states. AIP amendments, supplements and charts will also be available for the ECAC states. Static data provided for the rest of the world will initially consist only of that needed for NOTAM validation and pre-flight data bulletin generation.
Source: Flight International
