An example of a very comprehensive Google-Maps-based site is here:
http://www.arthurandarthur.co.uk/AA/index.php/french-airfields-map.html
Thanks to the guy who must have put a lot of effort into this!
I suspect that populating a google map with airports is dead easy, and similarly with tourist spots if you can get a list of their names and lat/long values.
I recall that e.g. the Eurocontrol EAD site enables the generation of many reports e.g. a report with the coordinates of every DME in the world.
It's all the other stuff which then needs to be done...
If you build it, they will come...
My suggestion is you keep it to ICAO codes, have a simple form for adding with few required fields. Have a mechanism to show how recent the last post is. Allow fuel prices if people want to add them. Tourist stuff can go in a comment field.
...so fields with no ICAO code are not welcome? Count me out, then...
There's a new website which seem to do exactly that what was discussed in this thread:
Pilots sharing unofficial practical airport information
If I understand the original idea correctly, I suspect it is something like the wikiAirports site in the view bigger map mode (hope link works) HERE. What needs added is instead of just basic icons for the airport/airfield, having them colour coded in some way to indicate how "GA friendly" they are. This could be done perhaps in some way that perhaps anyone having visited there could enter for example the total mandatory fee for a day stop (this way we tackle landing fees and mandatory handling) which then the user would select on maybe a sliding scale "Total day cost: £000-£500" with a slide to choose your range. Then any airfield that matches this would be a green icon on the map and others red.
Obviously that is a very crude description of it but I think I am understanding the idea correctly. This would give someone the ability to determine a good airfield for their trip. Let's say I want to go to Antwerp. I could look at the map centre it on Antwerp and say that I don't want to spend more then £60 for a day stop. Perhaps EBAW would be red but EBBT and EBHN would be green. This gives me a good basis to plan on. (That was a purely made up example)
Obviously there would be more details available for each airfield but I think having the initial indicator being cost (or at least configurable to that) is important because I think a lot of pilots first consider cost when looking at somewhere for a stop. Like yourself, Peter. I am aware that something you consider important is hard/good surfaces, however I would think it would be a very influential matter if the average cost of stopping at an airfield was in the region of €500+.
I must say I quite like the WikiAirports initiative!
Why not direct the EuroGA community into that direction rather than reinventing the wheel and making two services half as good as one service that can more easily attain the critical mass of activity for it to be useful?
How about directly linking the two sites? This is something a commercial site would obviously never do, but two community-driven projects? That could be beneficial for all...
+1 for linking to WikiAirports. This looks like a really neat project!
That wiki seems perfect. No point reinventing. We just need to populate it.
..so fields with no ICAO code are not welcome? Count me out, then...
Jan, stop looking for us vs them fights. I meant no slight to microlighters! I merely meant that indexing to airports is easier than tourist sites as had been proposed. Your grass strips must have some sort of code no?
