1 Background

This document describes the configuration and usage of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) Digital Aeronautical Flight Information File (DAFIF) ‘plug-in’ for Gndmaker. Plug-ins extend the basic functionality of Gndmaker without making changes to the base Gndmaker code. Plug-ins exist as separate code modules and are released as Dynamic Link Libraries (DLL’s).

DAFIF data is compiled several times a year and corresponds to the world-wide flight navigation information database, otherwise known as AIRAC.

Taken from the NIMA DAFIF website:

“DAFIF data consists of Airports, Heliports, Navigation Aids, Waypoints, ATS Routes, Airspace Boundaries, Special Use Airspace, Military Training Routes, Parachute Jump Areas, Preferred Routes, Terminal Procedures (Digital form), Air Refueling Routes and Supplemental Data.”

For obvious reasons, DAFIF data is extremely useful for the virtual Flight Simulator community in the creation of sector files.

2 Preparing Data Set

In order to use the DAFIF plug-in, the user must download the DAFIF data to their local machine in order for Gndmaker to find it.

The DAFIF can be found at: https://164.214.2.110/products/digitalaero/index.cfm. Gndmaker currently supports the Ed6 (Edition 6) format of the DAFIF data only.

It is anticipated that Gndmaker will support Ed7 or Ed8 in the foreseeable future.

The entire DAFIF data set CD does not have to be downloaded. Once the user has navigated to the DAFIF FTP server (via the FTP/HTP links on the main page), only the \DAFIFT.ZIP file is used by Gndmaker. The DAFIFT form of DAFIF data is essentially a series of tab delimited, ASCII files that can more easily be loaded into tools like Microsoft Excel, or Access.

Optionally, the \DOCS directory tree can also be downloaded. The docs are in Word format with hyperlinks that make it very easy to navigate through the documentation.

Once DAFIFT.ZIP has been downloaded, extract the files preserving the directory structure. This is very important – Gndmaker assumes that the directory structure is preserved to find the various files.

These are the typical DAFIFT sub-directories:

These directories correspond to (extracted from the DAFIF README.TXT file):

APPC Appendix C, tables from the data dictionary Appendix C.

ARF Air Refueling Routes

ARPT Airport Info: Runway, Communications, Airport Navaids, ILS Components, Arresting Gear

ATS Air Traffic Services Routes

BDRY Airspace Boundaries (Control zones, Identification zones, etc.)

HLPT Heliport Info: Pad/Runway, Communications, Heliport Navaids

HOLD Holding Patterns

MTR Military Training Routes

NAV Air Navigational Aids

ORTCA Off Route Terrain Clearance Altitude

PAPP RNAV Precision Approach Path Points

PJA Parachute Jump Areas

PR Preferred Routes

SUAS Special Use Airspace (Dangerous, restricted areas)

SUPP Airport Supplemental data, fuel oil, remarks, services, city cross reference etc.

TRM Terminal Instrument Procedures, SIDs, STARs, IAPs.

VFR VFR Arrival/Depature Routes Korea/Germany

WPT Waypoints

TZ Time Zones.

3 Property Page

Like any Gndmaker plug-in, the configuration of the External Source is done when an individual Search Profile is added to an Import Profile. In the Import Profile Management dialog (Import->Import Profiles), when the ‘Edit’ button is clicked, the External Source Property Page dialog appears:

When ‘DAFIF’ is selected from the External Source Type dropdown list and the ‘Options’ button is clicked, the DAFIF-specific property page is displayed.

The list box describes all the DAFIF objects that can be imported. The user can select one or more objects to import, or by checking the ‘All >>’ checkbox – selecting all object types.

Options: when active, allows for the further configuration of individual Selected Types.

DAFIF CD Root Directory: point this to the root directory of your DAFIF CD. If you downloaded the DAFIFT directory to your local hard drive, this is the directory ONE LEVEL ABOVE your DAFIFT directory.

4 Implementation Details

This section discusses some of the implementation details made for this Plug-in.

4.1 ARTCC

The following table describes the DAFIF BDRY (ARTCC) records supported by Gndmaker and into which sector file section they are imported:

Type	Support	Imported As
01 - ADVISORY AREA (ADA) OR (UDA)	NO
02 - AIR DEFENSE IDENTIFICATION ZONE (ADIZ)	YES	GEO
03 - AIR ROUTE TRAFFIC CONTROL CENTER (ARTCC)	YES	GEO
04 - AREA CONTROL CENTER (ACC)	YES	ARTCC
05 - BUFFER ZONE (BZ)	NO
06 - CONTROL AREA (CTA) (UTA) SPECIAL RULES AREA (SRA, U.K. ONLY)	YES	ARTCC LOW
07 - CONTROL ZONE (CTLZ) SPECIAL RULES ZONE (SRZ, U.K. ONLY) MILITARY AERODROME TRAFFIC ZONE (MATZ, U.K. ONLY)	YES	ARTCC LOW
08 - FLIGHT INFORMATION REGION (FIR)	YES	ARTCC
09 - OCEAN CONTROL AREA (OCA)	YES	ARTCC
10 - RADAR AREA	YES	ARTCC LOW
11 - TERMINAL CONTROL AREA (TCA) OR (MTCA)	YES	ARTCC LOW
12 - UPPER FLIGHT INFORMATION REGION (UIR)	YES	ARTCC HIGH

4.2 Airways

There are three types of DAFIF ATS records which are interpreted as airways: ‘L’ low, ‘H’ high, and ‘B’ both.

‘L’ will correspond to sector file [LOW AIRWAY], and ‘H’ corresponds to [HIGH AIRWAY]. ‘B’ records are imported into both [LOW AIRWAY] and [HIGH AIRWAY]. The user then can make the choice (at import time) as to where these ‘both’ airway types are imported to.

5 Troubleshooting

To be filled in as needed.

6 Technical Support

6.1 Contacting the Author

Like anything else, I will be happy to help with any questions you may have with Gndmaker, time permitting. I HIGHLY suggest, that you first look at the Gndmaker Forums to see if someone else posted a similar message. If you do not find an answer, post the question there.

And as a last resort, send me an e-mail. I cannot guarantee a quick response, but I will try. Also, note that if you register your copy of Gndmaker, you are much more likely to get a fast response (see Section 7L Contribute to Gndmaker).

6.2 Crashes/Bugs

Like they say, crap happens. If it happens to you, please give me as much information as you can:

If the problem occurs while reading a sector file, be prepared to send me the file.
Any error dialogs that appear. In the case of a crash, the meaningless hexadecimal numbers in a crash dialog are actually of great use to me.
What were you doing at the time? A sequence of documented mouse clicks is helpful for me to duplicate the problem.
What Plug-In were you using? If the error occurs in a Data Import, I will need to know the Bounding Box parameters, the dataset version, if applicable, and how far the import progress completed.

7 Contribute to Gndmaker

As you may have guessed, I do not charge any money for Gndmaker even though I have spent literally THOUSANDS of hours developing it. I consider this a small contribution of my own to the online hobby we all love so much.

But, in reality, Gndmaker is 'POSTWARE' or 'CHARTWARE':

In order to keep me enthusiastic about continuing support for Gndmaker and to provide new, exciting features, I would ask one small favor. If you find Gndmaker useful, PLEASE send me a postcard, or even better, a real-life (paper) navigation chart from your area. Refer to the ‘Contribute!’ link on the Gndmaker website:

http://wirun.homelinux.net/gndmaker

Of course, any monetary, or otherwise, gifts or trinkets will cheerfully be accepted as well. This being a worldwide community, I'm sure people could send me all sorts of cool, inexpensive, stuff from their part of the world ;)

This way I get an indication that my efforts are appreciated and will ensure that Gndmaker has a future.

Those that do 'register' with me will get advance notice of new releases, priority technical support, and a much higher likelihood that I will help out creating sector files for you (if asked)!

Corey MJ Wirun