Ultralights to be legal have to avoid all the cities in yellow. Actually gives more room than the map but course is one i generally fly going to Rio Vista
As I guessed, the most recent VFR FAA maps for populated areas is even older than 1983, since then housing developments have gone all the way up to the airport itself over the past 30 years.This makes me wonder what else is incorrect on these navigational maps?
Quote from: leshoman on February 26, 2015, 02:21:13 PMUltralights to be legal have to avoid all the cities in yellow. Actually gives more room than the map but course is one i generally fly going to Rio VistaThis has been bugging me, the more I look at the maps the more I see something that is completely out of date - in fact the yellow cities are over 30 years out of date. Lompoc's populated areas (yellow) lines up with our 1983 aerials, same with Vandenberg Village, and several other cities in California. Something is seriously amiss at the FAA if they are 30 years off. I've sent them an email about it, I doubt they'll have a look at it. :-[*edit: I also noticed Oceano airport (L52) is displayed with no tick marks, even though it has been offering fuel for years. This is on the Dec. 11, 2014 FAA VFR map that is valid until Jun. 25, 2015. I have the feeling that someone at the FAA is not doing their job.
By the way, don't waste time thinking that yellow designates congested areas. It was never intended for that purpose and the FAA can call just about any area it wishes a congested area if it decides to pursue violation of a pilot (or non-pilot in the case of ultralights) that is flying in a questionable manner.I can think of a bunch of things that would be more productive to consider than yellow areas on the sectional.
Quote from: Sam Buchanan on March 03, 2015, 08:28:27 PMBy the way, don't waste time thinking that yellow designates congested areas. It was never intended for that purpose and the FAA can call just about any area it wishes a congested area if it decides to pursue violation of a pilot (or non-pilot in the case of ultralights) that is flying in a questionable manner.I can think of a bunch of things that would be more productive to consider than yellow areas on the sectional. So Les was incorrect in saying "Ultralights to be legal have to avoid all the cities in yellow"? What other areas would you consider?To me this sounds like a very interesting legal issue with ultralight pilots that a lawyer would LOVE to get ahold of. I've stated this earlier in the thread that I am a GIS Analyst, and maps are pretty much what I live and breathe, navigational maps (especially official ones) are needed to be kept as accurate as possible. If the yellow areas have ever been used in a court-case this could really cause some problems for the FAA. I've ran the evidence past the California Geographical Society and they have some people interested in taking a closer look at this (including some pilots in Southern California). We have a conference in May and I hope to talk to them in person about it. I am confident a grad-student could get quite a lot of valuable research about the FAA and its lackadaisical map practices. Especially if other glaring errors are to be found that have lead to or contributed to anyones death or loss of property. There is no excuse for using 30+ year old data when more current data is available, I truly hope the "populated areas" is the only issue, but then again I did find an airport that offers fuel that wasn't listed on the current map as such (that's another big mistake in my opinion). This is an issue of integrity and public safety. I think what irks me the most is that the FAA traditionally charges for these inaccurate maps and has yet let the individual layers be accessible by the general public (geo-portal).Anywho, to stay on topic - I was originally looking for range information for the Legal Eagle (which sounds to be about 60 miles on average) so I could plan out trips with my father. The forum community highly recommended just using VFR sectionals, I found errors in those maps, so in a way I am back to where I started - planning and making my own range maps. It just bums me out that AirNav and other 3rd party sites seem to have a better database on airports than the FAA does for its VFR sectionals. These are things that could be easily fixed and maintained in ArcGIS or QGIS, so I am left questioning the FAA and the legalities for ultralights.Re: Building - looking at possible hangar space in April, John Bolding for XL kits and pre-welded frames, I'll definitely post in the proper build section when I get to it. In the meantime I'll keep asking questions and contacting the FAA to update their maps LOL ;D
Is this for real or is somebody just trolling the forum for laughs???
More fun with Maps: http://www.andrewt.net/blog/posts/fun-with-the-mercator-projection/
Anywho, if anyone would like the urban areas dataset for the entire USA as well as the islands feel free to check out: ftp://ftp2.census.gov/geo/tiger/TIGER2014/UAC/ (84 MB) use ArcGIS, QGIS, or any other GIS platform to view and create your own maps for fun.Example: Urban Areas in California