[MilCom] DOD, NGA Revise Their FLIP Decision??

Wed Dec 7 12:20:21 EST 2005

http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/newsitems/2005/051129dod.html

DOD changes course — most popular FLIP nav products will still be available
to U.S. pilots

Rarely does the Department of Defense do an about-face, but AOPA efforts
have led to just that. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)
announced Tuesday that it will continue for an additional two years to
provide U.S. pilots with DOD aviation navigation charts and products for the
United States, Caribbean, South America, the Pacific, Australia, and
Antarctica that are considered part of the U.S. flight information region.
Then it's in the hands of the FAA.

"We know that many of our members depend upon these charts for their flights
outside of the United States," said AOPA President Phil Boyer. "This is a
huge turn-around. When we first met with NGA officials in their St. Louis
headquarters, they were absolutely adamant that they were going to withdraw
all of their navigation products from public sale this year."

The NGA announced last year that it was going to stop public distribution of
its popular flight information publications (FLIP), including operational
navigation charts (ONC) and international instrument approach procedures.
Many AOPA members used these products for their flights to Latin America and
the Caribbean. Also included was the digital aeronautical flight information
file (DAFIF), which many flight-plan vendors use as their navigation data
source.

AOPA vehemently objected. The NGA acknowledged that AOPA had legitimate
concerns about civilian use of the products and agreed to work with the
association to meet the needs of the general aviation community.

The NGA said Tuesday that its products for the rest of the world will be
phased out of public distribution over the next 22 months. The DAFIF will be
removed from the Internet by October 2006. However, NGA will provide the
DAFIF and all other navigation data to the FAA indefinitely.

The Department of Defense mapping agency will continue to sell its
Caribbean, Latin America, and Pacific area charts to the U.S. public for the
next two years. (But overseas sales will stop in October 2006.)

"After that, it's up to the FAA to continue publication," said Boyer. "We
expect the agency to start transition planning now, and we'll stay on top of
them to make sure they do.

"We're very pleased that the Department of Defense has recognized the
importance of general aviation, and the value of these navigation products
to the GA pilots," Boyer said.

NGA had originally proposed withdrawing all of the products because of
complaints from copyright holders in other countries, many of whom also sell
navigation charts. Some of these navigation chart publishers were
threatening to cut off the DOD's access to their information. Withdrawing
products covering Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa "will assure the
continued availability [to the Department of Defense] of information vital
to national security," said NGA Director Lt. Gen. James R. Clapper, Jr.,
USAF (Ret).

-----Original Message-----
From: milcom-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:milcom-bounces at mailman.qth.net]On Behalf Of Larry Van Horn,
N5FPW
Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2005 7:24 AM
To: Jason R; milcom at mailman.qth.net
Subject: Re: [MilCom] DOD, NGA Revise Their FLIP Decision??

>Re: [MilCom] DOD, NGA Revise Their FLIP Decision??

Nope, they have not reversed their decision on the FLIP publications. They
are going the way of the of the ball and musket, all their pubs and charts
will be gone from their site by October 2007. I talked at length with the
folks at NGA late last week in an exclusive interview for Monitoring Times
(my Milcom column) and it boils down to information copyrights.

Foreign governments consider their material copyrighted and they sell their
material to their nationals and others. DoD was getting it for free and thus
its distribution was costing the originators money. So in order for DoD to
continue to get the information they need for the military services, they
are withdrawing everything and turing over public sales entirely to the FAA
NACO offices.

I was told that the FAA will have US, Carib, LA, and Pac material for sale
through NACO (National Aeronautical Charting Office)
http://www.naco.faa.gov/index.asp?xml=naco/index. The public replacement for
the DoD FLIPS will be the existing US Airport/Facility Directories (seven in
all).

It has been years since I last saw a FAA Airport/Facility Directory. The
people I talked to did not know if UHF freq info is part of that package,
and honestly I just don't remember.  If any of you use one of the FAA
Airport/Facility pubs, I would appreciate a post here if it does have UHF
and military aerodromes in it. My local airport does not have this FAA pub,
we are just to small for them to carry those pubs.

Bottom line, nothing we do here is going to change this decision. Their
decision is final and binding. So another government resource that you and I
pay for as taxpayers is gone forever. This slippery slope started with the
withdraw of the NTIA GMF in 1984 by Executive Order and now the final
remaining military/governemt freq database in the public domain, the FLIPS,
will be gone by 2007. Sad indeed. Guess I will have to go back to listening
to baby monitors and McDonald kiosks. MT will have to replace Milcom with
the new Babycom or Foodcom columns!!!   ;-)))

So now you know the rest of the story. Of course, I will have more on this
and other neat things in MT's Milcom column. In the Feb issue, we have an
exclusive look and new background information on the new 380-399.9 LMR band
and in the March issue, my annual Airshow column blowout (skeds, freqs and
equipment).

Have fun out there and good hunting all,

Larry Van Horn, N5FPW
MT Milcom/Help Desk Columnist
Assistant Editor Monitoring Times

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jason R" <jason_esva at yahoo.com>
To: <milcom at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2005 6:31 PM
Subject: [MilCom] DOD, NGA Revise Their FLIP Decision??

> Milcom Members
>
> I saw this on the FREQ of NATURE scanner
> website not sure if this has to do
> with the info we use on this group?
>
> http://www.freqofnature.com/
>
>
>
> Aero news
>
http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?ContentBlockID=67472717-210c-4f71-9c01-32
5d0b2823ae&Dynamic=1&Range=WEEK&FromDate=11%2F29%2F2005&To
> Date=12%2F06%2F2005&Category=%2Findex.cfm
>
>
> Jason R
>
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________________
> Yahoo! DSL - Something to write home about.
> Just $16.99/mo. or less.
> dsl.yahoo.com
>
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