DoD Announces Intent to Cease Distribution of Nav Data


Most of the good Flight sim add ons use this data!

AVSIM reader Richard Boll sent us an upsetting news clipping today that we need to report to the entire community. The U.S. Department of Defense has announced in the Federal Register that; "The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) intends to remove its Flight Information Publications (FLIP), Digital Aeronautical Flight Information File (DAFIF), and related aeronautical safety of navigation digital and hardcopy publications from public sale and distribution." Further, the announcement goes on to say; " This action is taken to accomplish the following objectives: safeguarding the integrity of Department of Defense (DoD) aeronautical navigation data currently available on the public Internet; preventing unfettered access to air facility data by those intending harm to the United States, its interests or allies; upholding terms of bi-lateral geospatial data-sharing agreements; avoiding competition with commercial interests; and avoiding intellectual property/copyright disputes with foreign agencies that provide host-nation aeronautical data." You can read the entire Federal Register entry for the entire story. This means that any add-on that uses the DAFIF, such as Richard Steffen's NAVDATA, will no longer have access to the base data for these systems from the enactment date forward.