Pilots Plan Flights on the Web.

• Author: Kutner, Joshua A.
• Position: Use of web site helps determine flight plans - Brief Article

The Internet has become a valuable vacation-planning tool for millions of travelers. Airline passengers now can set their flight itineraries over the Web, where they can easily compare costs and choose the package that best suits them. Then, the passengers can sit back and let the pilots rake over. But how do the pilots prepare for the flight? A new Web site is designed to help.

AeroExplorer.com provides sample conditions and procedural data about airports and military bases. Pilots can use this data to learn about terrain, weather and runway conditions and airport landing procedures. The site, which was created by Litton TASC, of Boston, incorporates maps and data provided by the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) so that pilots can study aeronautical and geospatial information over the Internet. The information is not updated in real time, said a company spokesman, but the site, nevertheless, provides a valuable learning and planning tool for pilots.

"The pilots get a great deal of information--information that they would need right now," he said.

This resource does not eliminate the need for pilots to carry onboard the usual airport chart manuals, such as airport terminal procedure guides, which are required by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). These chart manuals can range from $100 to $2,000, "depending on geographic coverage," said Joseph F. Ailinger Jr., a spokesman for Litton TASC. "AeroExplorer.com is primarily a flight-planning tool."

"The AeroExplorer.com experience supplies the aviation industry an improved accessibility and convergence of the digital and paper products supporting aeronautical navigation and landing procedures, while continuing to ensure the safety of pilots who rely on them for pre-flight planning," said Ailinger.

The site is designed to save users money, he said. It "allows government agencies and military services to 'share' the cost of [NIMA's] Geospatial Information System with other government agencies that want to start leveraging their geospatial data .... AeroExplorer.com provides the [Defense Department] a mechanism to exchange data."

AeroExplroer.com intends to be a one-stop site for pilots to plan flights. Web developers at Litton TASC are using and seeking commercial off-the-shelf technologies to enhance the technology.

"Aeronautical data can now be accessed in a truly distributed environment using standard Web browsers [such as Netscape and Internet Explorer], thus eliminating the...