Fixed AFD Display

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 00:00 PDT

For airports which are not listed in the Airport/Facilities Directory, an icon is no longer displayed in the Airport Details page. Previously, we erroneously showed the AFD icon, but clicking on the icon took you to a blank (or error) page. This has been corrected.

Improvments to Weather parsing

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 00:00 PDT

Some minor fixes to how weather strings are parsed. "+FC" results in Tornado, rather than merely Hvy Funnel Cloud. "+TSRA" and similar result in "Thunderstorms Hvy Rain", rather than "Heavy Thunderstorms Rain", and "Vicinity" weather is now always included at the end (if present). The result is that "VCTS +RA" is now reported as "Hvy Rain Vicinity Thunderstorms", rather than "Vicinity Thunderstorm Hvy Rain"... which might lead you to believe that local weather is clear with the reported rain in the vicinity.

Added link to Go Fly America

Sat, 1 Mar 2008 00:00 PDT

Display All Public Airports

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 00:00 PDT

Actually, only a small percentage of airports publish weather information through METARs. Many airport do provide telephone access automated weather reports via ATIS and/or ASOS. AvnWx.com now displays all public airports in the United States. If the airport provides automated access, telephone numbers (with Skype link), and frequencies are displayed. Formerly, AvnWx.com provided this information only for airports which also officially published METARs. You can choose to display or not display these airports, using an option in the Control Panel. You'll note that the airport itself is displayed using icons similar to VFR Sectionals.

Added 'z' indicator for Zulu times

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 00:00 PDT

Sometimes I forget if I'm looking at a Zulu time, or a Local time. Now, when times are displayed, a "z" is added to the time if it is Zulu. For example, "11:45z" means 11:45 am Zulu, while "11:45" means 11:45 local.

Added 'Raw Only' Feature

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 00:00 PDT

You a pro at reading raw METARs, PIREPs and TAFs? No problem, select "Raw Only" on the Control Panel, and AvnWx.com will show you only the raw, unparsed data. Benefit to you is that it takes up less space in your browser window. Click on the METAR or TAF icon and you'll see the original, full details with AFD, density altitude, etc.

Added 'Lookup' Feature

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 00:00 PDT

Can't recall the name of an airport? Type the name into the Control Panel and press "Lookup" rather than "Go", and you'll get a list of airports which match. List shows public and private airports, heliports, seaplane ports, etc, and cover the world. Search "Heathrow", and get Heathrow Airport in Robinson, TX, and London's Heathrow Airport in UK.

Fixed display of A/FD icon on Airport Detail Pages

Thur, 17 Jan 2008 00:00 PDT

Airport/Facility Directory icon is displayed on Airport Detail pages as a link to FAA-approved PDF containing the page in the current A/FD for the particular airport. For example, see SFO. Sometimes the icon would be displayed for airports for which there is no A/FD entry. These are primarily small, private airports. Yet, we still displayed the icon, though clicking on the icon resulted in a error being reported. This has been corrected. For those airports which do not have an entry in the current A/FD, no icon will be displayed.

Fixed TAF "Vertical Visibility" bug

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 00:00 PDT

Corrected error where we used to report "Obscured over 0'AGL", regardless of the value of vertical visibility. We now correctly parse the value and will report, for example "Obscured over 200'AGL" for VV002.

Improved 'unknown location' handling

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 00:00 PDT

If you enter an unknown airport code or location, we don't force a reload of the current window (which takes a bit of time), and we offer a more informative alert message.

Updated Google Analytics tracking

Sun, 6 Jan 2008 00:00 PDT

Like lots of websites, we use Google Analytics as a means to track how many, and how often pages are visited -- we don't get any identifying information about you, but we do get information such as what percentage of you use IE versus Firefox, etc. This helps me obtimize how the site works. Anyway, Google Analytics recently changed their implementation, so this required a fix to these pages. The only thing you should see is slightly faster loading of the initial page: Sometimes you would see the page appear to be "stuck" while attempting to load Google's "urchin" -- the tracking code. Now, it's done differently and presumably faster.

Added Support for Airliners.net Photos

Sun, 6 Jan 2008 00:00 PDT

Airliners.net website has thousands of photos of airplanes and some of airports. With proper attribution, we can show thumbnails of these photos with our PIREPs and Airport displays. You can click-through, to see (and purchase, if you like) hi-rez photos from their website. It's a win-win.

Enhanced Winds Aloft Details

Sat, 5 Jan 2008 00:00 PDT

As an aid, we've encoded some "rules of thumb" with respect to turbulence and instability, associated with the Wind Aloft report. When winds differ by more than 18knts, or temperature decreases faster than 3° per 1000 feet, Winds Aloft report shows a dotted line to warn you of possible rough travel. See help page (linked above) for examples and details.

Fixed airport photo display

Wed, 2 Jan 2008 00:00 PDT

Fixed problem associated with displaying airport photos -- sometimes nothing would be displayed, sometimes odd text would be displayed, in some cases over-writing the map.

Added "Terrain" Map Type

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 00:00 PDT

In addition to "Map", "Hybrid" and "Satellite" views, we've added "Terrain", a new feature implemented by Google.

Added Airport and Airplane Images

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 00:00 PDT

On the main page, when you mouse over an airport, we'll display current photo for that runway (we don't have many, so please share what you have!). When you mouse over a PIREP, we'll display a photo of the airplane type which made the report. We don't have all airplanes yet, but we have about 80% of the common reporting types. Again, send us photos!

Improved Printer Output

Fri, 7 Dec 2007 00:00 PDT

Maps page, and the Airport pages use a new layout which will print better -- we don't trying printing the ads, for example.

Runway Info Added

Fri, 7 Dec 2007 00:00 PDT

For each Airport, we now show detailed runway information (surface, lights, heading, etc.). Also, for most airports, simple runway diagram is generated, showing layout, runway identifications, LAHSO areas, and runways with Right-Traffic patterns. See Napa Airport (APC) for example.

Airport Photo Feature

Fri, 7 Dec 2007 00:00 PDT

Got a photo of an airport? Send us a copy! Detailed airport pages now include airport photos where available. You can submit your photos via a link under the runway photo. See Stockton Airport (SCK) for example.

Minor Fixes to Airport Details

Fri, 7 Dec 2007 00:00 PDT

Improved parsing and presentation of information in the Airport Detail pages. Improvments include fixed handling of primary and secondary ATC calls & frequencies.

Added Detail Pages for Every US Airport

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 00:00 PDT

Over 20,000 pages have been added, each displaying details about a US public or private airport, heliport, glider port, STOL airport, sea port or ultralight facility. This is drawn directly from FAA provided data and is automatically updated every 56 days.

You can view this data by:

Right-click on any airport
Search for an airport using Google Search available on every page
Browse, starting at maps.AvnWx.com/airport. Specific information for an airport is located at maps.AvnWx.com/airport/.

These detailed pages will continue to be enhanced over the next few months.

Added Google Search to all pages

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 00:00 PDT

Some minor reformatting of pages. Most visible result is addition of a Google Search form, allowing you to search this website (or the full internet). Looking for help, or airport name? Use the Google Search.

Add NOTAM lookup to Right-Click Menu

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 00:00 PDT

Right-Click on a station, and get NOTAMs around the airport. Right-Click anywhere else and you'll get all NOTAMs within 20 miles of the location. Local NOTAMs are never included -- they're available only from your local FSS.

Optimization for smaller screens

Sun, 11 Nov 2007 00:00 PDT

TAF, METAR and Winds info boxes can get pretty large. When the pop-up on a smaller screen, they can completely cover the map area. We've now provided a slight delay on pop-up, which allows you to move the mouse over the icon without popping-up the window. Plus, when the Info window displays, if you continue to move the mouse, the pop-up will disappear, allowing you to see the map and move to another icon.

You can drag the info box to a new location, if that helps. And you can single-click the icon (making the box "sticky" so it won't auto-update) and then drag the sticky info box somewhere else.

Alternatively, get a bigger computer screen...

Info box dragging improvement

Sun, 11 Nov 2007 00:00 PDT

Re-implemented dragging for information box, the pop-up displaying Airmet, METAR, etc., details. Windows IE has a bug which prevented dragging of the box in some cases. A work-around has been provided.

Browser load performance improvement

Wed, 7 Nov 2007 00:00 PDT

Changed loading of javascript from many files to just one. During testing, we see that much time is spent having the browser check to see if it already has the latest version of these files. Now, we download 1 file rather than 35 files -- same information, but your browser should load them faster. Testing shows a reduction of a few seconds when website is initially loaded. Once you're viewing the site, there are no additional performance changes.

Help Icons correction

1 Nov 2007 00:00 PDT

Corrected text in Icons help pages which incorrectly defined Few versus Scattered sky conditions. We were correctly reporting the condition, and using the correct icon, but the description of the icons was reversed. The correction is that "few" is less than "scattered". As a memory aid, consider that the word "few" has fewer letters than the word "scattered". Similarly, a sky with "few" clouds has fewer clouds than a sky with "scattered" clouds.

RSS Feed Introduced

30 Oct 2007 00:00 PDT

Introduced this RSS feed to contain list of changes made to maps.AvnWx.com website. Users may find this informative with respect to what has recently changed (and why).

maps.AvnWx Updates

Fixed AFD Display

Improvments to Weather parsing

Added link to Go Fly America

Display All Public Airports

Added 'z' indicator for Zulu times

Added 'Raw Only' Feature

Added 'Lookup' Feature

Fixed display of A/FD icon on Airport Detail Pages

Fixed TAF "Vertical Visibility" bug

Improved 'unknown location' handling

Updated Google Analytics tracking

Added Support for Airliners.net Photos

Enhanced Winds Aloft Details

Fixed airport photo display

Added "Terrain" Map Type

Added Airport and Airplane Images

Improved Printer Output

Runway Info Added

Airport Photo Feature

Minor Fixes to Airport Details

Added Detail Pages for Every US Airport

Added Google Search to all pages

Add NOTAM lookup to Right-Click Menu

Optimization for smaller screens

Info box dragging improvement

Browser load performance improvement

Help Icons correction

RSS Feed Introduced