5.2.3 Airport
Airports can be placed freely on the landscape. They are needed as origin or destination for flightplans and can also be used to fly ILS approaches.
Airports are a composite data structure including common properties in their data model as well as a list of runways, which are described in the next section.
An airport typically also has a radio navigation aid. The data model thus has properties for the airport navigation aid ID and frequency.
In FlightZoomer the code of airports follows the guidelines from the ICAO (although the airport codes you define will never be visible outside your simulated UAS flight area!). In manned aviation, the ICAO defines the airport codes for any airport worldwide. ICAO codes have four letters as opposed to the IATA codes having three letters. The first or the first and the second letter stand for the country and are defined statically (see this map ICAO countries prefix map).
An airport has the following properties:
|
|
Element |
Purpose |
|
1 |
NAME |
Name of the airport |
|
2 |
CODE |
The CODE identifies a certain airport according to the ICAO scheme and needs to be distinct within the whole navigation database. It consists of 4 uppercase letters. FlightZoomer does not restrict the character count so any desirable name can be assigned as CODE to an airport (and thus be displayed on the Navigation Display). The CODE is mandatory. |
|
3 |
LOCATION |
The location is also mandatory and defines the geographic coordinates of the airport navigation aid. It consists of longitude and latitude. |
|
4 |
ID |
The ID identifies the radio navigation aid which is located on the airport. The description for ID in the chapter before does apply here as well. |
|
5 |
FREQUENCY |
This property defines the frequency of the navigation aid which is located on the airport. The description for FREQUENCY in the chapter before does apply here as well. |