Frequently Asked Questions

Why is this free?
I started the project when I was an apprentice to make it easier to find decent Charlie class airports. I never envisioned creating something as complex as what the site has evolved into. I have continued to spend time (lots of time!) creating functionality because it has been fun and I kept finding new problems that I wanted to solve for myself and the IFATC community. It is a labor of love, not something I am looking to make money from.

I do enjoy people sending me Slack DMs letting me know it has been useful. I am also open to having people buy me coffee, etc., but do not expect it. If you would like to send a donation you can find on Square Cash and PayPal.

My favorite airport doesn’t have terrain. Can I request it?
I cannot create terrain for airports north / south of about 59° latitude since elevation data are not available for polar regions. Otherwise, yes, I likely can add terrain for the airport. Note I only create terrain for airports with a tower frequency. Send me a message (contact info).

How do you choose which airports have terrain?
At the beginning I wandered around the world via Google Maps looking for airports near mountainous / interesting terrain. I also incorporated suggestions from IFATC members. Now I do my best to check out any airports I haven’t already looked at that show up on the ATC schedule and create terrain if it seems worthwhile. Terrain is typically worth creating when there is terrain that might reasonably interfere with an aircraft within about 50nm of an airport. See also this question.

Which airports have terrain and STARs/SIDs defined?
If you go to “More” in the menu and then select “Even More…” you will find a page that includes links to both of these lists.

Can you make the terrain map show contours every 500’ versus 1,000’?
If I did this it would reduce the amount of area I could display terrain for since the data would be twice as large. 1,000’ contours feel like the right trade off.

What do the different symbols and colors on the airport traffic map (/map) mean?
See this section of the maps tips and tricks page.

When are ifatc.org features going to be integrated into the app?
I would, of course, love to see terrain among other features be integrated directly into the Infinite Flight app. I have no insight into whether or when that will happen.

Do you / will you support the training server?
Since the site is primarily focused on the IFATC community I have no plans to support any server other than the expert server.