Allow airspace class filtering / selection

[migajek]

The problem: TRA/TSA airspaces are not visible on the map.

Context: We have many of them in Poland, multiple are active all the time. This is the screenshot of Airspace Usage Plan for today (available here: https://airspace.pansa.pl/ )

Let's focus on one of the TRA airspaces on the eastern border - EPTR100 - according to AIP "Unclassified airspace"

I've checked the OpenFlightMaps dump for Poland and it seems these airspaces are given "G" category

The GeoJSON specification for Enroute doesn't seem to support it - so it does make sense these are not in the GeoJSON for Poland.

I wonder if it would be feasible to have a way to include these airspaces.

While many of the TRA/TSA airspaces are not usually active, some are active each day. I personally believe it's better to have them on the map and intentionally ignore them knowing they are inactive at the moment, then not to have them at all

[kebekus]

Dear migajek,

thank you for your message. I will need a few days, and probably come back to you early next week.

Best,

Stefan.

[migajek]

Hi Stefan,
thank you for the reply, and sorry for filling the issue in the wrong project.

I just verified the OpenAIP airspaces file and the category here is also G, so it simply gets ignored in the importing loop
Strangely enough, there's a TRA 70A and TRA 70B airspace that has an empty category, but other than that all TRAs and TSAs seem to be G

I guess if you were to define the exception for that case and import the G airspaces, the rule should be country-specific so probably sth like
Category == 'G' and Country == 'PL' and (Name.StartsWith('TR') or Name.StartsWith('TS'))

[migajek]

This also might be helpful: https://www.fis.pansa.pl/en/vfr-flight-to-poland/

TRA, ATZ allow all the pilots the possibility of flying through also when they are active. The condition is, however, to get approval at least just before entering that area.
TSA, MRT, EP R should be absolutely avoided

[kebekus]

Dear migajek,

I had a look at the issue. I understand that this is an issue of real concern for polish VFR pilots and I agree that the current situation needs to be improved. I would be willing to add new airspace categories "TRA" and "TSA" to the "Enroute" app.

I understand the heuristic that you describe to recognize TRA and TSAs in the openAIP data, but I am hesitant to implement that. Heuristics of this kind have backfired on me too often (openAIP naming convention might change, …), and I adopted the philosophy "better to show no data than to give potentially fishy information". I would seriously prefer if TRAs and TSAs were clearly marked in the openAIP data, and then I could properly support that (this might imply adding new airspace categories to the openAIP XML format). As a second-best option, we could try to extract TRAs and TSAs from openFlightMaps, which have more complete data, but cover only a few countries. Are you a programmer and could you help me with that?

For the moment, I would like to refer you to Peter Kemme [email protected], who contributes to openAIP and openFlightMaps, who knows both systems well, and who has been extremely helpful in the past. Perhaps you could discuss the matter with him? As I said -- once a clean solution has been found in openAIP, I will be happy to update the app to support that. You might also wish to contact Stephan Besser [email protected], who is the main man behind openAIP. I will be happy to help, so please keep me updated!

Best,

Stefan

[migajek]

Hello Stefan,
thank you for looking into it.
I understand and share your concerns regarding the tricky checks to distinguish the TRA/TSAs.
It would definitely make much more sense to implement the change on the data source level, that is - in the OpenAIP. I'll reach both Peter and Stefan regarding the change, will CC you in the email.

Worst case scenario OpenFlightMaps could be indeed used as the supporting data source, briefly checked the dump and it seems our example TRA (TRA100) has the <codeType>TRA</codeType>. I'm a programmer, not very fluent in Python but definitely could manage implementing the change :) But again, first let me contact the data source contributors.

Best regards,
MG