ATC often simply doesn´t know anything about "real" airfield names. So an option to have ICAO identifiers instead/in addition would be highly recommended.


regards

-mike@EDTG

Yes, Mike, I also believe that would be an important addition.

I also noticed that for the smaller airfields in the US (take, e.g., Essex Skypark) there simply is no way I could find to figure out the airport ID given its name. It doesn't appear anywhere on the airport information field. Interestingly, when you type in W48 in the search box, Essex Skypark does show up! So SD knows about the IDs, it just isn't showing them to us.

-- Chris.

We've been planning to allow this for a while. The big question is, what do we display when an airfield does not have an identifier of any kind? Nothing at all, or the full airfield name?

Personally, I haven't come across a field with no ID yet -- can you give an example? Maybe there are, but they would have to be really small landing sites. In this case, why not just show the symbol on the map? The user can get the information when he tap-holds (right clicks) on it in map view.

-- Chris.

I would say that most airfields (by number) in Europe do not have an identifier of any kind. Identifiers other than ICAO are rarely used, so everything without an ICAO identifier has no identifier.

Well, in Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia I don't know any airfield without an identifier. Italy has a large number of small UL fields but they do have an ID, if the Avioportolano Flight Guide is anything to go by.

I do see your problem, though. However, I suggest that the user should have the option either to display full names (for all fields) or IDs (with no IDs showing for airfields that simply don't have one). In the latter case, you could always get the full name by getting the Information on the airfield from within SD.

As it stands now, there are big parts of the world where the map is cluttered by airfield names which nobody uses, and no way to get at the airport IDs for most of the smaller airfields (and they DO have IDs in the US) that are used ubiquitously.

-- Chris.

All airfields in Germany & Switzerland, except for glider/UL fields do have ICAO identifiers - same in France (ULM fields do have identifiers too)

Actually, if no ID available, I would simply display the airfield symbol without a name on the map. If you display the full name, this -- very small -- airfield will draw disproportionate attention due to the long caption attached to it. If you need to know what airfield this is, there ought to be two options available:

1) Switch to displaying full names instad of only IDs,

2) Pull up the information window of that airfield, which will show you everything you want to know.

-- Chris.

P.S.: I sare your impression that most all airfields in Europe (except, maybe, private grass runways in someone's backyard) have an ID. But Tim is probably going to prove us wrong

There are a lot of gliding and microlighting airfields without any ID at all, and these skew the numbers.

We've added an option to the next version so you can switch between name (default, old behaviour), identifier and name, and just identifier (blank if none).

Yes!!! Thank you!

-- Chris