What can be done to avoid these problems? Any suggestions? What is the most accurate aircraft information external database we can rely on?
The short answer is there is no central external database. Probably the most accurate one currently out there is the Libhomeradar one maintained by Kai-Jens Meyer. This is the database which is used to Parser the Yahoo Group. That Yahoo mode S group with its search facility is the best to update new tie-ups as many of the people who report them to the group have access to official information like FlightPlans or ACARS.
The biggest problem is database deletions. There is no way even with Airframes.org or Libhomeradar for them to keep up to date with aircraft de-registration, return to lessors, PWFU or scrappage. There is also no real way anywhere on the web to trace GA aircraft of those countries that do not publish national registers.
As a user to keep my data as up to date as I can (especially in regard to deletions), I cross refer 15-20 different websites. The four or five mentioned above, airliner and Bizjet news websites and production lists, online national aircraft registers, spotters logs (especially of the boneyards) etc. I put a whole stack of links on the useful website list thread.
Most of the data gathering on world aircraft (GAS, Airframes, Libhomeradar) is either carried out by hobbyists in their spare time and using user contributions, or web design/consultant types who earn their money from the consultancy and run the databases as an aside. The logos/flags DAT/silhouettes are also being provided by a few dedicated forum volunteers, whose services are not guaranteed (as seen this week with the departure of Ian K).
You guys are absolutely fantastic at the technical inovation and you have a spectacular product with great innovation and future growth potential.
What I would love to see you bring 'in house', is the database administration side, to become a world leader in the mode S tie-up game. You have the web resources to build a great server and user fed database for look-ups similar to what GAS and Airframes provide.
I know you are a relatively small company. But in future I would like to see you bring in a few full time librarian/staty types to analyse the information from your servers. They could cross refer them to the many available open source web information. They could build up a network of your professional contacts to provide accurate inside information from those with access to official sources. This would then provide the definitive world leading source data, owned in house by Airnav.
We as users could then be presented with regular little .exe file upates for our NavData, that not only update our Navdata with new tie-ups, but also strips out the old de-registered ones.
Not trying to put people like Rod Bearden out of a 'job' but your new stat team could also create and monitor the logos (I recently stripped out over 300 of them belonging to defunct airlines), flags, silhouettes, airport outlines etc.
You could even create versions of the .exe that would work with the basestation format for a modest fee. Wouldn't it be great if in future, SBS users came to the Airnav website to get the up to date information and add-on files and look-up information they need.
Go on Airnav get into the data upkeep business.
:-)
