Hi All
I am posting this on behalf of the Database Updater team, as we thought it was about time we gave you an update regarding the steps being taken to tackle the ongoing issues concerning the integrity of the records held in the AirNav central database.
Firstly, a couple of points to make regarding the programme;
Several weeks ago, AirNav approached the main board asking for volunteers to offer their time and shared experience of our collective hobby in an attempt to provide a mechanism for “cleaning up” the information contained in the database, and to provide a platform to process additional records, and deal with erroneous/incomplete records.
Please note - we are not here to debate if this is the correct approach to take. This topic of debate has been aired on several threads over the past few months, with as yet no viable, workable solution, that fits for all parties.
Please therefore do not litter this thread bemoaning the steps we have or will be taking.
The members who volunteered for the task have spent the last few weeks sharing ideas and trailing a “database updater” to give such a mechanism as described above.
We have also been in close contact with Support and Development, exchanging ideas, some workable, some not, to get this up and running.
At the present time, we have made considerable inroads in “data clensing”, but it’s a vast exercise!
At present we have close to 70,000 individual records on a central database, and are steadily working our way through this by aircraft manufacturer/type.
We are also adding new records as they become apparent.
We also fully appreciate that this is by no means any where near a complete data set, but at least it’s a start
To validate the integrity of the records on the central database, we are using several independent databases either in the public domain, or which we individually have access to.
A major topic of debate between us has revolved around the most effective way of dealing with this, together with the addition of many, many more records that we are aware of. At the moment, we are discussing with AirNav the best solution to deal with this – please be patient with us on this.
The basic mechanism, in the words of “Support” as to how this works, is as follows;
There are two separate databases interacting -
Central RadarBox Database - Stores all the Aircraft details populated by the updater team, plus the initial record data set.
Local Database - Once an aircraft with no details is picked up, it searchers the Mode-S in the central database and pulls back all the details and populates the local database.
There is still some work ongoing revolving the exact approach taken here – we will update asap on this process, as we are also desparately trying to tackle the known issue of photographic record validity, which much of this hinges on!
We want to be in a position to open a thread where the forum members can post details of records that are;
- showing erroneous data
- pulling back blank data fields in MyFlights
- new aircraft not on the database (in this case more likely covered by the point above)
Again, there are many different approaches to this. Until we reach a more suitable method that is currently being developed, we suggest offering two approaches as follows;
1 – a separate thread will be opened entitled “Database update requests” where members can post single records that require our attention.
2 – as a “launch” project, I am willing to accept csv/excel file with multiple records acquiring our attention. These files must be forwarded to my personal e-mail as can be found below my “user name” on the thread, or in my user profile (”Marpleman”). This worked extremely well with an individual members data made up of mode-s codes picked up over the last month, which were not producing any other data fields in “MyFlights”.
Any files forwarded will be collated by myself, and managed by the team. If we cannot clear the record to a suitable standard for addition to the database, we will throw it back to you guys for ideas/info.
There is an excel file attached to this post, detailing the fields we will be entering onto the database.
These are as follows –
“ms” – mode s code
“ar” – registration/serial number(mil)
“cn” – construction number
“ai” – aircraft ICAO
“at” – aircraft type
“co” – company/operator
There is an example of an Air Berlin A320 fully completed on the attachment to give a general idea.
We need at least the “ms” or “ar” fields to be completed for us to investigate.
If the query relates to incorrect data, please provide a brief description as to the nature of this in the “narrative” field – i.e incorrect cn etc etc
Please give as much information as you can to facilitate this. From our perspective, the more the better.
There are no doubt many things I’ve failed to mention in this post – if so sorry – please ask below and we will try to answer any queries, but I must stress, we are trying to improve the database and do not want to get involved in arguments regarding approach/responsibility etc etc.
At the end of the day we are volunteers. We’ve all at some point complained about incorrect records/photo’s etc. We will undoubtedly make mistakes along the way, but hopefully we can all help to improve the integrity of the database.
Thanks for reading this.
Regards
Rich
