TM Airports

[mapcat]

I just pulled in a few more upgrades. The default user.html page now has a list of all users and their totals, with sortable columns, and links to individual user pages that show what the old default showed. The all-airport map at airports.html has different markers color-coded by number of users with travels to/from/through each airport.

A new user si403 is on there so I can test some enhancements that will allow users to submit a different type of .alist, like si404 did. His file was broken down by trip, so certain airports such as LHR appeared several times, anytime he departed from or arrived at the airport. The script currently digests his .alist incorrectly, showing only A or D for airports that appeared multiple times rather than both A and D. So si403.alist is there to demonstrate what si404.alist *should* produce, rather than its current output. It also corrects a typo in one airport code (AGO -> AHO since I assumed he didn't fly home from Arkansas after visiting Sardinia).

I'd like to focus on the aesthetics next. Please post suggestions for how I might make the pages look better or provide more useful information.

index.html: the opening page probably should resemble the general TM index page (highways, rail) but I'm not sure what to include. It looks horrible right now so this is the first one I want to work on.
airports.html: it looks okay on my phone, but not great in landscape mode on a monitor. One thing that annoys me is the Leaflet map, which allows scrolling past 180° longitude, but only shows 2 hemispheres' worth of icons. It probably should be confined to -179.999° <-> 179.999° somehow. Not sure how to do that. A more attractive TM-style header and table would improve it as well.
user.html: generic page is boring but functional, and individual user pages have the same concerns as airports.html.

[jlam]

Created a pull request for a new list. Let me know if I messed up: https://github.com/TravelMapping/AirportData/pull/23

[mapcat]

Created a pull request for a new list. Let me know if I messed up: https://github.com/TravelMapping/AirportData/pull/23

Got it, thanks. I tested it and everything looks great. The airport part of TM auto-updates at :15 past the hour, so check back then.

[Scott5114]

Interesting project! As someone else stated, there are a lot of different potential applications for the code base—bridges visited would be another one. If you had 2D areas, you'd also be able to stand up a mob-rule replacement fairly quickly if something ever happened to that.

Somewhere out there, there is probably an FAA directory that has all the airports in the US you could dump to the site. Some state DOTs have these as well. While your stated focus is commercial airports, there are a good number of hobbyist pilots who would probably appreciate a way to track general-aviation airports they've flown in and out of as well. (The main difficulty with these is that they don't always have IATA codes—my "home airport" growing up had the code 1K4, and I don't know whether that code that was assigned by FAA or Oklahoma DOT.)

It might be useful to have a way to note that you visited an airport by a mode of travel other than airplane (e.g. if you were only there to pick up a passenger).

[oscar]

It might be useful to have a way to note that you visited an airport by a mode of travel other than airplane (e.g. if you were only there to pick up a passenger).

I have a few airports in that category:

Denver-DEN (drove through the departures level of the terminal, after clinching the Peña Blvd. airport connector -- I've never flown into or out of either that airport or the former Stapleton airport which originally had the DEN IATA code)

Martha's Vineyard-MVY (made a bus connection at that hub for the island's bus system after taking a ferry to the island, and went into the terminal for a bathroom and lunch break)

Tuktoyaktuk-YUB (rest stop after clinching NT 10 in a rental car)

Charles M. Schulz/Sonoma County-STS (drove onto the airport grounds, just to photograph the airport's cool Snoopy logo)

Ketchikan-KTN (went into the terminal for a bathroom break, using the free airport parking permit that came with taking my car on the airport ferry -- though I've also made a conventional layover at that airport, so it's already on my map)

I've also rented cars at many of the other airports already on my map, and also picked up my mother from and took a new Metrorail subway line to and from Dulles-IAD (also already on my airport and TM rail map).

[mapcat]

Thanks for the ideas. Adding another category for other airport visits--pick someone up, go inside for any purpose other than flying, etc--turned out to be easy. Use "X" instead of A, D, or L. It will show up in the table under "Other" and show up on the map as a plain black circle. I made the assumption that A, D, or L would supersede X for any user, hence the alternate symbol. Also, X airports are not included in the total count, but that can be changed.

Example here: https://tmairports.teresco.org/AirportData/air/web/user.html?user=mapcat (black circles at Baltimore, Denver, Indianapolis, and Toronto).

Would differentiating a refueling stop from a layover be useful? Making that change should be fairly simple as well.

Re ingesting an official airport list: that's not in my immediate plans. It would make the list on airports.html significantly longer and possibly affecting load time for negligible benefit IMO. I'm comfortable adding new airports to the csv as necessary. Copilot does most of the work anyway.

[oscar]

Would differentiating a refueling stop from a layover be useful? Making that change should be fairly simple as well.

I've had at least three refueling layovers (plus a possible fourth, at the same airport as one of the other three). I'm not sure there's any value to differentiating refueling from other layovers. The only thing I can think of is to differentiate layovers to make connections, from layovers with no plane change. But direct flights with no plane change might or might not include a refueling.

Two of my refueling stops went differently. One, in Cold Bay AK, we were not allowed to get off the plane (the Cold Bay stop wasn't on the itinerary, only strong headwinds made a refueling stop necessary). The other, in Kugluktuk NU, passengers were ordered to go into the terminal until the plane was refueled and ready to continue to the next destination. Maybe Canadian vs. U.S. rules, or different aircraft models.

I approve of the X option, and not applying it to airports already covered by A, D, or L. I will change my list file accordingly. Since three of my X airports are "exotic", you should consider adding them to the airports list.

[jlam]

Thanks for the ideas. Adding another category for other airport visits--pick someone up, go inside for any purpose other than flying, etc--turned out to be easy. Use "X" instead of A, D, or L. It will show up in the table under "Other" and show up on the map as a plain black circle. I made the assumption that A, D, or L would supersede X for any user, hence the alternate symbol. Also, X airports are not included in the total count, but that can be changed.

Example here: https://tmairports.teresco.org/AirportData/air/web/user.html?user=mapcat (black circles at Baltimore, Denver, Indianapolis, and Toronto).

Would differentiating a refueling stop from a layover be useful? Making that change should be fairly simple as well.

Re ingesting an official airport list: that's not in my immediate plans. It would make the list on airports.html significantly longer and possibly affecting load time for negligible benefit IMO. I'm comfortable adding new airports to the csv as necessary. Copilot does most of the work anyway.

I've done this at FNL and TKA, but the former isn't on the site yet. Can you add it?

[mapcat]

Absolutely. No need to ask, since new airports get added as they show up. But I'll go ahead and add FNL ahead of time since I'm currently processing some more.