For several
years COPA has been asking Transport Canada to make the Aeronautical Information
Publication (AIP) available on the internet. Well, today, the AIP can now be
found on the internet!
In meeting with many COPA members over the years it has been apparent that very few people actually insert the four AIP amendments a year which are mailed out, resulting in most pilots’ AIPs being out of date.
Making the document available on-line, where it would be always up to date,
seemed like the best solution. An on-line document would also help student
pilots and foreign pilots who want to fly in Canada, but don’t get a free issue
of the current AIP.
Various technical and policy issues have kept TC from meeting COPA’s request and
posting the AIP in the past, but recently those problems have been overcome.
The AIP is now available on the TC website as an Adobe Acrobat PDF document. It
can be downloaded in sections or as one big document. It can be found at
http://www.tc.gc.ca/CivilAviation/Regserv/Affairs/AIP/pdf.htm in English and
at
http://www.tc.gc.ca/aviationcivile/Servreg/Affaires/AIP/pdf.htm in French.
TC has indicated that an HTML version will follow next year so that the AIP can
be downloaded in smaller sections and that will also meet the Federal
Government’s accessibility requirements.
The posting of the AIP on-line is part of a series of changes that are coming to
aeronautical publications.
The current AIP doesn’t meet the international Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)
requirements for a “State AIP.” As a result the current AIP will be renamed the
Transport Canada Aeronautical Information Manual (TC AIM). It will be printed as
a paper book twice a year as well as posted on the TC website.
The last paper amendment for the existing AIP will be issue 2/05, effective
April 14, 2005. The first two issues of the new TC AIM will be distributed free
to current pilot licence holders, as the AIP has been in the past.
After the first two issues the TC AIM will be available on paper for a
subscription fee which has not yet been determined and won’t be implemented
until 2006. However, TC AIM will continue to be publicly available at no charge
on the internet.
As part of the publication re-alignment, Nav Canada will take over
responsibility for the ICAO-required State AIP. This publication is intended to
be available as an internet-only document since it is primary designed for use
by other countries as part of Canada’s ICAO commitments and will be called AIP
Canada (ICAO). It will be available on
October 27, 2005 on Nav Canada’s website.
While COPA is pleased to see the AIP available on line at last, there is still
some distance to go in making it work optimally. Here are some of the issues
that COPA has asked TC to address with the current AIP on-line and the upcoming
Nav Canada AIP Canada (ICAO):
o The current AIP in PDF format has large files for downloading purposes, the whole document is almost 22 MB in English (25 MB in French) and some of the individual sections are over 7 MB. The upcoming HTML version should address this problem, but the single document PDF version is much easier to search through. Accessibility and ease of use need to be improved.
o The current downloadable AIP version includes the current Supps and AICs, but after the spring of 2005, when the TC AIM is introduced, these will be separated from the book. The current plan is to have these available only on the Nav Canada and TC websites and not on paper. COPA has pointed out that the paper versions and some means of distributing them will still be required for those people who do not have internet access if current levels of safety are to be preserved.
o While Nav Canada intends the new AIP Canada (ICAO) to be primarily for international use and available only on-line, there will be domestic users of this publication who will require paper versions of it.
Overall the provision of the AIP on-line in PDF format is a good start by TC and
Nav Canada in providing more information to increase pilot knowledge and improve
safety. COPA is committed to continuing to work with both organizations to
ensure that the resulting publications meet the needs of pilots and other users
of these publications.