The Digital Aeronautical Flight Information File or DAFIF () is a comprehensive database of up-to-date aeronautical data, including information on

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial Aviation, air transport. They usually consist of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surf ...

airway The respiratory tract is the subdivision of the respiratory system involved with the process of conducting air to the alveoli for the purposes of gas exchange in mammals. The respiratory tract is lined with respiratory epithelium as respiratory ...

s, airspaces,

navigation Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the motion, movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.Bowditch, 2003:799. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navig ...

data, and other facts relevant to flying in the entire world, managed by the

National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is a combat support agency within the United States Department of Defense whose primary mission is collecting, analyzing, and distributing geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) to support national se ...

(NGA) of the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

Withdrawal of public access

DAFIF was publicly available until October 2006 through the Internet; however, it was closed to public access because "increased numbers of foreign source providers are claiming

intellectual property rights Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, co ...

or are forewarning NGA that they intend to copyright their source". Currently, only federal and state government agencies, authorized government contractors, and

Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and supervising the six U.S. armed services: the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Space Force, ...

customers are able to access the DAFIF data. At the time of the announcement, the NGA did not say who the "foreign source providers" were. It was subsequently revealed that the

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

n Government was behind the move. The Australian government-owned corporation Airservices Australia in September 2003 started charging for access to Australian data. Rather than exclude the Australian data, the NGA opted to stop making the data available to the public.

USFIF

A product called USFIF (pronounced as '' yoos-fəf'') or the ''United States Flight Information File'' which contains only data related to the

was available on the NGA website until October 2007. NGA no longer hosts any aeronautical information on the publicly available website.

Replacement for Google Earth data

Since the DAFIF data has ceased to be available to the public, new sources of the data have arrived, though none is (yet) a complete replacement: * In

Google Earth Google Earth is a web mapping, web and computer program created by Google that renders a 3D computer graphics, 3D representation of Earth based primarily on satellite imagery. The program maps the Earth by superimposition, superimposing satelli ...

format ( KML
Google Earth 3D Airspace
* Started soon after the withdrawal of the DAFIF data, th
OurAirports web site
is a community effort to produce an open (public domain) database of airports and navigation aids—nightly CSV data dumps are available from the site. Since OurAirports is open source, there are a lot of duplicate airports in the system and the data is not necessarily accurate as an official source would be. *

OpenStreetMap OpenStreetMap (abbreviated OSM) is a free, Open Database License, open geographic database, map database updated and maintained by a community of volunteers via open collaboration. Contributors collect data from surveying, surveys, trace from Ae ...

holds information about many aerodromes, and can be downloaded through the ''Overpass'' service. * In other open formats, publicly contributed data, th
Worldwide Soaring Turnpoint Exchange: Airspace

References

{{reflist Air navigation Aeronautical databases