Mapping RC flying sites in SA

This is a work in progress. You need Google Earth to view these maps.

The are 2 sets of data available for positions of model flying clubs around the country. One is the CAA website document AIC 17.3.pdf which appears to be dated 2005 (at 04/14/2011). The other is the SAMAA management site, which will list all clubs after you log in (you need to be a SAMAA member, in other words).

If you load both sets of points (CAA and SAMAA) in Google Earth you can see many differences and anomolies.

If you load the old and new sets of points for one source, again you can see difference and anomolies. This is to be expected, but does not mean that the newer points are now CORRECT.

Points taken from the CAA official flying site listing on 15 Feb 2011: Black pins
Points taken from the CAA official flying site listing on 13 April 2011: Yellow pins
Updated Points taken from the CAA official flying site listing on 22 Mar 2012: Yellow pins
Points taken from the SAMAA web site listing of clubs on 15 Feb 2011: Green pins
Points taken from the SAMAA web site listing of clubs on 13 April 2011: Red Pins; Categorized by province, with added data from the 'Paid' column in the web tables.
Updated Points taken from the SAMAA web site listing of clubs on 21 Mar 2012: Red Pins; Categorized by province, with added data from the 'Paid' column in the web tables.

The inaccuracies in the CAA data are a concern because this is the data full size pilots will use to determine where they can or cannot fly safely. If the point is out of place by even 1 kilometer, the pilot may then overfly a model site unwittingly, causing danger to all concerned, and probably invalidating any insurance claims too.

Here are examples of what you might see in Google Earth. Note the large area in the Northern Cape where there are no registered sites, but they used to exist in the previous CAA data.