French SIA Integrates GIS into Aeronautical System

11 September 2009, 7:25pm

Redlands, California — September 11, 2009 — The French Service de l'Information Aéronautique (SIA), headquartered in the Bordeaux-Merignac Airport in the town of Merignac, France, has awarded a contract for an aeronautical information management (AIM) system based on ESRI's geographic information system (GIS) software. The contract was awarded to ESRI France, and French aeronautical technology companies Thales and CGx AERO in SYS (CGx), an ESRI business partner. The new system, Nouvel Outil de Production de l'Information Aéronautique (NOPIA), will provide an integrated solution to manage aeronautical data and create charts, including the national Aeronautical Information Publication (AIP) detailing regulations and procedures for aircraft in France.

The French SIA is the national aeronautical service provider responsible for regulating and managing air navigation in France, including international travel that begins or ends in the country. The organization provides many resources such as the preparation and sale of flight charts, for example, radio navigation charts at a scale of 1:1,000,000 and regional charts at a scale of 1:250,000.

NOPIA will allow French SIA operators to better manage and efficiently deliver information for flight navigation in French airspace. The system meets the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) standards for data integrity, consistency, and availability and is fully interoperable with the European Aeronautical Database (EAD), a centralized reference database of quality-assured aeronautical information for airspace users.

ESRI's ArcGIS and Production Line Tool Set (PLTS) for ArcGIS—Aeronautical Solution will provide NOPIA with the ability to store and edit its aeronautical information and produce high-quality charts. Another ESRI ArcGIS extension, Job Tracking for ArcGIS (JTX), will improve the efficiency of the project by defining, organizing, and standardizing the individual tasks within the workflow. NOPIA also incorporates components from ESRI business partners Safe Software Inc. and CGx.

Canadian firm Safe Software will provide FME for Geographical ETL, a tool for extracting, transforming, and loading (ETL) geographic and spatial data, to assist with data interoperability. CGx will implement its AI-Sky Data framework, an add-on for ArcGIS, to help with the integration of aeronautical and geographic data. Both Thales and CGx will assist the French SIA with migrating chart production to the new system as well as migrating data needed into World Geodetic System (WGS) 84, commonly used to accurately represent the earth in aeronautical charts.

Civil and military organizations use ESRI GIS software to create and maintain digital aeronautical datasets and produce high-quality, database-driven charts that meet their unique specifications. GIS can help these agencies maintain, control, and disseminate data that meets their rigorous requirements.

ESRI Aeronautical information

Geo: International