Currently there are several areas where sectors overlaps with itself with airspaces at different altitudes. As a couple of examples; around ENZV and ENBR there are the typical class C TMA airspace which covers the whole TMA from 700ft and up, not taking into account any terrain or other altitude restrictions. Inside these airspaces navigraph projects multiple overlapping airspaces with different altitudes which is incorrect and confusing when flying VFR. You can be in both controlled airspace and uncontrolled airspace, depending on how you read the charts.
Around both airports there is the natural TWR CTR which extends from ground to 1500ft. Around the airport you have the whole TMA which stretches from the west to the east, north to south, from 700ft to FL175. Navigraph applies this to the whole TMA. This is however incorrect. Referring to the norwegian aviation information page IPPC - Norwegian Aerodrome Info there should be different altitudes seperated from the “standard” 700ft-FL175 sector, e.g. to the east there’s three sectors which covers 1500ft/2500ft/3500ft->FL175 respectively.
If during a flight you want information about “Sola (ENZV) TMA3” sector and what applies to you, you will face atleast three sectors: The “standard” 700ft-FL175, the 2500ft-FL175, and Polaris control from 5500ft-FL660. If flying VFR at 1000ft inside Sola TMA3 you have two sectors to choose from. IPPC shown 2500ft, but navigraph also shows 700ft. And the confusion is complete.
It is difficult to identify what airspace I am currently in, i.e. uncontrolled or controlled and TMA/CTR/CTA.
I hope for the navigraph team to implement a more precise way of reading the charts by removing overlaps.
However, could you please clarify what overlap you deem “incorrect”? Airspaces overlap, and their borders are often tangent. Perhaps showing an example using a screenshot would make it easier for me to understand you!
Here’s my attempt at understanding the issue by looking at the area around ENBR:
In this picture, the red arrows are pointing at 3 different altitude depictions. Is this the part that gets confusing? Seeing as there are three altitudes along the same line?
I also find that the TMA is separated into several different sectors, some from 700ft to FL175 but there are also sectors with bases of 2000, 2500 and 3500 which seems to align with what you said was not the case:
All in all, please do share some screenshots of the scenarios you mentioned. Perhaps I misunderstood something, and since this sounds like a visual issue - I will probably have an easier time understanding with the help of some screenshots!
Thank you for the very detailed response. I will try to illustrate what I am referring to below. I am unable to preview the post, so I hope the images are added correctly:
Say I want to fly VFR from ENZV to ENBR, following the mountains northbound. Both ENZV and ENBR have similar airspaces around them.
Continue flying, I see from the map that the airspace fills the area between 2500ft and FL175. However, due to cluttering from other airspaces (Polaris, mil, TIZs, and so on) I am starting to get confused if I am in controlled airspace or not. (The cluttering may be worse in VR, when I now look at the app from 2D it’s not as bad. One possible thing is that the number of altitude indicators are limited in VR showing maybe only one in the whole sector - point is though that cluttering of airspace borders create confusion).
Since I get confused, I want to use the “location information” function within the app to help me. Pointing at the TMA3 section, navigraph will show 2 airspaces that may be relevant to me:
Both have the same ceiling at FL175, but one of them has a floor of 700ft., i.e. they overlap. In navigraph it is considered a class D airspace which covers the whole ENZV area.
Conclusion:
1: It seems to me, now that I’ve been working through the 2D version of navigraph, that the 2D map is way easier to read than in VR. In VR I encounter several issues where the airspace borders only have one line with airspace information. Also the cluttering is quite overwhelming at times. Not so in the 2D-version, it seems.
2: So, I guess the overall issues is; Should the confusion present itself, it may be difficult to interpret whether or not I am in controlled airspace based on the information I am given in the “location information pinpoint”. It doesn’t show what I would expect it to show, again referring to IPPC.
Assuming that you use the panel in VR, this is a limitation that we unfortunately can’t get around easily. The panel cannot use the same technology as the web or desktop app due to limitations in the simulator. Filters won’t work, unfortunately!
Thank you for the screenshots! Now I see what overlap you mean. This kind of overlap is also theoretically possible, especially when airspace is only active during certain times!
That said, we’ll investigate if this is intentional or not in this case. Thanks for the feedback!
Thank you again for the excellent responce/service.
I was getting abit uncertain if I had seen the filters in the VR panels, but I guess I was correct in assuming that it is not. Thanks for clarifying though!
I see my drawings was useful! In all seriousness, thanks for aknowledging. I understand the theoretical possibility of overlapping airspaces, indeed. However, without being too conclusive, I don’t believe the issue of overlapping airspaces, especially TMAs, are common in Norway, looking at IPPC. The TMA’s usually follow the terrain, as with ENZV and ENBR, you will see “higher” floors in the mountainous east, than in the flat, sea-based west. The only overlaps I am able to identify is between TWR Control and the TMA.
I believe the way they are set up now gives room for confusion, especially for someone wanting to get into flight training and paying a sum of money to get the best chart application available, i.e. navigraph. Again though, I will not be too conclusive, but I hope you look into it
After some extensive investigations and reading the Norwegian AIP, we have finally found that the 700 - 175 airspace you mention is actually a special type of airspace that our source provider includes, which collects a bunch of different sectors into one single airspace.
We were aware of cases like these in the US, where we actually hide such airspace types - but it seems that we need to do it for Norway (and perhaps other European countries) as well!
Thanks for the report, I’ll let you know when we have fixed it!
In all seriousness, thanks for aknowledging. I understand the theoretical possibility of overlapping airspaces, indeed. However, without being too conclusive, I don’t believe the issue of overlapping airspaces, especially TMAs, are common in Norway, looking at IPPC. The TMA’s usually follow the terrain, as with ENZV and ENBR, you will see “higher” floors in the mountainous east, than in the flat, sea-based west. The only overlaps I am able to identify is between TWR Control and the TMA.