Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Digital Aeronautical Charts: Survey of 64
Czech Air Force Pilots
Jakub Vilser, Jana Merickova, and Scott Bell
Introduction
An air force is an essential component of a modern army. Like all branches of the
military, in order to effectively carry out its tasks there must be an excellent
support. Production of high quality cartographic material for the air force is one
such essential task; such maps are normally provided by a geographic service. Like
other branches, work of this service over time undergoes changes that result from
new policies and requirements and changing technology. In this research, we
focused on the Czech Army and its Air Force. We conducted a survey of Czech
Air Force (CZAF) pilots regarding their experience with the digital geographic
data. The Czech Army Military Geography and Hydrometeorology Office in
Dobru
ˇ
ka (MGHO) provides NATO certified aeronautical charts for the CZAF
aircraft both in paper and digital form. Due to the demanding nature of this job it is
essential to follow requirements and needs of the target users. A user and user
aspects of the use represent the motivation for this research. Functional map
research is based on the clear assumption that a map is made for a particular
purpose. It is useful and important to find out whether and to what extent, a
particular map meets that purpose (Elzakker and Wealands
2007
). In our case,
this means verifying the functionality of both digital and paper geographical
