FLORIDA GEOGRAPHIC DATA LIBRARY DOCUMENTATION

TITLE: FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION OBSTRUCTIONS IN FLORIDA - 2017

Geodataset Name:       FAAOBS_SEP17
Geodataset Type:       SHAPEFILE
Geodataset Feature:    Point
Feature Count:         13248
GENERAL DESCRIPTION:
This dataset contains the locations of Federal Aviation Administration known obstructions. The Digital Obstacle File (DOF) is a listing of verified and unverified obstacles in the U.S. with limited coverage of the Pacific, the Caribbean, Canada, Mexico, and the Bahamas. The obstacles are assigned unique alphanumerical identifiers and are listed in order by ascending latitude within each state or country. The Digital Obstacle File, from which this layer was created, contains only obstruction data for those man-made objects which affect domestic aeronautical charting products and does not purport to indicate the presence of all obstructions which may be encountered. PLEASE NOTE: In the interest of air safety, the Digital Obstacle File depicts both "verified" and "unverified" obstruction data. A verified obstruction is indicated by an "O" in the Verification Status field. This data has either been reviewed by the FAA's Aeronautical Information Services (AIS), Obstacle Data Team (ODT) or has been taken from airport survey data. Verified obstacles have been assigned an accuracy code, indicating the reliability of its vertical height and horizontal position. An unverified obstruction is indicated by a "U" in the Verification Status field. This data is considered unreliable because its position and height have not been verified by the ODT. This is an update to the FGDL layer faaobs_jun16.
DATA SOURCE(S):                    Federal Aviation Administration
SCALE OF ORIGINAL SOURCE MAPS:     Unknown
GEODATASET EXTENT:                 State of Florida
PUBLICATION DATE: 20170912 TIME PERIOD OF CONTENT: 20170910 DOWNLOAD LINK: http://www.fgdl.org/metadataexplorer/explorer.jsp

FEATURE ATTRIBUTE TABLES:

Datafile Name: FAAOBS_SEP17.DBF
ITEM NAME WIDTH TYPE
OBJECTID
4 OID
Shape
4 Geometry
OBSTCL_NM
10 String
VER_STAT
2 String
COUNTRY
2 String
STATE
2 String
CITY
20 String
LAT_D
8 Double
LAT_M
8 Double
LAT_S
10 String
LONG_D
8 Double
LONG_M
8 Double
LONG_S
10 String
OBSTCLTYPE
15 String
OBSTCL_CNT
8 Double
AGL_HT
6 String
AMSL_HT
6 String
LIGHTING
2 String
HORIZ_ACC
8 Double
VERT_ACC
2 String
MARK_IND
2 String
FAA_STUDY
15 String
ACTION
2 String
ACT_DATE
10 String
LATITUDE
8 Double
LONGITUDE
8 Double
DESCRIPT
15 String
FGDLAQDATE
36 Date
AUTOID
4 Integer

FEATURE ATTRIBUTE TABLES CODES AND VALUES:

Item
Item Description
OBJECTID Internal feature number.

Shape Feature geometry.

OBSTCL_NM ORS Number - All obstacles are assigned a uniques number based on state or county. The ORS number consists of a two-digit code, a dash, and a six-character number.

VER_STAT Verification Status.
O = Verified

U = Unverified


COUNTRY Country Identifier.

STATE State Identifier.

CITY City Name.

LAT_D Latitude Degrees.

LAT_M Latitude Minutes.

LAT_S Latitude Seconds.

LONG_D Longitude Degrees.

LONG_M Longitude Minutes.

LONG_S Longitude Seconds.

OBSTCLTYPE Obstacle Type.

OBSTCL_CNT Quantity.

AGL_HT Above Ground Level Height (Feet).

AMSL_HT Above Mean Sea Level Height (Feet).

LIGHTING Type of Lighting.
R = Red

D = Medium Intensity White Strobe & Red

H = High Intensity White Strobe & Red

M = Medium Intensity White Strobe

S = High Intensity White Strobe

F = Flood

C = Dual Medium Catenary

W = Synchronized Red Lighting

L = Lighted (Type Unknown)

N = None

U = Unknown


HORIZ_ACC Horizontal Accuracy.
1 = +-20'

2 = +-50'

3 = +-100'

4 = +-250'

5 = +-500'

6 = +-1000'

7 = +-1/2 NM

8 = +-1 NM

9 = Unknown


VERT_ACC Vertical Accuracy.
A = +-3'

B = +-10'

C = +-20'

D = +-50'

E = +-125'

F = +-250'

G = +-500'

H = +-1000'

I = Unknown


MARK_IND Mark Indicator - Type of Marking.
P = Orange or Orange and White Paint

W = White Paint Only

M = Marked

F = Flag Marker

S = Spherical Marker

N = None

U = Unknown


FAA_STUDY FAA Study Number.

ACTION Action.
A = Add

C = Change

D = Dismantle


ACT_DATE Date of Action.

LATITUDE Latitude of Obstruction.

LONGITUDE Longitude of Obstruction.

DESCRIPT GeoPlan Added Field Based on OBSTCLTYPE.

FGDLAQDATE GeoPlan Added Field Based on Date Downloaded from Source.

AUTOID Unique ID added by GeoPlan


USER NOTES:
This data is provided 'as is'. GeoPlan relied on the integrity
of the original data layer's topology
This data is provided 'as is' by GeoPlan and is complete to our
knowledge.
GeoPlan relied on the integrity of the attribute information within
the original data.
DIGITAL OBSTACLE FILE
The Digital Obstacle File (DOF) is a listing of verified and unverified obstacles
in the U.S. with limited coverage of the Pacific, the Caribbean, Canada, Mexico,
and the Bahamas. The obstacles are assigned unique alphanumerical identifiers
and are listed in order by ascending latitude within each state or country. The
DOF digital product is updated every 56 days.

SPECIAL NOTICE
Important Information on the Horizontal Datum:
The World Geodetic System 1984 (WGS 84) is used as the horizontal datum for all DOF
data. All obstacle data has been converted to WGS 84 as of November 19, 2007.

CAUTION
The Digital Obstacle File contains only obstruction data for those man-made
objects which affect domestic aeronautical charting products and does not
purport to indicate the presence of all obstructions which may be encountered.

NOTE
In the interest of air safety, the Digital Obstacle File depicts both "verified"
and "unverified" obstruction data. A verified obstruction is indicated by an "O"
in the Verification Status field. This data has either been reviewed by the FAA's
Aeronautical Information Services (AIS), Obstacle Data Team (ODT) or has been
taken from airport survey data. Verified obstacles have been assigned an accuracy
code, indicating the reliability of its vertical height and horizontal position.
An unverified obstruction is indicated by a "U" in the Verification Status field.
This data is considered unreliable because its position and height have not
been verified by the ODT.

The data was created to serve as base information for use in GIS systems for 
a variety of planning and analytical purposes.

This data is provided 'as is' and its horizontal positional accuracy
has not been verified by GeoPlan

This data is provided 'as is' and its vertical positional accuracy
has not been verified by GeoPlan

NONE

The Florida Geographic Data Library is a collection of Geospatial Data
compiled by the University of Florida GeoPlan Center with support from
the Florida Department of Transportation. GIS data available in FGDL is
collected from various state, federal, and other agencies (data sources)
who are data stewards, producers, or publishers. The data available in
FGDL may not be the most current version of the data offered by the
data source. University of Florida GeoPlan Center makes no guarantees
about the currentness of the data and suggests that data users check
with the data source to see if more recent versions of the data exist.

Furthermore, the GIS data available in the FGDL are provided 'as is'.
The University of Florida GeoPlan Center makes no warranties, guaranties
or representations as to the truth, accuracy or completeness of the data
provided by the data sources. The University of Florida GeoPlan Center
makes no representations or warranties about the quality or suitability
of the materials, either expressly or implied, including but not limited
to any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular
purpose, or non-infringement. The University of Florida GeoPlan Center
shall not be liable for any damages suffered as a result of using,
modifying, contributing or distributing the materials.

A note about data scale: 

Scale is an important factor in data usage.  Certain scale datasets
are not suitable for some project, analysis, or modeling purposes.
Please be sure you are using the best available data. 

1:24000 scale datasets are recommended for projects that are at the
county level.
1:24000 data should NOT be used for high accuracy base mapping such
as property parcel boundaries.
1:100000 scale datasets are recommended for projects that are at the
multi-county or regional level.
1:125000 scale datasets are recommended for projects that are at the
regional or state level or larger.

Vector datasets with no defined scale or accuracy should be
considered suspect. Make sure you are familiar with your data
before using it for projects or analysis. Every effort has been
made to supply the user with data documentation. For additional
information, see the References section and the Data Source Contact
section of this documentation. For more information regarding
scale and accuracy, see our webpage at:
http://geoplan.ufl.edu/education.html

REFERENCES:


DATA LINEAGE SUMMARY:
The GeoPlan Center took the following steps during the QA/QC process:

- Downloaded the Digital Obstacle File (DOF) for Entire U.S. and Territories
  from the FAA Aeronautical Information Services website:
  https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/flight_info/aeronav/digital_products/dof/

- The original zipfile (DAILY_DOF.ZIP) contained the DOF.DAT file. The
  DOF_README.PDF was also downloaded to understand the contents
  of the DOF.DAT file.

- The DOF.DAT file was imported into an excel spreadsheet. The data
  was converted to columns using the fixed width method and information
  from the README.PDF.

- After conversion, any blank columns were deleted. Titles were added
  to the columns using the README.PDF and the excel table was
  cleaned.

- The excel spreadsheet was then opened in ArcMap and then saved as
  a .DBF file.

- LATITUDE and LONGITUDE fields were added using the following
  calculations from the Geographical Coordinates in the table:
  [LAT_D] + ( [LAT_M] / 60 ) + ( [LAT_S] / 3600 )
  ( [LONG_D] + ( [LONG_M] / 60 ) + ( [LONG_S] / 3600 ) ) * -1
  Resulting fields are in decimal degrees.

- The table was converted to a shapefile using the LATITUDE and
  LONGITUDE fields and the Display XY function in ArcMap. The
  projection in this tool was defined as WGS 84 per the README.PDF.
  The display file was exported to a permanent shapefile using the
  Export Data function.

- The new shapefile was projected into the NAD 1983 FGDL Albers HARN
  projection. NOTE: This process resulted in an approximate 1 meter spatial
  shift in data point locations from the prior dataset. The recommended
  transformation (GS_1984_(ITRF00)_To_NAD_1983 + NAD_1983_To_
  HARN_Florida) was used.

- DESCRIPT field added based on the OBSTCLTYPE field.

- FGDLAQDATE field added based on the date the dataset was downloaded
  from the source.

- The LAT_S and LONG_S fields were recalculated to add in the direction
  information (N or W) and the field containing solely that direction
  information was removed.

- The longest record for each field was calculated and field character
  lengths were shortened to the appropriate shortest length possible.

- Fields and records were uppercased.

- Layer name changed from DOF.shp to faaobs_sep17.shp.
Process Date: 20171102

Dataset copied. Process Date: 20180124
MAP PROJECTION PARAMETERS:

Projection                          ALBERS
Datum                               HPGN
Units                               METERS
Spheroid                            GRS1980
1st Standard Parallel               24  0  0.000
2nd Standard Parallel               31 30  0.000
Central Meridian                   -84 00  0.000
Latitude of Projection's Origin     24  0  0.000
False Easting (meters)              400000.00000
False Northing (meters)             0.00000

DATA SOURCE CONTACT (S):

Name:
Abbr. Name:
Address:


Phone:

Web site:
E-mail:
Contact Person:
         Phone:
        E-mail:
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Aeronautical Information Services
FAA/AIS
1305 East-West Highway
Silver Spring, MD
20910
(800) 626-3677

https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/flight_info/aeronav/digital_products/dof/ 9-AMC-Aerochart@faa.gov

FGDL CONTACT:
Name:                   FLORIDA GEOGRAPHIC DATA LIBRARY
Abbr. Name:             FGDL
Address:                Florida Geographic Data Library
                        431 Architecture Building
                        PO Box 115706
                        Gainesville, FL  32611-5706
Web site:               http://www.fgdl.org

Contact FGDL: 

      Technical Support:	        http://www.fgdl.org/fgdlfeed.html
      FGDL Frequently Asked Questions:  http://www.fgdl.org/fgdlfaq.html
      FGDL Mailing Lists:		http://www.fgdl.org/fgdl-l.html
      For FGDL Software:                http://www.fgdl.org/software.html