Patent ID: 6910892

Claim:
A program product embodied in a computer readable medium for automatically collecting terrain source data for display during flight simulation comprising: an input for receiving data defining an area containing a mission route for which terrain source data is required; and a search engine for automatically searching a plurality of electronic collections of terrain source data to identify terrain source data covering the area containing the mission route, wherein said search engine is capable of identifying terrain source data from at least two alternative electronic collections of terrain source data that represents a common region of the area containing the mission route, and wherein said search engine is further capable of selecting the terrain source data from one of the plurality of alternative electronic collections of terrain source data that is most representative of anticipated flight conditions along the mission route to represent the common region of the area containing the mission route; and wherein the search engine is capable of accessing a memory device that stores the terrain source data covering the area containing the mission route identified by the search engine to facilitate display during flight simulation.