Reports from Carvec Systems Ltd suggest that in spite of the windy conditions around Hull, the setup of our sUAS Kestrel 100ES is going well.  Seen here 2 days ago in the skies ‘up North’.

The system is currently being tested with cannibalized batteries while the systems own batteries are shipped over the pond. We have our initial cameras selected and delivered. We are waiting on one more part for delivery, a cable for integrating camera controls with the LANC control system, Carvec are planning to set the cameras up for us early in the New Year.

All tests will be complete very soon. Our planned delivery for Feb next year is the only time we are able to schedule in the training due to both companies other commitments. We certainly are not complaining that we are busy in the current economic climate, but we are keen to start support service developement with this new system. 

Developement of the system will keep us busy updating risk analysis and our company Safety Management Plan. This will be closely followed by changes to the previous UAS Standard Operating Systems to reflect the new equipment and its operation.

A guide friend in Israel notified me that one of his neighbors was experienced in aerial photography, and asked if I would be interested in going up during the recent trip to Israel. I indicated an interest and we began to work on the details. The pilot, Yoav, had to get permission and clear us with Israeli security well in advance of the flight. The first day we scheduled was scrubbed due to bad weather coming in. The following day was sunny and fairly clear. Certainly it was one of the best weather days we had during the first two weeks of December.

We flew from the Sde Dov Airport. This is a small airport along the Mediterranean coast immediately north of the Yarkon River in Tel Aviv. Arkia Airlines operates here with flights to Eilat, Rosh Pina, and perhaps other places. When we arrived at the airport to meet our friend and the pilot we had to go through strict security even though we had sent all of our passport details in advance. Once that was completed we headed for the plane, a Cessna 172 Skyhawk. Our pilot was well aware of most of the places we wanted to visit. He would tell us to be ready in two minutes, or in 30 seconds, for the best photos. We flew over Gezer, Zorah, Beth Shemesh, the Zorek Valley, Lachish, Jerusalem, the Herodium, Aphek/Antipatris, and lots of terrain in between in two hours and six minutes. I made 1754 photos during that time, filling an 8 gig card and two 4 gig cards. Probably not a Guinness record, but a record for me.

Perhaps over the next few weeks I will be able to share a few of these photos with you. Let’s begin with the Coastal (or Maritime) Plain south of Tel Aviv/Joppa. This area is also referred to as the Plain of Philistia because the Philistines lived in the region in Old Testament times. The Philistine cities of Ashdod, Ashkelon, and Gaza were in the southern coastal plain.

The plain of Philistia may be as much as 20 miles wide as we move further south. This photo gives one some idea of the territory immediately south of Tel Aviv as we fly south east to Gezer. Our altitude here was 800 feet.

The Coastal Plain of Philistia, south of Tel Aviv. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

This region is now an important part of Israel, but in Bible times few Israelites lived in the area.

“When on Earth, Johnny’s ship took the place of the real Gherkin and stood at the heart of London’s financial district”, p. 3

Welcome to the second day of Johnny Mackintosh. I took this shot with a disposable camera flying into London City Airport. Even though the photo doesn’t do it justice, I’ve cropped it to include the Bishopsgate Tower (a new skyscraper at the very top of the picture) which, from many vantage points on the ground, looks curiously two-dimensional.

When I was writing Johnny Mackintosh: Star Blaze, I’d often work long into the night, say until three or four in the morning. Bishopsgate Tower was being built at the time and glancing up from my notebook I’d see the lights from welder’s torches sparkling in different places through the dark.

Of course the best thing about the photo is the great view of the Spirit of London (I made sure I snapped this when Johnny and Clara were here on Earth, so the original London Gherkin has been folded away into hyperspace and what you’re seeing is Johnny’s actual spaceship). She is magnificent and doesn’t look out of place anywhere in the galaxy.

Now we’re two days after Christmas I’d suggest getting to work on those thank you letters so you’ve plenty of time for reading once Star Blaze comes out. Tomorrow, we’ve back in space but very, very nearby.

The photographer that never uses an ISO setting above 400 is not wise in the ways of the world.  Do you think you can control the world to a point where you will never need a high ISO?  Or are you so prideful that you would skip a beautiful shot for fear of a little digital noise?  Maybe you’re one of those photographers that has spent thousands of dollars on equipment but doesn’t even know what ISO is.  That’s truly shameful.  You should have sent all that money to UNICEF instead.  It’s no wonder most of the world hates the United States.

If you ever want to become a good photographer you need to get knocked down a peg or six first.  To become a good photographer you must first realize that in the grand scheme of things you have about as much control over your destiny as protozoa slogging across a microscope slide in some underfunded high school biology class, and that slide is about to be scraped clean, dipped into a bleach solution, and then left out to dry overnight.  At least he/she/it (the protozoa)  isn’t wasting the last moments of its existence lost in a haze of vanity and pride.  That protozoa knows how to live!  If you loaned your DSLR to the protozoa you know he would shoot at ISO 1600.  He would have to.  The public school biology lab has very dim lighting.  Our single celled Robert Capa would aim the DSLR at the tidal wave of bleach solution and fire away until his unverse is obliterated — tranformed into a void of transparent chemical death.  The resultant photos would encapsulate the protozoan condition so perfectly that it would bring a tear to your eye. If you were that protozoa would you be able to live in the moment and capture those beautiful images or would you be concerned about digital noise and not even bother to try one photo?

Now, imagine that you are taking a trip in a glittering modern jet airliner.  You brought your DSLR along because you fancy yourself a photographer and you plan to get some shots of New York City as you depart by air.  You are clever and have set yourself up for these photos as perfectly as possible.  You know from watching departure patterns out of Kennedy airport that you need a window seat on the right side of the aircraft to get the perfect shot.  The ticket is purchased early.  You have secured the correct seat on a flight that leaves in late afternoon when the lighting is just right.  The day before the flight you clean your image sensor, charge your camera battery, and check twice that you remembered to put your favorite Ultra IV compact flash card in your camera.  It’s now the day of the flight and the weather is clear.  The plane boards and actually manages to push back from the gate a few minutes early.  Your spirit soars!  The plan is coming together.    You are moments away from getting a wall hanger of a photo.  The capital of the free world glistens under the late afternoon sun awaiting your light trapping shutter.  Oh, life is grand.  The man who plans holds dominion over the universe!

But uh oh, something isn’t right.  It’s been ten minutes since you pushed back from the gate and the airplane hasn’t moved an inch since.  When the airplane finally begins to taxi you notice something else isn’t right.  The airplane seems to be headed the wrong direction.  You tell yourself that you are just disoriented from looking through such a small window.  You reassure yourself that this airplane is indeed headed for the departure runway. But a half hour later your self delusion is shattered when the captain’s voice comes over the PA.

“Well folks, sorry about the hold up.”  the captain says, “You regular travelers will know these sort of things happen commonly here at New York’s Kennedy airport.  Those gusty winds you might have noticed earlier have limited air traffic control to use just two of the Kennedy’s four runways.  It looks like it’s going to be at least another half hour till we can depart.  Feel free to use your cell phones. “

Your heart sinks.  It’s going to be dark by the time you takeoff.  You worked so hard, but still fell short.  Your perfect photo is just three minutes flying time away, but you are trapped 30 airplanes deep in the takeoff queue.  What do you do now?  Do you drink from the bitter chalice of failure or do you deal with the world as it presents itself to you?  What would our friend and hero the protozoa do?

I think the answer should be obvious to you by now.  You grab your camera and turn that ISO all the way to 1600.  Then after you thank the grace of the universe for granting you such a wonderful tool as ISO 1600 you begin to shoot everything.  With any luck you will be able to get  a photo as good as the one accompanying this post.  That’s Raritan Bay, lower Staten Island and the New Jersey Coast.  I took this photo after waiting an hour and a half for takeoff at New York’s Kennedy airport on sunny winter afternoon.  Do not be intimidated by this photo’s rare beauty.  Consider it a gift from your ever giving universe.

Our latest sUAS aquisition the Kestrel 1000ES small Unmanned Air System (sUAS), is delivered with actuated camera mount and camera remote control using LANC control. This has led us to Canon and Sony camera solutions. The solution should have both LANC connection and Liveview for continuous monitoring on the ground.

Our initial selection is for A stills CAMERA is a Canon G11.

and our selection for HD video is the Sony HDRCX520VE

We continue to research a suitable FLIR camera solution. All recommendations from operators are welcome. We are considering a solution such as a Photon 640 (60mm).

Experience or advice from operating such devices, please feel free to contact us at – info@ajs-support.co.uk

Here are some photos submitted by Joshua Serrin. Thanks Josh for some really great photos!

AJS Support Limited has plans to continue with its Remote Imagery Support service developement early in the New Year. This will initially be centered around its latest acquisition the Carvec Systems Limited Kestrel 1000ES. We continue to seek for suitable land to continue the developement flights.

This week AJS has ceased its use of the microdrone MD4-200 sUAS, due to a number of issues with the equipment for the specific services our company is developing.

AJS has heard today from Carvec Systems Ltd that the initial construction of our latest Remote Imagery Support sUAS is complete. During the following stages they are planning to set up the autopilot to the airframe, then some preliminary test flights to electronically trim everything and check the system is working as it should. 

After that, a phase of reducing the vibration levels as much as possible before it goes to the open field for GPS mode testing.

The weather up where the helicopter is being assembled and tested is picturesque from the air; this was taken earlier today by Carvec Systems Ltd using a Canon PowerShot G10 on a smaller helicopter.

The fabulous aerial shots of Greenwich that appear on your blog usually [always - Ed.] come from me. They are mostly ripped off of public or private files not in my database, but in doing this for 40 years I’ve learned a trick or two.The oblique views recently were just screen-grab shots and clips from Bing Birdeye Views.

I am available for hire (and will fly if necessary)

Michael W. Finkbeiner

Prof. Land Surveyor (CT & NY)Earth Image Dot Net4 Maher AvenueGreenwich, CT 06830-5617Tel: 203 661-3897

Officefax: 727 230-1631 cel: 203 561-3293 cellemail: mwf@earthimage.net

My business website is EarthImage.Net

“Been and Gone: 100 Random Temporal Observations” til Dec. 20

Sandra Smirle has a fascination with maps.  Much of her work over the past few years concerns maps. 

Maps are a visual representation of an area, but it is also by nature an abstraction of that area.  Maps looks nothing like the reality of an actual place and take on different formats depending on the maps intended use.  In the case of “Been and Gone”, each map is a more sophisticated way of saying “I was here.”“Been and Gone” consists of 100, 8 x 10 cutouts on white archival paper. Each cutout represents an aerial photograph of the various places where Smirle had been, each of the hundred days recorded at random times throughout the day.  The cutouts are abstractions, the amount of visual representation from the original has been reduced and is an interesting demonstration of the structure of the map.

The “temporal” aspect seemed to lack true purpose.  I get that choices had to be made and using a photo a day makes sense.  It also makes sense for her to record her whereabouts of that day randomly.  If she was a true creature of habit many of those maps would be very similar.  In fact, in our brief chat, Smirle noted that it was interesting how habitual and limited her geographical range is.  She had made a few trips outside the GTA to Vancouver and her dad’s cottage.  These outside forays made up but six or seven of the representations.  The curved lines made it easy to tell which ones they were too. 

Together the one hundred representations of her whereabouts paint an abstract picture of her presence.  How much we can learn about her from just seeing an impression of the geography where she dwells?  How similar one day can look from the next.  And what sort of person tracks her daily whereabouts?  It’s a unique take on a self-portrait don’t you think?

AIRFRAME AND CAMERA MOUNT

There has been progress with our latest procurement. CARVEC Systems Ltd has the production of our latest small unmanned air vehicle in hand. The air vehicle is based on the minicopter Joker 2 air vehicle.

So far the main airframe and camera mount have been assembled. It is starting to look like a heli!

Skidaway Institute of Oceanography researcher Karrie Brinkley has spent a lot of time in recent months traveling up and down Georgia’s coastal waterways in boats and canoes with maps and binoculars in hand. Brinkley is working on a project to identify and map all the armored shorelines in the state’s six coastal counties.

Brinkley has been looking for bulkheads, causeways and rip-rap – the piles or rock or concrete frequently used to stabilize a shore or river bank. The purpose of the study is to establish a baseline set of data to help understand and project the effect of rising sea level on the Georgia coast.

Karrie Brinkley examines a bulkhead armored shoreline on Skidaway Island.

“The shorelines are going to act differently as the sea level rises, depending on whether they are armored or not,” said Brinkley. “In this project, we want to see how much of the coast is armored and what type of armory is being used for individual sections as well as the entire coast.”

Brinkley is working under the guidance of Skidaway Institute professor Clark Alexander. He says that currently the oceans are rising at approximately three millimeters per year, or roughly a foot per century, however many scientists project that rate could double, triple or quadruple in coming decades. This could have a tremendous impact on coastal areas.

“One environmental area of concern is the salt marshes,” said Alexander. “If the sea level gradually rises along a natural coast, the salt marshes that thrive in the intertidal zone will gradually migrate to the upland.

“However, if a section is armored, the intertidal zone may become completely submerged, and we would lose the function of the salt marsh in that area.”

The study is funded by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, under the umbrella of a larger Environmental Protection Agency project. Geographically, Brinkley is studying all the coastal shores, from the beaches westward to either Interstate 95 or US Highway 17, which ever is further to the west.

For the first ten months of the project, Brinkley spent her time in front of a computer, studying aerial photographs of the coastal counties. Using a Geographical Information System program, she electronically marked the photos to indicate causeways, bulkheads, rip-rap and other shoreline armor.

An aerial photo of Wilmington Island showing causeways in purple and shoreline armor in yellow.

“Depending on the resolution of the photography, you can identify a lot from the photos,” Brinkley said. “Bulkheads show up as straight lines, and the bright stones of concrete rip-rap are fairly obvious as well.”

There are still many areas that Brinkley cannot characterize from the aerial photographs due to poor resolution, foliage overhangs or other reasons. Even the tide cycle when the aerial photography was shot can affect how much information can be gleaned from the photos. “A high tide may cover some rip-rap and make it invisible in the aerial photograph,” Brinkley said.

For those sections, she gets in a car, a boat or a canoe and visits the sites personally.

Once completed, the project will be shared with officials in Georgia’s coastal counties. Brinkley expects to have the project completed early in 2010.

HI all,

Just got back home after spending a few days in Bude, Cornwall.

The weather was against us most of the time but I still managed to get out and take some photos.

Below are a few of my favourites, all comments welcome.

Red Sunrise,

Robin at end of Nature Walk

Waves of Widemouth Bay Beach

Night Shot of Bude (1min exposure)

My 1st attempt at taking a photo of the Milky Way Gallaxy (I think) not as clear as it was in real life

Aerial View of Kennacott Court – taken from Radio Controlled Flying Wing

The event to start the 2010 season for the hardcore freeflyer will most definitely be at Skydive Spain this coming March. An invitation to Europe’s seasoned and proven head down flyers with the right attitude towards team play have been sent and the 30 available slots were snapped up within a few days, even at the top if you snooze you lose!.

With 2 Do-28 15 place Dorniers going to 16,000 + ft the event organiser Andrew Lovemore of Skydive Spain envisages multiple point 15 and 30 way formations yet unseen on the European freefly scene with load organiser’s Fabian Raidel and Mike Carpenter at the helm. The Invites for the team consisted of representatives from Volare, Skywalkers, Aria, The Bad Lieutenants, Darkside Freefly and Babylon to name a few…

The sequential scene in Europe has been lacking somewhat behind the likes of the Lodi Sequentials, Project Horizon and Summerfest where multiple point skydives are a matter of course, hopefully this event can redress the balance with the awesome available talent we have here.

Check back to see the progression toward what could be described as the biggest European freefly event of 2010..

laters and have a great christmas

Fordy

We are operational!

Aircraft – Check!

LiDAR – Check!

Aerial Photography Camera – Check!

Hyperspectral Camera – Check!

LiDAR Data Colored by Elevation

We’re operational and have a ton of data in the can and ready for processing.  Our data sets include samples from residential communities to transmission powerlines to unmentionable clients who have some interesting needs!  One of the biggest hurdles has been developing our own viewing software that we can deliver with these large datasets so that our clients can manage their deliverables.  The goal is to build a piece of software that is lightweight and easy to maintain code-wise, while building tools that clients can use to streamline their business processes.

3"-pixel Aerial Photography

Keep watching here for data samples and updates to our software!

Some chilling reminders of the reality of war!

Britain has a National Collection of Aerial Photography.  It is held within the offices of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland – perfectly logical!

A summary of the different collections is listed here, many of them wartime photographs that bring a multitude of emotions to the surface: incredible bravery of the pilots; photographic standards of 70 years ago, man’s inhumanity to man; and so on.

I pondered a bit about writing this Post because, well ….. well…, see what you make of it!

Author's Mum

Being born in England in the early part of November, 1944, World War 2 still resonates within me.

Early home in an industrial part of West London meant that my mother and father had a ring-side view of the German V1 and V2 rockets that were being visited on London at that time.

My mother, 90, still recounts her enormous sense of relief when VE Day was announced (May 8th, 1945) because she then thought that her son’s future life was more or less assured.

So back to these aerial photographs held in those collections.

Here’s a picture of the visitation of war on the beautiful French town of Caen.

Linger a while and look at the damage, mostly to private homes.  The photograph was taken just slightly more than a month before I was born.

So where’s this Post leading to….?

It sometimes feels as though the present economic crisis, which is far, far from being over, is a product of too many years of terrible politics, greed, the priority of wealth over the protection of our habitat (in the broadest sense of the meaning), etc. etc.

Or maybe I’m just getting old!

Ultimately what is this crazy world all about?  I searched long and hard for an image that conveys the answer to that question.  Today I found it – as below

Mother and Child

It doesn’t require any other caption than Mother and Child – to me it is symbolic of what life is all about.

Back to those wartime photos.

Look at this picture below. It is the bomb release camera on a British bomber showing a stick of bombs falling on Berck-sur-Mer, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France.

Only a very small amount of imagination is required to think of the last few seconds that some innocent people had before these bombs struck home.

Back to present times.

The present difficulties that so many nations are going through needs all of us to seek real representative government.  Representative in the sense of representing the long-term interests of mankind, which must include the interests of the child and those yet to be born.

Otherwise, a world of increasing scarcities may mean the increasing probability of another bomb-strike.

By Paul Handover

Note: the two military B&W photographs in this Post are published on the basis of: No Commercial Use or Sale, No Public Distribution [eg by hand, email, web].

November 20th was an exceptionally beautiful day for this time of year. I left the lab a bit early to do some aerial photography with my RC plane. I drove to Bebenhausen, which is a small town nestled in a forest valley just north of Tuebingen. In Bebenhausen is a monastery that was constructed in 1183. It was my first test of a new servo setup for activating the camera shutter, which worked very well. While there was no wind on the ground, there was a boundary layer at the altitude I was taking pictures of that was actually quite windy, so many of the pictures came out a bit blurry so I will have to go back again, maybe when there is some snow on the ground. Click HERE for a flickr gallery.

Aerial photographer Jason Hawkes captured incredible aerial images of Las Vegas at night. In order to capture the images, he used a state-of-the-art gyroscopic tripod for his camera and a low flying helicopter. The photo shoot took nine flights and 15 hours of air time to complete. All of Hawkes’s Las Vegas photos will be published in a book called Las Vegas At Night.

Visiting Las Vegas for a convention? Churchill has corporate housing in the Las Vegas area designed for the business traveler.

A panoramic view of Las Vegas. Photo courtesy of dailymail.co.uk.

The Aerial Reconnaissance Archives (Tara) have been opened to the public and holds more than 10 million photographs, growing as more images are declassified. People will be soon able to view the images online, buy a subscription to see it in higher resolution, order photos or arrange a visit to the archive in Edinburgh.

Allan Williams, manager of the National Collection of Aerial Photography based in Edinburgh:

”The skill of the photo reconnaissance pilot was incredible – they were among the best pilots in the air force,”

”As so many of them lost their lives the archive has become a memorial to them and the events on the ground they photographed. How they could take the photos they did is astonishing.

”When you remember they were taken in combat, and often being shot at – it’s astounding.”

Mr Williams said the evidence provided by the imagery, enables people to build up a map of the world as it was during key moments of the past – something Mr Williams likened to a virtual time machine.

”The archive literally shows the world at war,”

As well as thier historical interest, many of the images expose the beauty in simply capturing information. Part of the reason many photographers are drawn to landscape photography and such an unusual perspective makes it a fascinating archive.

A Zwangsarbeiter, or slave labour camp, at Gustavsburg near Mainz, Hessen, Germany. The camp provided workers for the neighbouring heavy machinery company

For more information and to see the images visit www.evidenceincamera.co.uk

We are looking for help in searching for local land for sale or rent to use to operate our drones during service developement and training. We can operate from most types of land and are looking for between 1 – 3 acres.

Our air vehicles are environmentally friendly and near silent. They are small and lightweight so they will have very little impact on the local area.

We would also consider areas further afield if anyone out there has suitable land.

Any land owners or people who have contacts please let us know at info@ajs-support.co.uk

Today we had the pleasure of meeting two wonderful people and photographing a very special event in their lives. It wasn’t our first time doing an aerial shoot, but it was our first experience with a hot air balloon and very memorable! This was planned as a surprise for the fiance to be. She was blindfolded upon leaving her house and remained blindfolded until we were all on site and getting the balloon set up. The proposal was done in flight and she said YES!

We did a time lapse of the balloon set up…(click on photo if you would live to view the time lapse!)

Getting ready for take off at the golf course on Morningside…

Within minutes of take off, it began pouring. Michael rode in the balloon to shoot the actual proposal and I remained on the ground to shoot from there. I rode in the chase car with the wife of the balloon pilot. We lost sight of the balloon when the weather got really bad and I had a little moment of panic when we couldn’t reach them by walkie talkie nor by cell phone! We drove for a few miles and finally saw them and talked to them and they said they were making a landing on a residential street…

What a sight we all created! This was at about 8:00 this morning but still brought out many of the residents of this street. Within minutes the Port St Lucie police also showed up and didn’t seem too pleased with the landing. Michael and I switched out cameras and they were on their way again!And then….she said YES!

 

Ted…the Pilot

Traditions was the original plan for landing, but the weather did not allow for that and they landed in the Bank of America parking lot in St Lucie West. Again, we drew a crowd of spectators which were quickly enlisted by the pilot to help get the balloon down…

Again, within minutes, not only 1 police car showed up….BUT 5!!! Did they think we were “discreetly” trying to rob the bank? In spite of all the ups and downs (no pun intended), this morning shoot was memorable to many people!Thanks to all the bystanders who assisted! And a special thanks and congratulations to Vanessa and Darren!

 

Having learnt from our recent experiences with our remote imagery support service developement phase using our current UAS the microdrone MD4-200, we  have been down selecting options for a future air vehicle. Now we understand the payload capacities for a future air vehicle, today we set out looking at options for FLIR, video and still cameras.

We are looking at optimising weight against image quality. Any solution would need operating remotely from the ground.  Remote control will require the camera to be pointed at a target and if possible for stills, shutter control from the remote position.

The number of solutions available is making the task  of identifying options for cameras more difficult than selecting the airvehicle. Any advice is welcomed. (info@ajs-support.co.uk) We will post our progress here.