Gateway Pilots

From the November Meeting

Doug Allen

Doug Allen, who flies a Piper Navajo and several other aircraft for Sanborn, described aerial mapping. It is the most demanding and most challenging flying job he has ever had. Imagine flying a 23 mile ILS, making a procedure turn with no more than 5° of bank angle, and doing it again… and again… and again…. The computer draws the line he must follow and his job is to keep the plane on that line without varying altitude, heading, etc.

Though the job does take him all over the country, he has the “misfortune” of having to kill a lot of time “on location” waiting for the perfect weather. Anything more than 5% cloud cover scrubs the mission. Sun angle of less than 30° above the horizon scrubs the mission. As a result, he spends a lot of time at bike shops, hiking, and enjoying the local ambiance.

Doug brought a couple of large prints with him, one of St. Charles and St. Louis counties which more than covered a 6′ table. Imagine Google Maps blown up large and printed. (Yes, Google Maps is one of Sanborn’s customers.) He also showed off a couple of other prints, an oblique view of the Arch and an overhead view of Lambert field. Sanborn just shot a new oblique view of the Arch, using their latest camera. The computer operators were able to zoom in and read the time off the watches of visitors on the steps of the Arch! It is also fun to realize that the camera points out the belly of the plane so, to get any of these oblique views, the plane has to roll into an almost 90° bank. Go ahead and click on the image below so that you can get some idea of how much detail is in the prints Doug displayed.

Doug Allen with two typical photos by Sanborn

Virtually all of the aerial mapping these days is done with a digital “camera,” shooting through nine lenses and storing data directly to computer hard drives. By combining the views through the various lenses and the GPS data, they can “survey” heights of ground objects from the air within 2 centimeters of accuracy.

New Member

John Carrington

Please join me in welcoming John Carrington as our most recent new member. John rents planes from St. Charles Flying Service and is looking forward to participating in our monthly fly-outs.

December Meeting

The Wednesday, December 17, 2008 party/meeting will be at The Columns. Bring a dessert and a gift ($10 max) for the crazy gift exchange. If you have been to one of these parties and gift exchanges before, you will remember the non-stop hilarity. If this will be your first year, trust me, you’ll catch on to the “rules” pretty quickly. Just one hint: don’t get too attached to the gift you receive.

Phone your dinner reservations to Jean Murry at (314)469-3541.

Safety Tip

When is the last time you looked at the log books for the aircraft that you rent or own?

Upcoming Events

You can always find the latest list of upcoming MPA events on our web site at http://gatewaypilots.org/upcoming-events/.

This year, all meetings on are the third Wednesday of the month except in December. See the upcoming events page for weather minimums and times.

Gateway Pilots Web Site

Did you know that there are good things on the web site that did not make it into the newsletter? Drop by www.GatewayPilots.org.