Wonder what they were imaging...

denverpilot

denverpilot

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DenverPilot
Playing with ForeFlight this evening, and noticed this “historical” IFR clearance between KAPA and KCOS.

Says it was a turboprop at FL220.

d6dc344657623c648623b2f1b66d940a.jpg
 
Aerial survey or military contract ISR?

I’ve seen funny clearances/ routes like that before in SoCal for the Twin Otter ISR airplanes.

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Typical "mowing the lawn" pattern. Too high for most lidars so probably images. Leica, who manufactures alot of aerial imaging/lidar sensors, has a mx depot at APA.

Maybe I missed it on my phone screen but got an N#? It's a pretty small industry if I got a tail I could probably make a better guess what they're doing.
 
Todd82 said:
Maybe I missed it on my phone screen but got an N#? It's a pretty small industry if I got a tail I could probably make a better guess what they're doing.
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Nope. The ForeFlight recommended route thing doesn’t show who filed it.

Completely understand it’s the mowing the lawn thing, I just found FL220 an interestingly high altitude to do that from.

Maybe that was just an enroute getting there and then they were lower. Dunno.
 
Everskyward said:
Absolutely, in turbocharged piston twins and singles. I didn't like to see those jobs come in. I would much rather buzz around below the hills. ;)
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Interesting. That’s a really narrow sensor or lens setup to use tracks that close together from the lower Flight Levels.
 
denverpilot said:
Interesting. That’s a really narrow sensor or lens setup to use tracks that close together from the lower Flight Levels.
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Eleven tracks covering what? about fifteen miles? Two to three miles above the terrain...is that enough overlap for 3-D work? Or are they just looking for grow houses in the hills? The state used to do that at night over Park County.
 
Clark1961 said:
Eleven tracks covering what? about fifteen miles? Two to three miles above the terrain...is that enough overlap for 3-D work? Or are they just looking for grow houses in the hills? The state used to do that at night over Park County.
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The 60% overlap needed for photogrammetry is along the line. The side overlap only needs to be about 30%. It's hard to say what their AGL altitude was, but if it is 10,000', then the scale of the negative would be 1"=2000' with a 6" focal length lens (standard for photogrammetry). So a 9" wide negative would cover 18,000'. With 30% overlap, the distance between lines should be 12,600' or about 2.4 miles.
 
I think DRAKE was just flying a search pattern to snoop around KANON so he would have something to GOSIP about at the PUB before BReaKing away to KAPA.
 
Those are pretty tightly spaced lines for that altitude as was said above, almost leading me to think lidar. But that's about 8000 above the highest terrain and even higher above the majority of it, which would be awfully high for most lidars.

A Leica ADS camera for instance (since they came out of APA) would be around a 1' GSD on that AGL altitude. That's a reasonable altitude for that, but the line spacing is very tight.

All I can tell you with certainty is it wasn't my guys. :)
 
azblackbird said:
Yep, surveying/mapping mineral deposits. Wether for oil/gas or gold I couldn't speculate. There's both in that section of CO.
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What kind of geophysical stuff is at FL220 / 10k+ ft AGL? Not calling you a liar just curious as someone in the mapping industry. All the geophysical stuff I'm familiar with is flown at basically treetop level with stuff like Caravans and Twotters.
 
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