2005-04-18 15:44:16.549116+00 by Dan Lyke 17 comments
MarkV pointed out a pair of Blackbirds parked on the ramp at Edwards AFB. A quick search brought up one of 'em parked a few hangars down. And, while we continue to publish porn of a certain sort, I can't tell if I'm looking at the top of Half Dome (I don't recognize the "diving board" or a few other features, but that's about where it should be), although it looks like Half Dome in the lower res Google version.
[ related topics: Aviation Maps and Mapping Yosemite ]
comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):
#Comment Re: made: 2005-04-18 17:00:05.240901+00 by: Mars Saxman
No, it's not Half Dome; that's bigger, and a couple of miles further up the valley. I'm not completely sure what the item you linked to actually is, but I think it's part of the wall behind Bridalveil; maybe the Three Brothers, though it doesn't look much like them from above.
#Comment Re: made: 2005-04-18 17:34:18.14391+00 by: Dan Lyke
You're right. Dang, too bad there's no contrast on Half Dome, can't see anything on that.
On the aviation theme: A B2 (coordinates taken from the Airplanes category at WorldWind Central.
If you're hunting for cool aircrat, note that you can look at airplanes on the ramp at China Lake, see what's parked on the flight line at Holloman AFB at White Sands (Don't see anything at this huge but with no accompanying buildings runway system to the northwest) and the Trinity nuclear test site is rather dull, but, oddly, Groom Lake has a lot of missing imagery. Go figure.
#Comment Re: made: 2005-04-18 18:16:33.650754+00 by: petronius
Imagine how long it took them to put up those 15 KM square White tarps over eveything at Groom Lake......
In WW2 the Brits had inflatable tanks and trucks that they would set up for the German Recon runs, to fool the Krauts into thinking D-Day was aimed at the Pas de Calais instead of Normandy. In future operations, will the military be dragging rubber B2's and Apaches around to fool Yahoo?
#Comment Re: made: 2005-04-18 18:42:12.197798+00 by: Jerry Halstead [edit history]
Mojave has quite a few planes to choose from. The upper right here looks like the young planes are feeding on an old one: Mojave, Scaled Composites
#Comment Re: made: 2005-04-18 18:48:23.091785+00 by: Larry Burton
Want to see some planes? Check out this.
#Comment Re: made: 2005-04-18 21:38:44.570847+00 by: meuon
Those aren't really SR71 Habu/Blackbirds. [FNORD] They are SR71 shaped shade structures for the UFO parked underneath them. [/FNORD]
I grew up knowing them as Habu, also the name of the native nasty pit viper of Okinawa where as a child living off of Kadena AFB, we watched them take off and land from recon runs over Vietnam, China and elsewhere. When I moved to Kansas in '68, other kids called me a liar for my descriptions of what was I was sure was a rocket ship taking off straight up into the air..
Although ancient.. and officially stopped flying in 2001 according to SR-71.org, would anyone really be suprised to find out we were using them again? Or something that looks like them?
And just so we thrash the search engines well... what about: Aurora and Pumpkin Seed (TR3A?) - Any pics of them found yet?
#Comment Re: made: 2005-04-18 22:14:11.226456+00 by: Dan Lyke
My dad pinpointed at least one of these image sets from circa 15 years ago (by looking at construction in a subdivision he was familiar with), so even though it's what they want you to think, those SR-71s (or are they YF-12s?) could be from well back in the '90s.
#Comment Re: made: 2005-04-19 00:52:45.597509+00 by: meuon
The pics on maps.google.com of my house are clearly from last summer.. My house has no deck, they are still filling in a field that is now all fresh grass. Looking at missing/new buildings by 745 East Main on Central, also recent (2004/2005) pics.
Wish we could pick 'historical imagery' THAT would be so neat, watch an area develop or decompose.
#Comment Re: made: 2005-04-19 12:51:34.096306+00 by: ebradway
The imagery on maps.google.com for Chattanooga, at least, is part of the USGS seamless imagery available as part of the National Map. There is more info here and you can download more data here. I have all the georeferenced TIFFs - all 80GB of them that cover about 1/2 of Chattanooga.
#Comment Re: made: 2005-04-19 15:00:43.756858+00 by: Pete [edit history]
For my street, Globexplorer has imagery with much better resolution than Google. At Globexplorer I can tell which car was parked in front of the other in my driveway, once I nudge the image around enough to avoid the seriously overdone watermarks. I'd say they're getting down to a resolution in the the 6" range or better. Unfortunately, as dramatically as Globexplorer's imagery outstrips Google's is how far Google's interface outstrips Globexplorer's.
#Comment Re: made: 2005-04-19 15:24:30.240871+00 by: Dan Lyke
Hmmm... Yeah, great imagery for some places (like my current residence, if I can convince myself that that's my neighborhood under those watermarks), but worse than Terraserver's 1m/pixel for others.
#Comment Re: made: 2005-04-19 19:00:18.771211+00 by: ebradway
You can get a map of GlobeExplorer's coverage. I'm beginning to really dislike the total lack of metadata on these sites. If you are going to present imagery of any kind, there should be some reference as to what that imagery is. The resolution, the capture date, frequencies, etc. Otherwise, it's all just gee-whiz tech.
Haha!!! I just compared this map of GlobeExplorer's US Imagery to the the Hi-Res Color Orthos on the National Map. If you look closely at the yellow blocks on GlobeExplorer's map, you'll see a 1 to 1 correspondence to the USGS imagery. What GlobeExplorer is selling is exactly the same imagery you can get for free from the USGS.
#Comment Re: made: 2005-04-20 13:25:49.36972+00 by: ziffle
The locations I am intrested in do not offer decent resolution.
This is very helpful http://www.chattanooga.gov/General_Government/62_124.htm as it allows you to lookup real estate and see the buildings easily. By clicking around on info mode you can see what people paid for the properties and when.
#Comment Re: made: 2005-04-20 14:12:51.574401+00 by: ebradway
The same is available through the Hamilton County GIS website. Click on MapMaker to pull up there ArcIMS interface. The City of Chattanooga is actually running a subset of the Hamilton County data on the same system. The county is planning a new flyover for aerial imagery. I'm not sure of the dates yet.
#Comment Re: made: 2005-04-20 20:33:14.509228+00 by: meuon
I'm thinking it time for some landscaping that would be really really interesting from an overhead perspective.
#Comment Re: made: 2005-04-20 23:01:51.910045+00 by: Dan Lyke
There's a story around these parts about someone up on the Russian river who got wind of when the appraiser's fly-over was. For two or three years straight they rolled out a painting that looked like a swimming pool, every year they'd get a knock on the door wondering about unlicensed improvements to the home, until one year finally they didn't. Next year they put in the swimming pool...
#Comment Re: made: 2005-04-21 12:15:12.278692+00 by: ebradway
Hamilton County doesn't use the aerials for appraisal or building ordinance enforcement. That's all done via political channels here. The aerial imagery is use to help maintain GIS inventories of the infrastructure. It's more planning tool than enforcement. Also note that aerial imagery is not used in lieu of a licensed survey. Even though aerial imagery can be as accurate as a survey, what you pay for is the liability guarantee that the surveyors' license carries.