How many hours per engine? What camera are you using now?

Very cool stuff, Glenn. Yes, more info like Steve C asked for would make this whole thread worth it. You're work/business is fascinating.

Very cool indeed!

APM telescopes photo of 510mm (20") APO triplet lens made by LZOS.
A little about LZOS if you are so inclined to read.
https://www.professional-telescopes.com/Product-Line/Apochromates/LZOS-Company

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1617895644.jpg

Can't imagine what this one would cost.

The engines have to be replaced after a certain number of hours as determined by the manufacturer, or sooner if the certified mechanic says it has an issue. It can be rebuilt, but that takes months, and we always had a rebuilt by the manufacturer engine on the shelf waiting for the old one to time out, or have an issue.

We did careful maintenance and never ran the engine hard. The 206 was a 1967 model that was only 17 grand brand new. It has over 14,000 hours on the airframe. It was just a work truck to us, and it was not pretty, very faded paint and interior. But mechanically 100% sound. It was owned by the company where I worked.
That company closed and my business partner and I started from scratch and can do better work in less time with more profit with digital.


http://www.aerialviewpoint.com/mapping_cameras.htmo

This is a web site that some other aerial company has. We have nothing to do with them, they just have a good description of the RC-30. NASA still uses them. We went to a digital sensor years ago. Far cheaper, and lots easier and faster to get imagery to the client.

We have a Cessna 2004 182T now with the Garman 1000 panel.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1617900198.jpg

This is our current airplane.


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That was all done with vertical photography, and we make 3D model that can be rotated, or looked at from any angle. We do regular vertical photography of course as the main part of our business.

I would think these days you just use a drone?

Drones are fine for small areas. Lots of our customers are drone companies that get a client that want 5 square miles flown and their eyes bug out and they realize it will take 300 batteries and a few weeks for them to fly it. We can do that in an hour.

We recently flew several different intersections and overpasses on one road that was 300 miles long. Easy for an airplane. Drones or UAVs certainly have a place, but aerials from an aircraft are here to stay.

Most of our projects are for engineering companies or surveyors. They put down targets and provide a precise coordinates for each target. We fly over, and tell the computer that spot on the ground is precisely X, Y and Z position on the Earth and the surveyor is accurate to sub millimeter accuracy. That ties our imagery to the Earth, and with the 3D data we can provide contours over areas full of ravines, chiggers, mosquitoes, rattlesnakes and mean cattle and the surveyor only has to get to a few points to place the targets. We can do in 30 minutes what he would spend weeks on the ground to do. We sell him the data, and he checks the accuracy and puts his stamp on it.

Most drones have a camera the size of a tennis ball or even a golf ball. They are not very accurate. Fine for pretty pictures, but no real accuracy.

It was a Cessna 206 that was ordered new with a 24 inch hole in the floor. The camera mount had gyros to help keep it level and pointing down at all times.

That 206 wore out 14 engines and is very high time airframe.

You need a drone!
https://www.sandboxx.us/wp-content/u...s-1000x558.jpg

Those are a bit pricy, and I think only the military gets to have them. Our 182 is a lot cheaper.

I have an old Jason style Telescope, it worked ok, or maybe I didnt know how to correctly operate it. I found the moon easy enough..

Glen. thats really amazing imagery ... had no idea that aerial surveying could be so exact over so long a distance. very cool

We often fly projects with a 2 or 3 inch pixel resolution. So objects that are a few inches across are identified.