What do we think this chap was doing during the night?
Discussion
Once I'm awake I'm awake (years of running a business I guess) and of course like any other plane sado I tend to have a glance at flight radar during the night to see what's around.
So at 4am when I looked, this chap had been flying around nearby clearly in an organised fashion for some time.....
Your guess is as good as mine, perhaps he was looking for squirrels
So at 4am when I looked, this chap had been flying around nearby clearly in an organised fashion for some time.....
Your guess is as good as mine, perhaps he was looking for squirrels
Well looking who own the plane...
http://www.rvl-group.com/about-us/
nice regular pattern - some kind of survey but in the dark so radar, IR or something - looking for pot farms, the mind boggles...
S.
http://www.rvl-group.com/about-us/
nice regular pattern - some kind of survey but in the dark so radar, IR or something - looking for pot farms, the mind boggles...
S.
I'm going to guess at Laser Mapping. The Aircraft in question (according to the image on their website) is liveried in Ordinance Survey colours. My theory is that laser scanning doesn't require daylight, and they are taking advantage of quiet airspace in and around London at that time.
It was probably a less eventful night out for that aircraft than this one was:
http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources.cfm?file=/Ces...
http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources.cfm?file=/Ces...
Crumpet said:
Yep, aerial survey. I used to have hours of fun doing it! As mentioned above it will probably be Lidar, although at one point the company I worked for had a thermal imaging camera, so that could be an option.
It was like mowing a lawn in the sky!
Who were you with Crumpet? I used to specialise in aerial thermographic surveys (Using the venerable but lovely IR189400) and had many fun hours in the back of Queenairs, Aztecs & Aerocommanders.It was like mowing a lawn in the sky!
As others have said, that's a tpical aerial survey racetrack pattern. We used to fly at 2000ft agl, tracks seperated by 300M iirc. I've even been mistaken for a UFO!
Done at night time for ease of access and in the case of thermal, to avoid solar gain.
Loved my time doing that sort of work but sold my kit off to a German outfit as I was being split in too many directions.
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