High Sierra Topix

Photos:
http://community.webshots.com/album/532559384tMxGYt

got some video too, but have to figure out how to post it.

Drove to Death Valley with Calhiker and spent the first day (of 3) at Eureka Sand Dunes. As we were eating lunch, an F-18 flew right over us and then up, down and away. It was so cool! (and loud!) We hiked the dunes and they flew by 5-6 more times.

About 7-8 years ago we were below the ghost town Masonic. (East of Bridgeport). An F 16 flew by quite low, we had to hold our ears from the noise. About 20 minutes later, here he comes again! Much lower and closer! We were waving at the pilot, he was waving back, and we could see him laughing! He could tell our eardrums were splitting. It was pretty cool!

It's a thrill to see those fly overhead, even when one is searching only for a bit of solitude! A few years ago I was in the Panamint Range, trying to get a difficult shot framed right, and a slim T38 (?) blasted overhead, quickly followed by an F16! The trainer banked north HARD across the horizon, and the F16 shot straigh up, banking back in pursuit of the trainer! Both were gone in seconds, but it was quite thrilling!

Several years ago, within a week or so or Iraq invading Kuwait, we were out in the Buffalo Hills of NW Nevada. We saw flight after flight of tight formation F-111s (presumably out of Mountain Home AFB, Idaho) doing low level runs across the Nevada desert. Daytime flights were so low the jets would occasionally stir up dust from the ground. Nighttime flights were a bit higher.

I have seen that training route used before, but never that low nor that frequent. Since the invasion was all over the news at that time there was no doubt in my mind why the increase.

Shortly thereafter GPS units started going awry, after the selective availability was enacted. It was pretty obvious military operations were being planned.

dave54 wrote:Shortly thereafter GPS units started going awry, after the selective availability was enacted.

Same thing happened to us when we were acquiring remote sensing type aerial imagery at that time. The worst, of course, was near LNAS. We'd lose signal all together at times; and the rest of the time our waypoints were off by quite a bit. Sure made georeferencing a bare...

Not an easy thing to explain to our clients that we weren't able to get their images. And the lack of warning from the military (although, understandable in hindsight) made us look even dumber for not knowing what the heck was going on.

ERIC

Did you create your own diff correction files or did you use a CBS file?

We started making our own by leaving a second unit at a known survey point to collect data while we were out working, but after a while realized we were not gaining anything over using a regular base station. So we just diff corrected every day from a CBS.

We simply used old DOQQ's of the general area to find our points. Then referenced them to the newly acquired imagery. Not as accurate as ground-based shapefiles, but it did the trick. Our imagery sensors have the ability to acquire regardless of the accuracy of the GPS receiver onboard the plane. We have general (dirty) shapefiles of all target areas in advance. We were able to acquire the imagery and reference based on known ground features and previously acquired shapefiles of the target areas. More work than we are used to dealing with, but got the job done...

SST maks a good product. You should check them out if you haven't already: http://www.sst.com/ They make a dumbed-down version of ESRI's software lines targeted at agriculture. Not that you are interested in that sort of stuff, but it's a cool software none-the-less. Here's ESRI's site, also: http://www.esri.com/

SN looks like you two had a fun day climbing those sandy dunes! Oh it looks so nice and warm there..but im sure it was not. Super Cool picture you got of Calhiker..the alien one, such a neat looking picture..really different and so unique I think.
Eureka dunes is really beautiful...I need to get there one of these days. Thank you for sharing

admin wrote:... Not that you are interested in that sort of stuff, but it's a cool software none-the-less... /

LOL!!

Not any more. I retired as a GIS analyst and did a 180 degree career shift. Haven't touched an ESRI product in over a year. Now I am a county bureaucrat for Health and Human Services and have no contact with GIS data.

dave54 wrote:Now I am a county bureaucrat for Health and Human Services and have no contact with GIS data.

Too bad..!! It's fun stuff, and the amount of new technology coming out every year is crazy. If you're ever interested in attending the CalGIS conference with me one of these years just for kicks and giggles, let me know!