RC&A Flies San Francisco International Airport, CA: November 2003

San Francisco International Airport, located along the San Francisco Bay, is one of our nation’s busiest airports. When it came time for the runways to undergo rehabilitation, Towill, Inc., located in San Francisco, was sought for their digital photogrammetric services.

Towill has been a leading provider of geomatics services and technologies since 1955. Their capabilities include land surveying, digital photogrammetric mapping, and geographic information systems to name a few.

In order to obtain large-scale imagery at a low altitude a helicopter was necessary in order to accommodate the mapping requirements set forth by the airport. Richard Crouse & Associates Inc., located in Frederick, Maryland, was put to the task. RC&A has owned and operated their Bell JetRanger helicopter equipped with a Leica RC-30 camera since 1995. Their set-up is unique in that the camera is internally mounted in the aircraft thus rendering the camera unexposed to outside elements and enabling it to be more accurately operated.

Towill scanned the black and white negatives taken by RC&A at a high resolution in order to extract the greatest amount of detail out of the image and achieve the highest level of accuracy out of their measurements. Softcopy stereoplotters were then used to measure the pavement and identify the areas that needed the most work.

The use of aerial photography and photogrammetry are finding increased applications in our ever changing and evolving world. As structures continue to age there will be an increased use for this technology for rehabilitation processes not only on airport runways but for endless other applications as well.

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RC&A Imagery used for Environmental Monitoring of Lake Okeechobee: May 2003

Lake Okeechobee is the second largest landlocked freshwater lake in the United States. It is positioned in the Florida everglades, which is one of the most fragile and important ecosystems in the world due to the diverse species of plants and wildlife that live there. The Everglades ecological system is endangered, however, due to the adverse changes in water quality, brought about by changes in the quantity and distribution of water flows. This has necessitated the need to restore and protect it.

Because the Everglades area is so vulnerable the South Florida Water Management District was put into effect. SFWMD’s responsibilities include water quality protection, water supply, regional flood control, as well as ecosystem restoration. They closely monitor changes in the environment and the effects of agriculture and development. One method of obtaining information about the environment is by analyzing color infrared aerial imagery. By using infrared the viewer can see things that the human eye cannot detect on its own. In this case, the overall health and growth of vegetation can be deciphered using these images. SFWMD’s responsibilities include water quality protection, water supply, regional flood control, as well as ecosystem restoration. They closely monitor changes in the environment and the effects of agriculture and development.

Spectrum Mapping, LLC of Florida was chosen to map the area surrounding Lake Okeechobee for the SFWMD, with RC&A as the aerial subcontractor. Using a RC-30 and flight crew from our Spartanburg office, we flew 12 lines and 224 exposures to complete the project.