Welcome to my website
Welcome to the new look for my personal website. Here I hope to highlight some of my lesser-known interests. My "main" interest, aerial photography from remotely controlled aircraft, is documented on my "other" site, Cats Eyes' Aerial Photography. Below I describe how I got into this field. My blog page will detail some of my other interests from time to time.
Beginnings
Cover of Pink Floyd's "Animals" album
I always liked the cover of Pink Floyd's album Animals. Not only the outside cover with the Battersea Power Station, but the inside covers with the stark black & white photos of the run-down areas surrounding the power plant. As a child I remembered being fascinated with the foundation of a long-gone house that my folks and I came upon on one of our "nature walks." I wondered who had lived there, what their house was like, what their livers were like, why they left.
When I met my wife, it turned out she also had a fascination with old, decrepit and abandoned buildings. She also had an interest in railroads and architecture, interests which I also later developed.
From these beginnings we have developed a loosely associated amalgam of interests under the general headings of architecture, urban archeology and railway history. And out of that came my interest in Aerial Photography.
Aerial Photography
Photo from http://www.trainweb.org/rshs/GRS - Munnsville, NY.htm; Photo, May 6, 2000 by Jon Rothenmeyer
John Taibi is the owner of the Munns Depot, author of numerous books on railway history and an active member of railway history groups, in particular the Ontario and Western Railway Historical Society. (Munns Depot lies on the old O&W right-of-way).
During one of our "tours" of O&W country with John, we were having a hard time locating the old right-of-way due to recent development. John said something like, "If you fly over here in a small plane, which I have done, you can see quite clearly where the right-of-way went."
To the extent that I could trace the origin of my interest in aerial photography to any particular moment in time, that would probably be the moment. It became a sort of obsession, thinking of ways that I could loft a camera into the air above some specific area of interest.
I settled on radio controlled "model" aircraft for reasons that may not necessarily have had to do with technical efficiency. Full-sized aircraft were out of the question, due to the expense (I once saw a bumper sticker that read, "If God had meant us to fly, he would have given us more money"), and a residual nervousness about flying. I'd rather let my little flying robot take the risk.
I thought about blimps (tethered and radio controlled), kites and rockets. But I settled on radio-controlled aircraft. I also thought about "model" helicopters, but decided the extra complexity and learning curve were not worth the added flexibility. Perhaps some time in the future I will fly a tri- or quad-copter, but for now I am sticking with fixed-wing aircraft. As it turns out, helis are really only useful for low-altitude AP, as the pilot needs to have a clear view of the aircraft's attitude and orientation to properly control the aircraft. Over 500 ft or so, the aircraft becomes more like a moving black dot and requires that the aircraft have built-in self-stability. The newer tri- and quad-copters achieve this stability through sensors (gyros, magnetometers, accelerometers, GPS receivers) and software, which makes that possible. But of course it all costs money.
In early 2001, I bought my first "model" aircraft, the Firebird XL, essentially a toy. The box contained the airframe, all the equipment already installed, and a transmitter, for about $200. All I had to do was buy 8 AA cells and slap on a few decals. And learn to fly. Needless to say, it did more crashing than flying. Since then I have progressed thorough various aircraft, a Graupner Terry (from which I got my first aerial photos by sticking a mount on its side), couple of Slow Sticks, a Magpie, and a MagpieAP. While these were each more-or-less successful, I was frustrated by their limitations.
We AP enthusiasts are fortunate that we can piggyback on the multi-billion-dollar model aircraft business. (The term "model aircraft" is the standard term for a small radio-controlled aircraft used for recreational purposes, but is somewhat misleading. The airframe does not necessarily have to be a "model" of anything.) However, commercial airframes are designed to be interesting to fly for the hobbyist, and do not necessarily lend themselves well to AP. In general, what makes a good "trainer" aircraft also makes a good AP platform, but there are a few caveats. Adding a camera obviously adds weight, so the airframe has to be able to accommodate the payload. The aircraft is also designed to be flown "as-is", so, in order not to upset the balance of the aircraft, the camera has to be placed at the centre of gravity (CG), which is not always convenient.
At this point I decided to do a scratch build, based on a design published on RCGroups, of an aircraft which the designer called the "Shot Getter." This turned out quite well, but it is a large airframe and it really cannot be hand-launched, which was what I wanted. So I ended up designing and building my own airframe, which I dubbed the Cat's Eye 1. It has been successful well beyond my expectations, and is still flying and taking pictures after several years.
I am now working on the Cat's Eye 2, which will be somewhat larger, have a more flexible camera mount, and a video downlink. More information on this and other aspects of my AP adventures can be found on my CatsEyes' Aerial Photography website.
This plane I suspect will prove to be a challenge in operations. While I was essentially "shooting blind" with the Cat's Eye 1, the Cat's Eye 2 will have a video downlink, which I can use to line up shots (essentially a "high-tech viewfinder"). I can also, theoretically, use the downlink to actually pilot the plane. It remains to be seen whether this will prove practical.
The future
I have several ideas on where to go in the future. All my aircraft to date have been piloted by a pilot on the ground. In future I hope to include some kind of autonomous flight capability. In the basic configuration, a pilot would still do takeoffs and landings, then switch to autonomous mode to fly a series of waypoints using a GPS receiver. This should allow me to obtain photos of areas that are not directly accessible by line-of-sight.
In addition to fixed-wing aircraft, I also plan to investigate the use of rotary-wing aircraft. I have some familiarity with the Microdrone md4-200, a quad-copter with a fairly sophisticated control system. While the cost of this platform is beyond me, many DIY kits and plans exist for a reasonable price with somewhat less sophisticated control systems. I have been diligently learning to fly helis in the FMS flight simulator in anticipation of obtaining some kind of rotary-wing aircraft in the future.