A Civil Air Support (CAS) aircraft recently assisted the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service by aerial photo mapping the aftermath of a huge wildfire in the Highlands of Scotland. The crew involved tried something new for us – the systematic pattern photography of a vast area of ground with subtle overlap. Technically, the hundreds of high-definition images could be stitched together to provide a vast super-detailed image of the entire incident site. The aircraft moved from west to east taking a total of 19 sweeps to cover the entire area with all photographs orientated north.
It is hoped that this technique can be employed for similar large area surveys. The techniques, effort and concentration involved to get this one right were considerable.