U.S. AIR FORCE AUXILIARY

Air Operations Branch Director Course

Managing Aerial Imaging Missions

What of value do we offer?

What is the purpose of CAP aerial imaging?

Provide intelligence for decision support – Primary: Support other agencies Law enforcement organizations State and county emergency management State, county, and federal agencies – Secondary: Enhance CAP Operations Aerial photos for ground teams Potential applications: SAR, DR, HS, CD

Potential Mission Profiles

Storm Damage Assessment Wildfire Suppression Haz-Mat/Chemical Spill Incident Response Flood Mitigation Search and Rescue Counter Drug Recon Homeland Security Recon

Fundamental Questions

What is the mission?

Who needs the photo?

What

question

answer?

does the photo need to When is the photo needed?

How do we deliver it?

– Carry-down – Sat-phone (e-mail or web) – SSTV (point-to-point radio communication)

Decision Support

Providing decision support is the central theme of this training We need to answer the following questions: – What is the product we need to produce?

– How do we make it a good product?

– How do we organize ourselves to accomplish this?

Requirements of Decision Support

Area to be imaged usually small – How large is the incident?

– How large is the area of interest within the incident?

Information needed quickly – Tactical vs. Strategic timing Photos don’t need to be pretty, but do need to be clear Photos must usually be accompanied by “meta data” – i.e. descriptive text and information

CAP Photo General Characteristics

Taken out of a window looking down at an angle Taken from 1000 ft AGL Almost always a close-up – Motion limits the amount of zoom we can practically use May not have ideal lighting

Area Imaged

Dependent on… – Altitude – Focal length of lens (i.e. zoom factor) Oblique photos (i.e. not straight down) – Different scales at top of photo than at bottom – Angle affects how much difference Angle of photo Area imaged Area imaged

Area Imaged: Example

1000 ft AGL 320 mm focal length – Max zoom for Cannon EOS D with 200 mm* lens – Near max zoom for Olympus C750 Shooting picture 45 degrees down About 150 ft side to side at center of photo * 200 mm is focal length of the EOS lens when used with Cannon EOS 35 mm camera; a 1.6x conversion factor is applied to the lens’ focal length when used with a Cannon EOS digital camera.

Area Imaged: Example

The lesson here is that we will very often want to be at maximum zoom 150ft covers a fairly large area – many incidents will fit inside that frame About 150 ft side to side at center of photo

Windows

To avoid glare, avoid taking pictures through Plexiglas if at all possible – Photos are best taken through open windows (or camera portals) – Right-front seat should be normal position for photographer – Left-rear seat is an option for aircraft equipped with camera portals Cold weather, precipitation, or other factors may be reasons, however, to leave the windows closed and take the pictures though them – If picture must be taken through window, make sure window is clean

Decision support photos are not like other kinds of aerial photos

Mapping photography – Imaging large areas – Photos taken straight down with mounted cameras – Concerned with geometry of “stretching” photo onto a map – Flight executed at any ideal time, in no rush Real-estate/personal photography – Typically somewhat wide-angle – Aesthetics count

Logging / Flight Profiles

For decision support, it is vital that the images can all be interpreted in context – When the images are examined on the ground, we need to be able to identify what are we looking at

Logging / Flight Profiles

Three general approaches identified so far… – PLANNED CIRCUIT A pre-programmed collection of images Pre-identified target or targets May use a standardized “4 points survey” Well suited for repeated surveys; allows comparison of images Anticipated application: HS, SAR – LOGGED RECON When the crew needs to determine the most important images to capture Exact targets unknown in advance or moving More detailed log required Anticipated application: DR (wildfire, hazmat, etc.), HS – INTERACTIVE TASKING Real-time interaction with customer (by radio) Anticipated application: HS and other assistance to LE

Example Planned Circuit

DRAFT - HS Plan for Critical Infrastructure Survey Missions The aircraft will enter an orbit over the target. The direction of the orbit will depend on whether the airplane has a camera window or not. A camera window in the left rear seat will require a counter clockwise orbit, whereas a 172 without a camera window will require a clockwise orbit.

The airplane will enter the orbit from the north at 3,000’ AGL spaced at about 0.75 miles laterally from the target. Approximately 30-40 photos should be taken during each orbit maintaining the same lateral spacing (can you say turns around a point). This gives the high altitude, low angle shots covering the whole of the target site.

After a complete orbit, the second orbit is at the same altitude, but with a lateral spacing of 0.1-0.25 miles. This gives the high altitude, high angle shots covering the whole of the target site.

Example Planned Circuit – Cont.

DRAFT - HS Plan for Critical Infrastructure Survey Missions Descend to 2,000’ AGL widening back to about 0.75 mile lateral distance from the target. Note the time on the log.

Complete another wide orbit starting from the north followed by a tight orbit. Note the time at the start of the descent.

Descend to 1,000’ AGL and repeat the wide and tight orbits stating again from the North. Note the time at the conclusion of the tight orbit.

Continue to orbit at 1,000’ AGL and take selected close up shots of interesting elements of the target. Gradually widen the orbit to lower the angle of the shots of the target.

Three means of delivering photos from the aircraft to the ground

Carry-down Near real-time options: – SSTV – SDIS

What is SSTV – “Slow Scan TV”?

Point-to-point still-image transmission on a voice radio channel – Requires transmission and reception radio stations that are “in range” of each other – Analog encoding of picture into sounds Originally developed by HAM radio operators as a way to send images on radio channels designed for voice (i.e. with limited “bandwidth”) Old style SSTV required specialized hardware “modems” and used video cameras CAP began experimenting with this old-style SSTV in the mid 90s Modern SSTV uses ordinary computer sound cards and specialized software

What is SDIS?

Satellite Digital Imaging System – CAP NHQ’s custom software and computer hardware package for transmitting digital pictures via satellite phone – Concept: Works anywhere in the world, at any altitude – Approach: Satellite phone functions as a “modem” for the computer to connect to the Internet Satellite time is like cell phone time – we pay for it.

Minnesota Wing has an SDIS-equivalent capability that we will sometimes call “SDIS” for simplicity.

SDIS – Status in 2009

GlobalStar satellite phone service has deteriorated from past years – It worked well when we first got it – Now our phones are rarely able to get a connection Satellite components damaged by radiation Additional satellites put into service this past year helped little Software tool on web can be used by IC to predict service windows (i.e. based on satellite positions) – Service windows as predicted are often brief and actual service realized even briefer

SDIS – Into the Future

Next generation satellites scheduled for launch in 2009 CAP Negotiated no charge for GlobalStar service through October 2010 – Service (such as it is) available at no charge until then New Cessna aircraft will not have GlobalStar package installed

Types of Aerial Imaging

Visible Spectrum Digital Photos – “Carry-down” photos – Photos with near-real time delivery Point-to-Point SSTV downlink Satellite phone (SDIS) – internet web/e-mail Other imaging – “Hyper-spectral” – Infrared

Minnesota Wing Equipment

Each Minnesota Wing squadron is assigned one of the following imaging assets: – A 4 Mega Pixel Olympus Camera – A 6 Mega Pixel Cannon Camera – An Aerial Imaging Kit – An Aerial Imaging Kit with Ground Station Other Equipment in Wing – Nikon cameras – ARCHER

Minnesota Wing Equipment Acquired with State Grant Funds

10 “AI” Aerial Imaging Kits – Each kit can be used three ways SSTV Air station SSTV ground station (when combined with “ground kit”) In-flight Internet computer (when used in aircraft with satellite telephone) – Components HP Laptop computer & power supply Olympus C750 camera Tate VHF transceiver SSTV computer software Software to support use with satellite phone Water resistant hard shell case Custom SSTV interface circuit & power distribution Multi-format memory card reader

Minnesota Wing Equipment Acquired with State Grand Funds

6 SSTV “Ground Kits” – Antenna and co-ax – Tripod – Mast – Power supply 6 Cannon EOS Rebel D cameras with F4 70 200mm lens and filters – 320mm effective focal length 9 Additional Olympus C750 camera kits 1 Satellite telephone installed in C172

Special Resources Supplied by Squadrons

Automated SSTV ground receiving stations – Red Wing – Winsted

Minnesota Wing Equipment Assigned from CAP National HQ

Aircraft upgrades to support SSTV (whole fleet) – Power supplies and connectors – Dedicated antennas Nikon Coolpix cameras Sat phone in “Glass cockpit” C182 Nav III – Same sat-phone type as wing system – Came with SDIS (Satellite Digital Imaging System), NHQ’s software package Sat phone, SDIS, and ARCHER in Gippsland GA-8 aircraft

Web Resources

National HQ’s “WMIRS” system Minnesota Wing Intranet

Relevant Camera Differences

Memory size Resolution Memory write speed Focal length/zoom Aperture (ability to work in low light)

Safety

Aerial imaging for decision support usually involves a lot of circling maneuvering – Traffic avoidance is a challenge – When radar advisory service is available, aircrews should be briefed to use it Areas of interest for photography often attract other air traffic – the airspace can get very crowded and chaotic – MNICS all-risk air operations frequencies should be used – Temporary flight restrictions can sometimes be established by authorities to limit traffic to incident response agencies and media

Safety

Pilot shall never take photos (or work any other aerial imaging equipment) Computer equipment must stay in back seat Crew photographer must use camera shoulder strap to avoid dropping camera outside of aircraft

Aerial Photography Mission Base Procedures

A Quote

“The biggest problem we had with these images was that we had never dealt with this quantity or complexity of requests before. They want about 100 images, all sorted nice and neat into what direction they were taken from and of what bridge. Put that across 4 or 5 different sorties and it gets to be a mess to sort out.” - An Incident Commander after a complex aerial photography training mission

The Problem

Each aerial photo sortie generates a ton of data – images and accompanying logging info.

– Multiply that with multiple sorties, and it is easy to get swamped We need to emphasize, for these missions, timely and meaningful coordination with the customer – We need a person assigned to make sure this happens – Just sending a bunch of unlabeled photos to the customer accomplishes nothing

New ICS Position to the Rescue

“Intelligence/Investigations” Function Can be organized as… – Command staff officer – Section (with a chief) – Branch under Operations (with a director) – Unit under Planning (with a leader)

How to organize

When purpose of photography is to provide intel to another agency, but the mission is organized under a CAP IC, then the CAP intel function is best organized as an Operations Branch.

When the purpose of photography is to support other CAP operations (such as SAR), then it is best organized as a Planning Unit.

Intelligence Investigations Branch Director/Unit Leader

Indicators when needed: – For missions involving a significant amount of imaging – For missions in which we have a “customer” to whom the images should be sent Even if the airplane is e-mailing the images to the customer, because we will probably also want to deliver hi-res versions of the images later May have an assistant (and/or team) Suggestion Qualifications: A qualified AOBD or LO

IIBD/IIUL Duties

(page 1 of 2) Assist with planning & briefing aerial photo sorties Receive email (SDIS) photos from missions Coordinate with communications unit to receive SSTV images (i.e. be point of contact for SSTV ground operator) Ensure photos are logged into WIMRS Assist debriefing photo sorties – Ensuring the photo logs are usable – Downloading carry-down photos from cameras into a central repository

IIBD/IIUL Duties

(continued) Coordinate with customer – Provide timely delivery of product – Determine new priorities and requirements Coordinate with aircrews (through AOBD and communications unit) to provide in flight tasking Provide intel received to planning section Advise IC (through section chief)

Intelligence Investigations Branch Director/Unit Leader

Non-Duties – Has command of no aircrews – Not responsible for operational control of aerial photo sorties Not responsible for sortie status tracking Does not issue flight releases Does not give operational assignments, except through AOBD

Other New Staff Positions

SSTV Ground Station Operator ARCHER Ground Station Operator

SSTV Ground Operator

Reports to the Communications Unit Leader Located either at CAP mission base or customer command post Qualifications: A CAP mission radio operator, also trained in SSTV operation

SSTV Ground Operator

Reports to the Communications Unit Leader Located either at CAP mission base or customer command post Qualifications: A CAP mission radio operator, also trained in SSTV operation

ARCHER Ground Station Operator

Reports to Air Operations Branch Director (AOBD) Performs post-flight analysis of data collected by ARCHER sorties Trained and qualified ARCHER operator

Photos with Log-Data

Main points

A photo by itself is of limited value – A photo combined with descriptive information gives a more complete story – A collection of such photos, taken from different vantage points, is better yet Information about the photo is best collected as the photo is taken – Be careful, proof-read your log as you go – Mistakes are easy – You must plan ahead if you are going to match-up log entries with photos – Even better yet: Put the text on the photo if you can

Log data

Basics – Identifying information (so that photos and log can be matched up later!) – Where (location, direction of view) – When (date, time) – Interpretation (text description) Other info – Camera & Lens (resolution, zoom/focal length, etc.) – Altitude – Sortie/Aircraft ID, photographer

Approach

We’ll now review a series of photos along with their log entries Note how the log text makes it possible for us to build a more complete picture in our minds

File DSC00430 09-NOV-02 44.54.50N 094.34.25W Looking Northeast Interpretation: Runke Private Airport

File DSC00431 09-NOV-02 44.54.50N 094.34.25W Looking Northwest Interpretation: Runke Private Airport

File DSC00440 09-NOV-02 (no lat/long given) Looking Northwest

(ERROR!)

Interpretation: Hutchinson Airport

We are looking at the approach-end of runway 15 at Hutchinson (Which way is this photo really looking?)

File DSC00454 09-NOV-02 (no lat/long given) Looking Northeast Interpretation: Hwy 75 Dam, SE of Ortonville, MN

File DSC00461 09-NOV-02 (no lat/long given) Looking West Interpretation: Hwy 75 Dam, SE of Ortonville, MN

Questions?