Edge of the Playa

Drainages and erosion in the desert often produce unique patterns best appreciated from the air. The larger patterns are frequently found along arroyos where their intricate design is a function of water flow and soil composition, but interesting patterns also emerge around the edges of playas. The playas are the lowest areas in these enclosed drainage basins and where the dip is the shallowest. One would not expect unusual patterns where the water flow rate is the lowest but contrary to this expectation a myriad of branched patterns exist along the edge of this water filled playa. Resembling capillary beds these small drainage features can be found all around the edge of the playa and are best visualized in a water filled playa.






Click each photograph to enlarge and open in a new window.

Canyon Running in the Philippines

Below is a video shot in Bukidnon. Carlito Frias shot this video from a weight shift control aircraft in the steep canyons of this province in the Philippines. It captures the beauty of these deeply eroded canyons as well as the surrounding countryside.

THE GREEN CANYONS OF BUKIDNON from Carlito frias on Vimeo.

The Monsoons are Over

The monsoons season was late this year. It traditionally begins on July 4th but this year was late. There were periods of rain and the playas of the bootheel filled. Below is a low level aerial photograph of the playa in Playas Valley filled with monsoon runoff.


Click to enlarge

Transition

We've moved! Kinda.
The Sky Gypsies blog will now be created 1 mile east (as the WSC aircraft flies and 3 miles by road) from it's former location at the Sky Gypsies complex in Amigos del Cielo Airpark 5 miles north of Rodeo New Mexico. The posts, aerial photography, artwork, and videos will now be produced at the Painted Pony Resort just east of the airpark. Operating out of a 2200 ft airstrip on the 80 acre resort, the Sky Gypsies blog will continue to create funny videos and bring unique aerial views of the high desert landscape from New Mexico's bootheel.


Click photo to enlarge

Bootheel Photodocumentation Project in Google Earth: Recent Submissions

As mentioned in earlier posts, a number of the low level aerial photographs taken from weight shift control aircraft have been submitted to Google Earth for inclusion on the map. Below is an interactive Google Earth map with many of the photographs from the project.

The Bootheel Photo Documentation Project, First Volume

The first volume of low level aerial images from the bootheel has been submitted and a proof copy should arrive early next month. Below is the cover of the first volume, a 40 page compilation of aerial panoramas, intermediate view shots, and close up views of the landscape and drainage features found in the high desert of bootheel of southern New Mexico. Plans are underway for additional volumes each with the same format.

Bootheel Photodocumentation Project: Update

One hundred and ten of the photographs submitted to Google Earth have now been accepted for placement on the map, a better than 95% acceptance rate. Covering the San Simon and San Bernardino Valleys, Animas Valley, and parts of Hachita Valley these low level aerial photographs capture some of the uniqueness of this sparsely populated area of the country. A great deal of air time has been spent and thousands of photographs taken to convey some of the emotions evoked by this part of the country. Flying around the bootheel is a unique experience.

In the process of documenting the bootheel a number of techniques have been used, not all of which lend themselves to viewing in Google Earth. Large panorama photographs, tiltshift modified photos, and photosynths have all been created. Each technique is a slightly different way of "seeing", and each brings something unique to the subject photographed.


Maps with photographs from the Bootheel Photodocumentation Project currently include:
Google Earth
Flickr
bing maps



I still hold a fascination for erosion features (rills) found across the bootheel. The summer monsoons can generate a lot of water in a short period of time and the patterns the water creates on the desert surface can only be appreciated from the air.

Aerotrekking and Canyon Running in Norway

Weight shift control light sport aircraft are ideal for many types of aviation, the nimble control and excellent climb rates found in many aircraft make them useful for close in and low level work including aerotrekking. When flying in an open cockpit aircraft the pilot has an unparalleled view of their surroundings and many pilots capture this on video. Here is a video from Frode Leikvoll who has been recording flights in the fjords and mountains around his native Norway. The pilot has been able to capture the close in views of ridge lines and low level flying around the mountains in way few are able to do.

Who's in Charge?

Finest Quality Airship Ballast from deviantART

The PIC has the final word, everything else is just baggage.

Google versus Life

Click on the photograph to enlarge and open in a new window.

Presented on the left is an aerial image made in the pass between the Little and Big Hatchet Mountains on the east side of the bootheel in New Mexico about 12 miles west of the Mexican border as part of the bootheel photodocumentation project. On the right is the corresponding view from Google Earth. Note the similarities in the outlines around the different peaks but increased detail visible in the aerial photograph. While satellite imagery and the algorithms that allow the viewer to pan down from an overhead satellite image are very good, putting an aircraft in the same position in space and capturing an image increases the detail and information available to the viewer.

High Altitude or Low Altitude Aerial Images? Or the Big Picture versus the Little Picture

At the bottom of this page is a slideshow "Desert Drainages" containing images of various erosion and drainage features, rills, found around the bootheel of New Mexico that have been photographed from an open cockpit weight shift control light sport aircraft at very low altitudes, anywhere from about 20 feet (low pass) to 200 feet. These features have have a number of things in common but he most important commonality is the lack of discernible scale to help the viewer interpret the size of individual features in the photograph. These images are primarily oblique view low level aerial photographs, as opposed to ground based horizontal views, and the lack of scale and camera angle leads to confusion as the brain tries to fit the image into a known category.

Since the start of the space age in 1957 the public has been fascinated by views of the earth from above and NASA has complied with the publication of satellite imagery, first as black and white images and now as false color images. The USGS maintains a website that is devoted to displaying Landsat-7 images of the earth. The Earth as Art has a number of satellite images which are in and of themselves are art.

Compare the following image pairs, in the 4 sets the first image is a landsat-7 or space station image taken from orbit and the second image is a low level aerial photograph taken from less than 200 feet AGL. Note the lack of scale in the low level aerial image creates the impression the low level images were taken from high altitude. Without suitable references the brain interprets the images placing them in a familiar category, namely high altitude images. Fifty feet or 150 miles it's all the same, it's turtles all the way down.



DesolationCanyon


Low level aerial photograph View On Black



Guinea-Bissau



Low level aerial image



West Fjords, Iceland


Low level aerial image



Seoul, South Korea



Cities from Space, a low level aerial image