Timeline for Why don't commercial airplanes carry Earth-observing instruments?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
40 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Dec 4, 2018 at 2:50 | history | protected | kevin | ||
| Dec 3, 2018 at 21:48 | answer | added | mike | timeline score: 3 | |
| Dec 3, 2018 at 13:10 | answer | added | mongo | timeline score: 3 | |
| Dec 2, 2018 at 4:09 | answer | added | user35826 | timeline score: 2 | |
| Dec 1, 2018 at 21:47 | answer | added | Art Wesman II | timeline score: 2 | |
| Dec 1, 2018 at 13:21 | comment | added | Kai | One thing to note about the OP's situation: Although many planes may fly over the same area regularly where the OP wants to have aerial observations, there is no guarantee that those are the same physical aircraft flying over each time. | |
| Dec 1, 2018 at 8:18 | comment | added | Ed Randall | "commercial" flights are not solely "passenger", it could mean "cargo" aircraft which may be easier to arrange. | |
| Dec 1, 2018 at 1:44 | history | edited | Camilo Rada | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| S Nov 30, 2018 at 22:36 | history | suggested | psmears | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Nov 30, 2018 at 21:20 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Nov 30, 2018 at 22:36 | |||||
| Nov 30, 2018 at 19:48 | answer | added | Philip Tinney | timeline score: 1 | |
| Nov 30, 2018 at 18:58 | answer | added | juhist | timeline score: 1 | |
| Nov 30, 2018 at 17:14 | answer | added | Jan Mattsson | timeline score: 4 | |
| Nov 30, 2018 at 14:55 | answer | added | Kapten-N | timeline score: 5 | |
| Nov 30, 2018 at 8:56 | comment | added | Martin Bonner supports Monica | If you put the instruments on the belly of the plane, that is going to affect the aerodynamics. You will have to pay for the additional fuel, and I wonder how it will affect the certification. | |
| Nov 30, 2018 at 0:56 | answer | added | Level River St | timeline score: 16 | |
| S Nov 29, 2018 at 21:20 | history | suggested | user33375 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
minor grammar edit
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| Nov 29, 2018 at 20:01 | comment | added | mbrig | @CamiloRada there are already dedicated companies that do such things. Most high resolution images on google earth are in fact from small planes and not satellites. Oil companies frequently contract such people for photography/lidar of interesting regions. Probably airline companies are not that interested in competing in a new industry all of the sudden. | |
| Nov 29, 2018 at 19:26 | comment | added | Camilo Rada | @MartinBonner The instruments would need to be mounted on the belly of the plane. It won't be supper easy tu put them there, but much easier than putting them in orbit. There are many dedicated planes for surveying, and they do have instruments poking out of the bottom of the plane. | |
| Nov 29, 2018 at 19:23 | comment | added | Camilo Rada | @aCVn Thanks for your comments. And Martin Bonner is totally right about my point. Frequent overflight would just increase the chances that some imagery is captured during the brief spells of good weather and clear skies. | |
| Nov 29, 2018 at 18:54 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Nov 29, 2018 at 21:20 | |||||
| Nov 29, 2018 at 18:48 | answer | added | Jim Horn | timeline score: 3 | |
| Nov 29, 2018 at 16:46 | comment | added | Mefitico | Not an unsurmontable issue, there are places such as the Embraer R-99 which carry an EO instrument, and at least could fly some passengers and land on commercial airports. If memory serves me right, this is a military plane, whose radar cost more than the rest of it altogether. It would be really messy from a business point of view to secure the funds/demand to justify the case for acquiring one such model. | |
| Nov 29, 2018 at 16:22 | answer | added | Smewhen | timeline score: 7 | |
| Nov 29, 2018 at 15:37 | comment | added | J... | Operating a commercial service while also carrying equipment serving an intelligence gathering or espionage role would certainly introduce legal complications. Many destination countries would not generally be happy about foreign carriers spying on their country. | |
| Nov 29, 2018 at 15:21 | answer | added | Dan | timeline score: 61 | |
| Nov 29, 2018 at 15:12 | answer | added | NetworkLlama | timeline score: 21 | |
| Nov 29, 2018 at 14:23 | comment | added | quiet flyer | They probably already do carry such instruments, to help the pilots know when to to turn on the chemtrail generators. Of course everyone in the aviation industry is sworn to secrecy and will deny this. | |
| Nov 29, 2018 at 13:52 | answer | added | mins | timeline score: 19 | |
| Nov 29, 2018 at 13:39 | comment | added | Martin Bonner supports Monica | @aCVn "persistent cloud cover" - the OP may just be hoping that with enough overflights he gets more chances of usable data. | |
| Nov 29, 2018 at 13:38 | comment | added | Martin Bonner supports Monica | How would your instruments look at the ground? All the windows look sideways, and passengers want to look out of them anyway. | |
| Nov 29, 2018 at 12:00 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackAviation/status/1068112343408758784 | ||
| Nov 29, 2018 at 10:07 | comment | added | user | @Adwaenyth Sure, I'm not saying it's a trivial undertaking; I'm just saying that you can't say that since there's a cost to doing it by cooperation with airlines, that doing it by satellite monitoring is necessarily cheaper. There's a different set of costs, which may total up to doing it by aircraft costing more or less than doing it by satellite (but a more detailed analysis would be needed to know which). | |
| Nov 29, 2018 at 9:54 | answer | added | Florian | timeline score: 76 | |
| Nov 29, 2018 at 9:25 | comment | added | Adwaenyth | @aCVn well you'd have to compare the costs for building, launching and operating a satellite covering most of the earth surface to having a myriad of contracts with different airlines collecting, storing, managing and unifying the data for a rather limited surface area. It's not only the cost for the satellite itself but also for the total overhead if you have such a widespread system. It's not like pressing a single button and having all the data in one system for analysis. At airlines it probably affects the daily routine of thousands of people and that costs a lot of money. | |
| Nov 29, 2018 at 9:03 | comment | added | user | "persistent cloud cover" ... "instrumentation on the planes that overflight the icefields" This isn't an answer, but it's an issue you definitely would want to consider: Commercial airplanes typically fly above the clouds. So if there's a cloud cover, and you are working in the visual part of the spectrum, you are unlikely to get much better data from airplane-mounted equipment than from equipment in Earth orbit. (Though when conditions are favorable, you might be able to get higher resolution.) | |
| Nov 29, 2018 at 9:01 | comment | added | user | @Adwaenyth Well, the same entity that would otherwise have sent up a satellite could presumably pay the airline for the extra expense from the money saved by not having to launch and operate a satellite. So that particular downside could presumably be offset pretty easily, if the will to do so is there. (Satellites are not cheap.) | |
| Nov 29, 2018 at 8:40 | comment | added | Adwaenyth | I doubt the "no additional cost" thing. A system for ground observation has to be integrated into and powered by the plane's systems. Thus it is a maintenance relevant - and might even be flight security relevant - component (it has to be installed on the plane with a direct line of sight to the ground) that does induce extra cost for no benefit for the airline. | |
| Nov 29, 2018 at 8:35 | history | edited | kevin | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Nov 29, 2018 at 8:26 | history | asked | Camilo Rada | CC BY-SA 4.0 |