The International Cessna^® 170 Association

Joe Moilanen wrote:All I know is that my 170 is the best investment I've ever made. I bought it over 20 years ago for $17,300 (everybody told me I paid too much). It has been a "no surprises" airplane, other than the typical maintenance costs, one top overhaul with new Millinium jugs, it has been trouble free. The 25 year old paint job even looks as good as the day I bought it. The BEST thing I ever did to it was install the optional factory camera port kit (came out of George's plane, thanks George ). The plane has paid for itself countless times. I remember doing one job with it in Roseville, CA that paid the entire purchase price in 1.2 hours of flying. How much better does it get than that!! I wish all my investments worked as well!!

Joe
4518C

How did you use the camera port? I have one and have never used it?

Here are the pics Joe sent me of his camera-port installation:

Thank George! I had forgot that I had sent them to you.

Joe

I do vertical aerial photography with it. Survey type stuff, photos and thermal imaging.

Joe

N9062A wrote:

Joe Moilanen wrote:All I know is that my 170 is the best investment I've ever made. I bought it over 20 years ago for $17,300 (everybody told me I paid too much). It has been a "no surprises" airplane, other than the typical maintenance costs, one top overhaul with new Millinium jugs, it has been trouble free. The 25 year old paint job even looks as good as the day I bought it. The BEST thing I ever did to it was install the optional factory camera port kit (came out of George's plane, thanks George ). The plane has paid for itself countless times. I remember doing one job with it in Roseville, CA that paid the entire purchase price in 1.2 hours of flying. How much better does it get than that!! I wish all my investments worked as well!!

Joe
4518C

How did you use the camera port? I have one and have never used it?

Hey Joe the pictures of the camera ports are nice but hard to imagine how they are actually used. Would you mind posting some pictures with the camera equipment in place and maybe a short blurb how you go about the process of taking photos.

Do you have an assistant in the aircraft framing the shot or do you fly and do that as well? Is the camera focused on infinity and it has a motor drive and you basically make a run at the subject and hope you get a usable frame? Do you do the developing and printing as well? How did you get started? Where you in this type of business before using your airplane?

Not trying to pry trade secrets here. I think lots of folks would find this interesting.

That would be a good article for the 170 News in the "how I use my 170" catagory.

WOW!!! We just had an earthquake in Alaska! Probably about a magnitude 3 but it shook the house pretty good. I could hear it coming, sounded like the heavy jets that are climbing out from Anchorage International over my house but louder. Then the shocks hit and we got about 3 good shakes side-to-side in about 3 seconds. It's been awhile since I felt one that distinctive. Really cool to think about how much horsepower it takes to shake the earth like that.

Update: It turned out the earthquake was a magnitude 5.0 located 31 miles west of Anchorage.

So just thinking Joe should write and article brought on an earthquake. WOW no wonder newsletter articles are in short supply.

hilltop170 wrote:That would be a good article for the 170 News in the "how I use my 170" catagory.

WOW!!! We just had an earthquake in Alaska! Probably about a magnitude 3 but it shook the house pretty good. I could hear it coming, sounded like the heavy jets that are climbing out from Anchorage International over my house but louder. Then the shocks hit and we got about 3 good shakes side-to-side in about 3 seconds. It's been awhile since I felt one that distinctive. Really cool to think about how much horsepower it takes to shake the earth like that.

Update: It turned out the earthquake was a magnitude 5.0 located 31 miles west of Anchorage.

Must've shook you up pretty good, Richard; I've never seen a thread topic take a left turn like that before. BTW, in my experience in California, you have to be almost right on top of 3.0 to feel it at all. A 5.0 (100 times as energetic as a 3.0) is a pretty good shake.

Miles

cessna170bdriver wrote:

hilltop170 wrote:That would be a good article for the 170 News in the "how I use my 170" catagory.

WOW!!! We just had an earthquake in Alaska! Probably about a magnitude 3 but it shook the house pretty good. I could hear it coming, sounded like the heavy jets that are climbing out from Anchorage International over my house but louder. Then the shocks hit and we got about 3 good shakes side-to-side in about 3 seconds. It's been awhile since I felt one that distinctive. Really cool to think about how much horsepower it takes to shake the earth like that.

Update: It turned out the earthquake was a magnitude 5.0 located 31 miles west of Anchorage.

Must've shook you up pretty good, Richard; I've never seen a thread topic take a left turn like that before. BTW, in my experience in California, you have to be almost right on top of 3.0 to feel it at all. A 5.0 (100 times as energetic as a 3.0) is a pretty good shake.

Miles

Left turn? that sucker just went all the way around.....BTW Didn't feel any thing here in central IL......Brad

I wonder if Joe could have gotten a picture of it with his camera port and if so exactly how would he go about doing it?

(Just like that, BAMMM we're back on topic )

I wonder if the picture would have blurred with slow-speed film?

Joe, THAT WOULD make a really nice article1 Would you do it? Would you take pics of you doing it ? Send the article to headquarters@cessna170.org . You'd probably win the prize with that article. (Make sure you mention it was done with MY ORIGINAL camera-hole!

Howdy Bruce,

About six years ago I thought I'd try taking aerial photos out of the 170 to help offset costs. I started taking photos out the window for realestate companies, progress photos for construction companies, special events, etc.. Then I discovered that Cessna offered a camera port option for the 170 way back when so I found one that had been removed from George's plane and installed it in mine. I invented and built a gyro-stabilized gymbal mount that keeps the camera pointing straight down. This led to higher paying jobs for timber companies, developers, environmental issues, etc.. For large photos requiring high resolution, I fly multiple flight lines with overlapping photos and use software to stitch them into a single seamless mosaic. I fire the camera with a remote control using only predetermined GPS waypoints and routes for guidance, so I can do the job by myself. Right now I'm using a Canon 21 megapixel digital camera. I do all post-processing and some of the printing. I also subcontract for a thermal imaging company, flying their cameras around for a percentage of the job. We can find leaks in flat top roofs, illicit disharges into streams, underground steam leaks, etc.. I'm not getting rich at this point, but I haven't had to work a real job in six years either. I just started to get into aerial video also, with the door removed and another mount that I designed and built. It definetely justifies airplane ownership anyway!!!

Attached is a picture of the vertical mount.

Joe
http://www.moitek-infrared.com

N9149A wrote:Hey Joe the pictures of the camera ports are nice but hard to imagine how they are actually used. Would you mind posting some pictures with the camera equipment in place and maybe a short blurb how you go about the process of taking photos.

Do you have an assistant in the aircraft framing the shot or do you fly and do that as well? Is the camera focused on infinity and it has a motor drive and you basically make a run at the subject and hope you get a usable frame? Do you do the developing and printing as well? How did you get started? Where you in this type of business before using your airplane?

Not trying to pry trade secrets here. I think lots of folks would find this interesting.

Very cool story Joe. Very interesting. Glad to hear when someone is making some money in aviation.

Of course you know how to make a million in aviation don't you? Start with two million!

I find it interesting that your customers allow digital mending of images together. What assurance is there you got it right. Perhaps that close of scrutiny doesn't matter in the application they are being used.

Very interesting stuff Joe. Nice machine work and I assume the gyro fits into the cradle on the side of the camera mount. I looked thru your website and am impressed with the precision you are able to achieve. Next time I'm in the Portland area I would enjoy seeing it in person. I bet there are not many 170s still earning their keep, it beats a real job any day.

Actually all of the vertical imagery of large areas that you see such as Google Earth is made up of multiple images stitched together. There is no way that you can get high resolution without doing it. The software out there today is really great. You can also georectify your resulting picture by matching similar control points off from existing ortho photos. That's where my niche is, since all Google imagery and others is not up-to-date.

The attached image is one that I did of KLS airport area that was made up of (12) images taken from 5000' at 50mm with my 21 megapixel camera. The file for print was 244 megs and printed for the client at 60"x40" and when viewed up close you cannot tell that it isn't one image and the detail is amazing. A product like this just delivered on DVD is usually worth between $2000.00 and $3,000.00. The attached file is dumbed down from 244megs to 187k, but will give you the idea.

Joe