Project: 1999-05. Report - Low-Level Helicopter Surveillance Trial
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Date: June, 2001 Author: C. Appleton, L. Bulman, M. Kimberely, S. Gous, D. Robinson Publication: Forest Research Unpublished Report No. 8444 Project reference: 1999-05 Full report is available from: |
Executive summary:
Recommendations>
It is recommended that small helicopters such as the Robinson R22 be used for low-level surveillance applications, especially over forests where there is no ground access, or there is a need for accurate geo-referencing of health disorders. Low-level surveillance should be undertaken at between 200 - 500 ft above ground, varied with respect to stand height. Surveillance flight lines should be spaced at 100 - 150 m in order to maximise disease symptom detection at a distance. Survey flight speed should be approximately 50 knots, considering that surveyors do have the opportunity to hover the aircraft. For precise referencing of health disorders, especially in individual trees, the helicopter must be brought down to a height where the surveyor minimises the blind spot area beneath them.
Low-level surveys should be undertaken using GIS systems and hand held GPS units, in order to facilitate operation planning, health disorder referencing, and logging flight path information. These technological capabilities will greatly improve future survey operations, data archiving and determining health disorder trends. Mostly, it will permit new surveyors (those unfamiliar with the survey area) and forest owners to have confidence in making recommendations and decisions on the information gained from accurate low-level surveillance programmes.
Further training & research initiatives
This trial has highlighted the need for surveyor training in low-level surveillance operations. In several respects, the various technical applications and operating procedures implemented in low-level surveys are quite different and more advanced than those currently undertaken in aerial surveys. Therefore, training must provide competency in using GIS systems and hand held GPS units, both for planning and undertaking surveys. It is intended to provide this type of training for the surveyors who undertook the last low-level helicopter trial, and to re-test their capability at geo-referencing plots within the forest canopy. This trial will be designed to the same specifications detailed in this report, but will only consist of one flight transect, enough to provide necessary experience for surveyors to improve their geo-referencing competency. It is intended to conduct this trial in summer when the sun angle is much higher, and lighting conditions are more favourable for detecting plots.
Full report is available from:
Forest Research
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