bird
Some flying skills are required, you will have to fly straight precise lines at a certain height and speed as well, following your GPS display with limits on each side of that line. Your operator/customer will let you know what the parameters will be. Like bladestrike said you will probably be flying at 200 feet AGL putting the bird/mag or whatever system you will be using at 100 feet AGL so make sure you look outside for obstacles like power lines, towers etc.
In the mountains you'll have no choice on how you are going to cross that ridge, the orientation of the lines dictate the route you will follow, crosswind/upwind/downwind doesn't matter, you have to follow that display.
Some days you will get some good hours, some nothing at all because of the real weather but also from the "virtual weather" meaning there are magnetic storms out there that will affect the system (if that is still a problem today).
the idea is to fly an exact straight line at 200 feet AGL ( 50 meters max on each side for limits)and 70 kts while the system shoot a signal down toward the ground and picks it up again every let say 1 second, if you exceed the 70 kts then there will be too much spacing in between the readings, if you go too high the signal will not be strong enough or won't go deep enough to get a reading and of course if you get too low well there goes $75,000, spread all over the country side.
That's roughly what it is
Some guys get in there and do it, some just can't get the hang of it.
have fun, just curious what type of aircraft and the type of system?
JD
Last edited by fijdor; 8th Jan 2011 at 17:55.