Wildenrath and Ramstein google earth

[Corrona]

They look as though they have been deliberately obscured to some degree, has anyone encountered this before?

I don't think I'm imagining it.

[f4aviation]

All Dutch airfields have been pixellated too. Must be a Cold War thing...

[SirToppamHat]

Looks fine to me. Wildenrath no longer has a military airfield, so why would anyone bother?

As for Ramstein, if the photo was taken from a certain angle with a high sun, light coloured surface would reflect like that, but the quality of the picture doesn't seem to be any worse than that in the surrounding area.

STH

[Corrona]

precisely, why have they bothered?

[Razor61]

Geilenkirchen is pixellated too.
I think Ramstein is mainly intense sun glare?
As other airbases in Germany are 'very' high resolution, to the point you can clearly see detail on even the aircraft.

[Rev I. Tin]

Aaah Wildenrath (sigh)

I can see it clearly on Google Earth. Railway test facility (Siemens?) these days.

[moggiee]

Wildenrath looks fine - maybe it just takes a while to stream the image on your PC.

[peppermint_jam]

Imagery seems fine on mine, did find something odd at Bruggen whilst browsing though, see

51°12'18.67"N 6°07'41.82"E

and zoom in quite close.

Any ideas?

[Sospan]

My guess would be the sun reflecting of a skylight. There is another one albeit a little smaller 51°12'8.49"N 6°7'39.91"E

[RETDPI]

My guess the same . A bit of system saturation - looking at the shadow angle and the roof skylights that idea would fit.

[Wilfo]

Speaking of Google Earth - theres a Flight Simulator built into it now.

You need the latest G.E. - 4.2

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/08/31/google-earths-easter-egg-a-flight-simulator/

[MightyGem]

Look in Google Maps. Wildenrath's as clear as a bell.

[Hueymeister]

There are moves afoot to get firms who produce comercial satellite imagery to ´doctor´areas of military/governmental interest - the Spams have been doing it for a while and the last I heard, the Brits have been up to it for even longer.:cool:

[NRU74]

Wildenrath area looks fine to me -in fact I think I can see a Schweinhaxe thru' the window of Haus Sell at Arsbeck

[PlasticCabDriver]

There are moves afoot to get firms who produce comercial satellite imagery to ´doctor´areas of military/governmental interest - the Spams have been doing it for a while and the last I heard, the Brits have been up to it for even longer

Have a look at Basra ( 30°33'0.58"N 47°40'8.73"E), either we've done a fantastic job of restoring it, or its prewar!

[JFZ90]

The B-2 facilities at RAF Fairford have dissappeared too - they used to be on Google Earth (i.e. the clam like hanger on one of the aprons with a new taxiway), but the imagery has been backdated.

[JT Eagle]

The weirdest one I have found is Decimomannu at
39 21’ 12.1” N
8 58’ 3.5”E
Go to www.flashearth.com and look at Deci in Google at a size that has the runway running from top to bottom of the window, then look at it again in Microsoft VE (Aerial).

Why did they do that????

PS Flash Earth is one of the greatest things ever

JT

[M609]

Waste taxpayers money is my bet. In Norway the security services clone away in similar fashion all MIL installations deemed secret in aerial images taken by plane, and published on the Norwegian equivalent of OS web site. . That includes all HAS areas and weapons dumps on airfields, and all com and radar equipment. That includes old Nike sites decommissioned in 1991!
At CRC Soerreisa all the outside buildings are there, but the entrance to the mountain facility and radomes on top are removed. Who are they kidding, it's not like it's a secret location!

Now,

a. Why on earth spend hundreds of hrs doctoring images to remove very inconspicuous installations, and
b. Why the use my tax money to do so!

[Coastergirl]

Wow, Flashearth is great - glad you mentioned it - I had only been using google earth until now.

The there/not there at Decimomannu is unbelievable! I'm lost for words, although I don't know why I'm that surprised. I just assumed that if they could be bothered to doctor it in one programme, they'd have done it to all possible views of it.

Thanks for the post.

Rachel

[JT Eagle]

Glad you liked it. Have a try at the White House:
28° 53' 52.6" N
77° 2' 13.8" W
and see what a fantastically crude job Microsoft have done of censoring the place and the surrounding office buildings. Google and Ask haven't bothered (or haven't caved in). I believe Cheney's residence in Observatory Circle is another censored spot.
On the other hand, if you look at Volkel AB in the Netherlands, it's Google's view where it appears the place has been taken over by Viggens, even at resolutions where Yahoo's still shows there's an airfield there.

When I first swapped between Google and Microsoft's view of Deci on Flash Earth I thought the maps were misaligned. It was only when I spotted a couple of main roads in common that I realised what a lot of pointless effort they'd been to.

On the other hand it IS the only place where I've been arrested. On base, too.

JT

[Coastergirl]

Oh how funny... that is a truly fabulous cover up - its like they have been watching too many episodes of Changing Rooms and decided to cover up the ornate decorative building work with some MDF, lol. The Microsoft and Google images must also be from different times because there are extra trees on the MS one (on the Monument side).

Tried looking for Volkel but the only thing I could see that looked remotely like an airfield was top right of the screen when it finds Volkel. Is that what you are talking about. There were the no entry circles all over it though even on Yahoo...?? MS and Google didn't even get close.

It was Wildenrath that drew my attn to this topic, my Dad was there for a while in (I think) '56 and '57 but he hasn't got any pics of it. Now of course the AD isn't military. I looked on Flashearth but couldn't even see any bits of the base. Its because I don't know what I'm actually looking for, and I'm rubbish at photo-rec, lol!

Arrested? Dare I ask what for? lol

Coastergirl

[JT Eagle]

East of the town of Volkel, north and north east of the lake, south of the main road. On Google it looks like the colour scheme of a German WW1 bomber, and does somewhat stand out a bit, unlike Deci on Microsoft VE, which has been carefully erased.

Well, sort of arrested. Detained by some fat officer from the paramilitary air base police ministry or some such organisation for walking about with a camera, despite having permission from the Italian and German air forces. He didn't speak a word of English so I just kept repeating the name of the Deputy base CO until he took me to him. I was also stopped the day before by a van load of pilots for taking a pic of the gate guard Harrier GR.3, but at least they spoke some English. It was the barracks behind they didn't want photographed. Hey ho.

JT

[Coastergirl]

Ah ha, makes sense. We were on hols in Paphos a couple of years back and they have (had?) a Shackleton on the airport that my hubby wanted to see. I sat with the cases while he went to see it - he was taking photos through the fence, and while I'm pretty sure he wasn't trespassing anywhere it didn't occur to us after we got home that it might have looked a bit odd, lol.

I was looking at the correct area on flashearth, cheers. That google cover-up is pathetic!!

Any other good ones you can think of?

Coastergirl

[harrogate]

The nuclear sub base at Faslane used to be pixelated out, while the whole surrounding area was high-res. I notice that this has changed now and much of the surrounding area has conveniently gone back to a very crumby low-res to make it look like it's not censored.

There used to be a U-2 on the deck at Fairford, before Fairford was pixelated out entirely. The airfield returned to high-res a few months later, sans U-2.

Before: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alan-turnbull/fairford-u2.jpg

After: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?t=h&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=51.686594,-1.772391&spn=0.002621,0.007231&z=17&om=1

Afterall, the public has no idea that U-2s are flown out of Fairford.

Nice one.

What's with all the USAF heavies jamming up the runway at Prestwick too? You can even read the numbers on the wings, if you're that way inclined.

[sarsteph]

I think we might have found out why they have obscured some of the airfields - it'll be to stop giving people like this recce info in advance:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6979295.stm

Seems Ramstein was a target...

[MajorMadMax]

Look at Bagram...you could almost read the tail numbers off the jets! :eek:

Cheers! M2

[Mark_Space]

Bagram and Kabul have razor-sharp imagery, yet KAF...

31°30'19.20"N 65°51'5.35"E

[Bullethead]

Interesting ref things being pixelted out, Sydney, Australia has just hosted an APEC conference with several dozen world leaders attending. Sometime before the event most of the Sydney CBD lost a certain clarity while adjacent parts are still hi-res. I wonder when/if it will all go back to normal?

Regards,
BH.

[MinnieOvens]

Geilenkirchen is certainly pixilated as one can see where the Officers mess is and where the huts were but not where 92 or 3 Sqns used to be.
Funny since it has only been five tears since this was all in plain sight on aerial photographs.