Gulfport Biloxi Regional (GPT) Touch-and-Go

[eli]

Interesting - Take a look at the Gulfport Biloxi Regional 1/6/2010 Google Earth imagery over runway 14. Looks like 4 - KC135s with less than 1,000 feet seperating them. The shadows are what got my attention. Wait a minute - 2 - KC135s over runway 32. Practice for air show?

[DiamondheadWX]

It's the same plane. When the satellite is making the image, it takes a few seconds to digitally "scan" the entire area, the plane keeps flying and you see it multiple times.

[james84]

I'm no expert of that area, but if I recall correctly Gulfport-Biloxi is frequently visited by the aircrafts featured in the MAIW packages.
If you look carefully, there are only three shadows and they are positioned at an always smaller distance to the runway from the second aircraft to the last, so it seems to me that the aircrafts are flying at a decreasing FL from the first to the fourth... and this should only happen during an Airshow!

[regan123]

If you look on Google Maps (web browser), there are 2 aircraft on the reciprocal approach as well.

[Dark Morelia]

I think you'll find it's the same aircraft, snapped by the satellite multiple times as it's landing. Then said images get stitched together to form the map.
I've seen this at a few airports, and I remember thinking the first one I saw was an airline's 747 MITO departure
You can also see aircraft in some shots where the colour is ahead of the rest of it, caused by the sat taking a high-res black and white photo for detail, then taking a colour overlay. Works great for stationary objects though!

[DeepSea-Two-One]

Google Earth/ Google Maps tiles for the resolution like used at Gulfport are about 850 feet square. The images for the Gulfport airport were taken on Jan 6, 2010.

The one aircraft near the threshold of Rwy 14 with four images is executing a climb as the distance between the aircraft and shadow increases for each image. Many large jet aircraft seldom to actual TNG, especially on a civilian runway - rather they execute a missed approach like we see in IFR TNG in FS. The image farthest north is approx 375 feet from the shadow, the second image 412 feet from the shadow, the third image 490 feet from the shadow. The shadows are moving away from the runway, not getting closer to the aircraft - indicating a climb is in progress.

It appears that the aircraft on Rwy 32 is the same aircraft, also executing a missed approach. That would be consistent with what we see in Google Earth/ Google Maps tiles when opposite ends of an airport images are frequently taken hours apart on different passes.

The shadows of the aircraft on the north end of the airport are approx 7.5 degrees from the aircraft, those on the south end of the airport are approx 15 degrees from the aircraft - showing a shift of the sun by at least 1 hour.

[eli]

I don't know much about the process for recording satellite imagry or making Google Earth tiles. I guess some of the posts on this could be true where we are seeing the same aircraft at multiple time sequences. If so, shouldn't the same apply to the automobile traffic near the airfield?

[DeepSea-Two-One]

If you look at the eastbound traffic on the divided highway near the north sequence of photos - you will see the same few vehicles duplicated several times.

There is a dark vehicle in the left eastbound land passing by a lighter vehicle in the right lane. In the third group of four shots of these two vehicles, the dark vehicle in the left land is missing because the light vehicle is right on the edge of the tile.

Vehicles move so slowly and there are so many of then that we can only find such instances in a few places. Aircraft stand out much better than car and trucks.

In the most famous instance of multiple images of the same aircraft - we also see the same type of vehicle repetition. (Mar 28, 2002 EDDF - Lufthansa B747)

Jet aircraft on approach or just after takeoff seem to be moving at a speed which works best to allow multiple images. Cars are usually too slow.

We also need to zoom all the way in to and eye level below 2,000 ft and watch both the date the image was taken and the elevation in Google Earth as we scan across the images. That is how we find things like the time the runway at KPHX had two aircraft on the runway - from images taken 13 months apart.

[eli]

Thanks Reggie. Came across a few more similar repeat aircraft images. Two images of an aircraft landing aproach runway 22 at Newark Liberty. No way it could be different aircraft.

Tom