Or you just restrict flights to the trailer park belt............they all get weekly visits from aliens already...or they have been on Jerry Springer so nobody will take them seriously anyway...

__________________
Proud owner of ....
1971 280SE W108
1979 300SD W116
1983 300D W123
1975 Ironhead Sportster chopper
1987 GMC 3/4 ton 4X4 Diesel
1989 Honda Civic (Heavily modified)
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Section 609 MVAC Certified
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"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

In addition to advances in platforms, sensors have improved dramatically.

For example, the commercially available Quickbird data (http://www.digitalglobe.com/) is spatially very high resolution and accurate data. It has the ability for off-nadar acquisition. These capabilities were supersecret just a decade or so ago. However, Quickbird is spectrally limited. Compare that with Hyperion (http://edc.usgs.gov/products/satellite/eo1.html), which has a huge spectral sensor array by a large footprint.

Now if I was a smart boy I would imagine a system that combined those systems.

Finally, look at Lidar (http://www.ghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/sparcle/sparcle_tutorial.html) and Radarsat (http://www.rsi.ca/) Especially Radar interferometry. Radar interferometry can detect surface changes in the centimeter range.

All of these systems are publicly available and active areas of public research. Most of them were secret from 10 to 20 years ago. Imagine that advances have taken place on secret systems at the same rate as public but 10 years advanced.

Bot

You are preaching to the Choir here...I've seen enough first hand over the years to know not to underestimate what is possible with the budget, the willpower and the knowhow of a large country such as our own.

__________________
Proud owner of ....
1971 280SE W108
1979 300SD W116
1983 300D W123
1975 Ironhead Sportster chopper
1987 GMC 3/4 ton 4X4 Diesel
1989 Honda Civic (Heavily modified)
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Section 609 MVAC Certified
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"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

One of the guys I work with used to work for the CIA back during the late 60's early 70's. His job was to study the film the satalites sent back from Viatnam. They would drop the canisters over the Pacific Ocean catch them in mid air, and in under 24 hours the film would be in DC being studied. Once they missed a canister and it fell into the sea by a Russian spy trawler. After that they would self destruct once they hit the water. He told me how much film they got each day it was a lot, a couple hundred pounds maybe. But back then they could read the headlines off a paper from space. These days they can probably see the fine print.

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

What acronymn did he work for, Hatt? DMA? DIA? NRO? I have a coworker who did that stuff, too. It might be fun to get them in touch with each other if they shared the same agency. My guy was with Defense Mapping Agency 1964-1970, M/L. Then he went with an 'outside' agency.

My guy made a vegetation map of Afghanistan back then. The military plays games worldwide, day and night. Year in, year out.

I never asked him, or he told me and I don't remember. I think he was in the CIA from 68-73 or 74. Unfortunitly he quit two weeks ago, I don't see him around much anymore. But when I do I will ask him. He found a better retirement job.

__________________
1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

Here's a couple of good open source briefs and biblios and links.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB13/
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB35/index.html

Thats some good stuff...............

__________________
Proud owner of ....
1971 280SE W108
1979 300SD W116
1983 300D W123
1975 Ironhead Sportster chopper
1987 GMC 3/4 ton 4X4 Diesel
1989 Honda Civic (Heavily modified)
---------------------
Section 609 MVAC Certified
---------------------
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

Makes for interesting reading and speculation.

Nothing is declassified without consideration of the impact of declassification.

For example, declassified Corona photography tells the knowledgeable analyst an awful lot about the capabilities of the system. They would intentionally time the release for some leveraged benefit somewhere. And it would be a one-shot benefit. Why tell people that information at a particular time? What game did they play and why?

Is ther a pattern in declassification that gives insight into the inner workings of the various shops hidden behind the door?

Back to the chopper landing on the top of Mt Everest.

A helicopter that has forward movement does not have to work as hard as a helicopter in a hover due to the fact that the rotor blade creates extra lift from the additional air flow created by the forward movement.

The blade that is "retreating" moving oposite from direction of flight has to have a larger bite to compensate for reduced air flow.

At some point a critical airspeed is reached where the retreating blade stalls and the helicopter rolls off to one side.

All turibe engines and rotor blades loss performace at high altitude due to thin air. So to land on Mt Everest you need lots of excess power to create lift with out the help of foward motion.

The Napal Air force has some of the best helicopter pilots in the world.