Abstract
THE Air Survey Committee grew from a suggestion of the Army Council in 1919, and now includes representatives of the War Office, Air Ministry, Admiralty, Ordnance Survey and Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. The Committee's second report (Report of the Air Survey Committee No. 2. H.M. Stationery Office. 4s. net) reviews at length the methods of air survey and the apparatus at present available. A useful appendix analyses the cost of air survey. Conditions, of course, vary, and the estimate is based on the existence of an air survey organization on a permanent basis undertaking operations on a large scale. It is assumed that the area is undeveloped and consequently difficult for land transport. Under these conditions the cost of the survey is estimated for an area of one million square miles which would entail six years work for completion of the air photography. For this, five aircraft in action and one in reserve would be re-required. This fleet could do 2,000 hours of photographic flying each year. The total cost, which of course includes the cost of photographic material, works out at twenty-three shillings per square mile, but considerably more if a smaller area is surveyed, rising to 180 shillings per square mile for an area of 500 square miles. These must be taken as average figures, and the cost would be much higher in urbanized areas. The production of the maps is additional to these costs.
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Air Survey. Nature 139, 622 (1937). https://doi.org/10.1038/139622b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/139622b0