Part of Getmapping’s air ops team from New Zealand Aerial Mapping (NZAM) featured in the BBC’s ‘One Show’ on 18th August. The light hearted piece presented by Phil Tufnell, initially dressed as a Russian soldier, looked back to the Cold War when many of Britain’s, military bases and secret installations were restricted from appearing on maps.  Fast forwarding to today ‘Tuffers’ took to the air in NZAM’s Rockwell Aero Commander 690, based in Oxford, to learn about modern aerial surveying and carrying out his own test with a message left on the runway, ‘Phil Woz Ere!’ Whilst ‘Tuffers’ reassured everyone watching that aerial surveys were now routine and that there was nothing to fear, the NZAM plane did one final pass ‘buzzing’ the presenter in the process!

The ‘One Show’ piece was sprinkled with Getmapping aerial images of Britain’s top secret installations including GCHQ in Cheltenham, the storage site for Trident missiles and the country’s largest nuclear reactor. ‘Tuffers’ also gave the audience some statistics to think about. A typical aerial survey flight can capture up to 4,000 images, enough data to fill 880 DVDs, whilst the plane flies at 3 miles per minute, capturing a frame every second. Modern aerial survey cameras still offer much more detailed imagery than orbiting satellites and still form the basis of most of the UK’s map making.

The full One Show piece can be viewed at: http://bit.ly/5jJ97