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The Falcon Project - Launching Spring '2015


Cotter

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It's probably semi autonomous and FPV flight systems have been coming on in leaps and bounds in the commercial and hobbyist sector since the availability of small cameras, GPS and smartphones. A lot of that stuff you can source practically "off the shelf" these days, rather than having to do a ground up build.

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I thought that this link might be interesting to some of the members of the forum: http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1478852

The poster at the link above modified a remote controlled hobby airplane with a thermal camera to act as a spotter aircraft to assist in hunting feral pigs which were damaging crops on his family's rice farm. He's working on a much smaller budget than the Falcon project, but it isn't pocket change, either - the parts list on his site lists $4500 for the thermal camera, the RC aircraft he modded seems to run somewhere around $100, plus additional cost for some other mods he doesn't go into enough detail for me to price out.

I found the hardware end of this project interesting in and of itself. While the thermal video results aren't all that visually compelling on their own, what I also find interesting is that this person used the live-feed video to support ground operations in real time. It will be interesting to see if the Falcon Project takes adopts similar tactics.

Certainly not the same thing - the Falcon Project will obviously use a higher-quality thermal camera, will be a blimp instead of an airplane, and presumably won't be used to support armed hunting activities - but perhaps food for thought.

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  • 3 weeks later...

He must have found a gold mine to finance this project. He was camping in a small tent for months at a time prospecting and is now loaded.............good for him. Let's hope he find sucess.

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BFF Patron
Thom Powell discusses on latest blog.
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Being on the board of advisors, specifically helping with image analysis, I had suggested that some catalogue of thermal image signatures of known species and entities be assembled to then compare with an "unknown" the project may record in field service. Jeff concurred, saying he'd also envisioned that, as part of the initial test phase. So one of the fur costumes I made for my recent research will be tested as well, with a person wearing it at night and the craft tracking the subject above, to get reference thermal signatures of a person in costume who might try to "hoax" the project and see if we are fooled into thinking we've got a real sasquatch thermal image.

That will be one of my contributions to the project, so there is data to identify a hoaxed biologic in a fur costume,if somebody knows the craft is flying in their area and thinks they can fake a sighting and then boast about fooling the project image analysts..

Bill

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Guest thermalman

Being on the board of advisors, specifically helping with image analysis, I had suggested that some catalogue of thermal image signatures of known species and entities be assembled to then compare with an "unknown" the project may record in field service. Jeff concurred, saying he'd also envisioned that, as part of the initial test phase. So one of the fur costumes I made for my recent research will be tested as well, with a person wearing it at night and the craft tracking the subject above, to get reference thermal signatures of a person in costume who might try to "hoax" the project and see if we are fooled into thinking we've got a real sasquatch thermal image.

That will be one of my contributions to the project, so there is data to identify a hoaxed biologic in a fur costume,if somebody knows the craft is flying in their area and thinks they can fake a sighting and then boast about fooling the project image analysts..

Bill

How many thermal pictures do you want?

Edited by thermalman
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thermalman:

We will need them taken specifically with the Falcon system and the ariel point of view, so there's no variable in image capturing or perspective.

But if you have some, when we get to that point, I can recommend any contributions from you for the image database.

Bill

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Guest thermalman

Cheers Bill. Just give me a headsup with some notice to what you might need? :)

Edited by thermalman
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  • 1 month later...

I like the concept however i truly believe that no amout of video or photography will every be accepted as proof. Its sad to say but until we ahve a body on the ground for examination I just dont see this proving the species existence. But I do look forward to following the project.

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