For the cartophiles and pilots here at DU ..

I just stumbled across directions on how to overlay Google Earth with US Sectional Aeronautical charts. It took me about 5 minutes to set it up. The reason it came up is that a US Forestry Service Cessna 185 was doing an area recon for us this afternoon. Although he has the same charts in the aircraft that I have in the lookout, I wanted the one chart he has in his aircraft that I do not have in the lookout: the sectional chart. Now I have it. Here is the website:

http://www.wikihow.com/Overlay-Sectional-Aeronautical-Charts-in-Google-Earth

I also found a website to figure the magnetic deviation (declination) for any location in the US using ZIP code or LAT/LON. I wanted to relate my fire-finder's true azimuth to the aircraft's magnetic compass. The magnetic deviation here at the lookout is 15.5-degrees east (East is least, West is best). Here is that site:

http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomagmodels/struts/calcDeclination

I love that technology keeps up fairly well for some parts of our workplace.

Now if the health care industry can just find a way to keep me from having to fill out the same first-time-visitor paperwork at the lab that I've been going to for twenty years.

:P

My son in law was considering buying a 100 acre parcel on a fairly steep hillside and wanted to know how much dirt he would have to move to put in a driveway and level a pad for a house. I was able to create a topo map right on a printout of the Google Earth printout and do an earthwork calculation from it. Not gnats ass accurate but good enough to convince him not to go ahead with the project. It would have been so much easier if a digital overlay method was available. Thanks for cluing me in, I'll see if I can find something.

BTW, I'm enjoying your posts. I worked for the USFS one summer surveying proposed timber sales. You should put them together and publish it as a book.

Skyvector is pretty nice in that there are a lot of functions. You can right click on an area and get the log/lat information and you can also so a rudimentary flight plan from the site.

There's another site called runwayfinder.com in which you can plug in an airport, display the sectional, and then switch back and forth between satellite and google maps. I wish Skyvector had that function.

I've messed with the sectional overlays on Google earth, but I haven't found much practical use for them as a pilot. Some people have even set up flight simulators using Google earth.