Last week, Wired released aerial photos of a new Apple data center construction site in North Carolina. How did we get them? A drone? A chopper?
Actually, pilot and photographer Garrett Fisher flew a 1949 Piper PA-11 (Cub Special) airplane with no electronic instruments over the building and snapped a couple photos with his Canon Rebel while leaning out the window.
"The only real problem is that the plane bounces around quite a bit because it only weighs 830 pounds," says Fisher. "It's not like a 737, which blasts through the air like a dump truck."
Documenting what will be one of the most high-tech facilities in the world with one of the most low-tech airplanes still in the air may seem odd. But in this case, tech doesn't seem to matter, according to Fisher, because the Cub Special is about as good as it gets when it comes to aerial photography.
He says the plane is almost made for this kind of work because of a number of factors.
For example, it can fly at speeds as low as 38 mph, which helps with the focus and cuts down on motion blur. The landing gear and the wing supports are located far enough back that they don't get in the way when looking out the windows. And you control it with a stick instead of a yoke, which means you can steer with your legs while holding the camera with both hands.
"Most of the time it's a slam dunk for photography," he says.
Fisher, a financial consultant by day, is the third generation of his family to own and pilot the plane. He began learning to fly when he was eight and enjoys the challenge of navigating without any electronic help — the plane doesn't even have a radio, much less a GPS or transponder.
Instead, Fisher usually finds his way with a compass or by sight, using features such as rivers, cities or highways as points of reference.
"To this day, I can be on a commercial airliner on the East Coast and as long as there aren't clouds, I can tell you within 50 miles where I am at all times, if I have a window seat," he says.
To find the Apple building, he called it up on Google Maps and figured out what direction it lay from his home airport. From there he set a simple directional heading and looked out for the 45-degree turn in U.S. Highway 321 that he knew was near the site.
"The only little thing was that I had to dodge a thunderstorm getting over there," he says.
To watch out for other aircraft Fisher simply uses his eyes. There are certain air spaces where he can't fly because he doesn't have the right technology – places like the air space over major cities or airports — but he says that 98 percent of the air above the United States is open to planes like his.
"The USA is pretty flexible when it comes to old planes," he says.
He's also slightly limited with how high he can go. At certain altitudes pilots and passengers are required to have supplemental oxygen. And the upper reaches of the air space are reserved for commercial airliners.
That still leaves him plenty of freedom for side projects like ours. For Fisher, the joy comes with the challenges of the airplane.
"It puts the fun back into flying," he says.
