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counting pronghorn - part 2 Our first flight of the day was basically a near-total success. We covered more than half the country we needed to survey, and recorded over 220 "hits". Thirty-two of those in the Alpha band. Statistically, to have a reasonable estimate of the number of pronghorn in your herd, you want at least 200-300 data points, with at least 50 of those in the closest 'A' band. After just under three hours of flying, we're already more than half way there. And it's been pretty country. All the way from low desert to the snow-capped Continental Divide (where we got rained on). But as I mentioned in the previous entry, we had one major malfunction on this flight. Did you see it? No? Don't feel bad. None of us in the plane noticed it, either. Look close at the laser rangefinder... There, at the top of the handle, is a little green indicator light that should be glowing bright green. Like this: But wasn't. Which means we were flying with the laser on battery power the entire time, rather than using the powercord. (The cord was fine. Apparently there's a dead spot in one of the sockets of my three-way splitter.) Batteries on the laser are only good for about three hours. Fortunately, the thing died before we took off on our second flight. Good news was, we had two spare batteries. Fully charged. Bad news was, neither worked. The guy making all this equipment work acquired new, faster battery chargers this year. Which apparently did not work at all. Oh, joy. We got a plane, pilot, observer and data recorder. And three dead batteries. To his credit, the equipment master made an immediate 95-mile drive (each way) to deliver a battery he knew was charged (the others would take 12 hours each to charge on the old charger). An effort above and beyond duty which was unfortunately wasted. The clouds rolled in, and we were grounded for the afternoon anyway. But still, more than halfway done. A good day. A few more shots from the morning: Hard to imagine what that country up above is going to look like in three to four years, with hundreds (yes, hundreds) of wind turbines across it. Rising about a hundred feet (30-35m) higher than we were flying. I was pleased to see our high school graduating class had gotten out to commit the usual, annual vandalism of the town's name on the hill. But I have no idea what they were trying to spell. Home, sweet home. No, really. Spilled gasoline and all. |
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