Repeated Imgaging Success in Schiphol

Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands averages about 1,350 take offs and landings per day. The airport is one of the three busiest passenger airports in Europe.

In 2016 BSF Swissphoto received the first time an order from the Information & Coordination Centre (ICC) to take aerial images with a resolution of 4 cm at Schiphol and its surrounds. Considering the high volume of traffic, the project is a great challenge. “Roughly 85 planes are landing or taking off at Schiphol every hour, so flight control is incredibly strict,” says Sandra Beckmann, a project leader with BSF Swissphoto’s German office in Schönefeld. “When we are given a flight window, we have to be ready to go at a moment’s notice and we can’t afford any mistakes in collecting our photos because it puts meeting our delivery deadline at risk. It’s an added level of complexity in a project that’s already challenging.” However, the potential flight windows not only depend on a flight permission, but also on ideal weather conditions. Only when all these factors are fulfilled, the flight can take place.

BSF Swissphoto has accepted and successfully mastered this interesting challenge for the fourth time in a row. The flying area comprises 47 communities and a total of 900 km2. This requires about 30 flying hours in about 6 missions. The Trimble software INPHO is used to process the images up to DOP generation. This interaction between successful data acquisition and efficient data processing is the subject of a recently published Trimble User Success Story: "Repeated Imgaging Success in Schiphol" by Mary Jo (Trimble).

The complete publication can be downloaded here.

Images 1 and 2 in the image panel: Standstill at Schiphol in April 2020 - all aircraft are on the ground due to corona restrictions.