Helicopter Buzzes Wal-Mart

"Newps" wrote in message
...
They don't police the power lines they check them

Please describe the difference between "police" and "check". To me, there
is none in this context. You've never "policed" your campground before
leaving? "Police" doesn't necessarily mean you're looking for criminals.

If you used 35mm...and if you hve the desire to follow up...there was a
situation here in Seattle where a homeowner had snapped a 35mm picture of a
"low flying" airplane. One of the more technically astute ops inspectors
measured the wingspan on the slide, did the necessary math, and proved that
the plane was legal.

Bob Gardner

wrote in message
oups.com...
I was shopping at a Wal-Mart on December 17, 2004, when I noticed
outside a helicopter flying just over the tops of the parked vehicles
in front of the store. It was flying towards me, about 20 feet above
the ground and climbing. I got a photograph of it when it was about 50
to 70 feet in the air. It quickly flew up past me and over the top of
the building.

I realize that helicopters have a lot of flight freedom, but it is
still shocking to see one flying directly towards oneself like this.

Coincidentally, an assistant manager at that store told me last week
that I was not allowed to bring my camera inside the store. He cited
security risk, and made a vague reference to the cameras they sell in
the Electronics Department. So, it may be difficult to get photos like
the one I took, at least from that store.
http://members.aol.com/rekgallery/WM_Heli/WM_Heli.html

"If the helicopter was taking off then he's legal. Also since you
described the area as mostly vacant fields, I believe that would
qualify as a sparsely populated area."

Just the Wal-Mart parking lot full of cars (a few hundred vehicles just
then).

"Also since it's a helicopter they are allowed to operate less than the
minimums unless it's hazardous to people and property on the ground
(other than percieved altitude, was
the helicopter doing anything seemingly dangerous?)."

Other than apparently flying straight for the front windows of
Wal-Mart, no.

"On a side note concerning Walmart, you can't be without your camera
for more than an hour or two while you shop?"

Bite your tongue, man! My camera is my soul!

Also, my camera cost me $580. I'm not keen on leaving it in my vehicle
in a public parking lot.

"If you used 35mm..."

No, it was a digital camera.

Not that it's immediately relevant to the subject, but you may find it
amusing. I had a friend who once brought a film camera into a Frys
Electronics (growing chain, mostly west coast I think) and went through
the motions of taking a picture. A security guard said he'd have to
confiscate the film, and my friend objected, saying that he had lots of
shots on there he didn't want to lose. Frys then developed the film
for him with the understanding that they would remove any shots of the
inside of the store. Humorously, the film had already been fully
exposed by the time this happened, so they ended up developing the film
for him gratis, and he received the prints and negatives intact.

He felt that he found a creative way to thumb his nose at their 'No
photos' policy.

wrote in message
oups.com...
I was shopping at a Wal-Mart on December 17, 2004, when I noticed
outside a helicopter flying just over the tops of the parked vehicles
in front of the store. It was flying towards me, about 20 feet above
the ground and climbing. I got a photograph of it when it was about 50
to 70 feet in the air. It quickly flew up past me and over the top of
the building.

I realize that helicopters have a lot of flight freedom, but it is
still shocking to see one flying directly towards oneself like this.

Why? It is always flying towards somebody. Anyway, if that helicopter is
only 50-70 feet up it is an RC model. I know that you insist that you were
there and know better, but what did you do, use a tape measure? How the heck
do you know that it was only 50-70 feet up?

This one, measuring by the height of the fuselage, is at least 150 feet up.
If it is smaller, then it is even higher. Even so, helicopters fly into all
kinds of places, including Wal-Mart parking lots, schools, homes, or
practically any open field, and they do a lot of aerial photography work at
very low level.

There are some third hand accounts of Wal-Mart having a policy of not
allowing photography in their stores. Apparently the chain is concerned
about competitors who have been sending corporate spies into the stores to
study inventory control. Just as a guess, analysis of a series of pictures
could tip off competitors into Wal-Mart's ordering and restocking practices,
which would be very valuable information. Given enough study, one could
re-engineer Wal-Mart's whole computerized inventory control system.
Considering that Wal-Mart spent a fortune on this system, I doubt that they
would be interested in just handing it over to a competitor for free.

That said, one would think that Wal-Mart would post signs informing
customers of this policy. As usual, the anti-Wal-Mart crowd has attributed
the whole thing to Wal-Mart's sinister plot to take over the world.

wrote:


Bite your tongue, man! My camera is my soul!

Also, my camera cost me $580. I'm not keen on leaving it in my vehicle
in a public parking lot.


Heh, touche my good man. :P

Peter Duniho wrote:
"Newps" wrote in message
...

They don't police the power lines they check them


Please describe the difference between "police" and "check". To me, there
is none in this context. You've never "policed" your campground before
leaving? "Police" doesn't necessarily mean you're looking for criminals.


Always looking for a fight, eh.

tr.v. po·liced, po·lic·ing, po·lic·es

1. To regulate, control, or keep in order with or as if with a law
enforcement agency.
2. To make (a military area, for example) neat in appearance:
policed the barracks.


My guess is they are interested in kids drinking in their trucks in the
power line right of way, brush which is overgrowning the area, and
whatever the abutters might be doing to interfere with operations.

C J Campbell wrote:


There are some third hand accounts of Wal-Mart having a policy of not
allowing photography in their stores. Apparently the chain is
concerned
about competitors who have been sending corporate spies into the
stores to
study inventory control. Just as a guess, analysis of a series of
pictures
could tip off competitors into Wal-Mart's ordering and restocking
practices,
which would be very valuable information. Given enough study, one
could
re-engineer Wal-Mart's whole computerized inventory control system.
Considering that Wal-Mart spent a fortune on this system, I doubt
that they
would be interested in just handing it over to a competitor for free.



One of my little sisters works for a Wal-Mart vendor. To try and
decipher the stocking programs from a couple of visits would be totally
impossible. The process is store and sales dependant. What you see at
one store for product turnover does not translate to the same for any
other store. She is constantly having to go in and tweak the system for
the items she is responsible for in their system. The system is so tied
together with sales and distrubution that making an incorrect change in
one wrong place in the software can trigger a major operational
castorophe. The software is so complicated that she has had several
weeks of training on how to correctly add, update and interpret data
from the software. Even though it's now considered stable software,
their IT people are constantly working on upgrading it to match closer
and closer to actual overall performance.

Craig C.

William W. Plummer wrote:

Peter Duniho wrote:

"Newps" wrote in message
...

They don't police the power lines they check them



Please describe the difference between "police" and "check". To me,
there is none in this context. You've never "policed" your campground
before leaving? "Police" doesn't necessarily mean you're looking for
criminals.

Always looking for a fight, eh.

tr.v. po·liced, po·lic·ing, po·lic·es

1. To regulate, control, or keep in order with or as if with a law
enforcement agency.
2. To make (a military area, for example) neat in appearance: policed
the barracks.


My guess is they are interested in kids drinking in their trucks in the
power line right of way, brush which is overgrowning the area, and
whatever the abutters might be doing to interfere with operations.

Duniho is an idiot, always has been. Anywho...there are a very few
powerlines or pipelines that they actually police. A pipeline patrol
checks many things. They check for leaks, although it's hard to imagine
the pilot finding the leak first as the pressure drop would be
immediately apparent. They look for Bubba out there with the backhoe
digging his new foundation without a permit. They look for trees laying
against the towers or the pipeline. They look for rockslides. Pretty
much anything that could affect the integrity of the line. My mechanic
flies two lines, they each have to be flown once every two weeks. He
makes about $1500 per patrol and each is about 600 air miles long. He
uses mogas so it costs less than $100 per flight. He's an IA so there's
no labor cost on the maintenence.