Orange airplane in south foothills industrial?

[big A]

If you drive up 52nd street between 114 and glenmore in the S.E. or work in the south foothills industrial park you will quite often see an orange airplane flying reall low all the time.
Is it just some dude with a plane having fun or what?
I'm just curious thats all.

[revelations]

Pipeline inspection aircraft. He does the same route once or twice a day... everyday.

We had a head on near miss with this airplane while flying out of Airdrie airport. We were in a helicopter northbound flying low level and he wasnt talking to anyone on frequency...good thing he had flashing headlights on his leading edges because we saw him before he saw us.

[ExtraSlow]

I have heard of doing pipeline overflights to look for leaks with infrared, but I can't imagine doing that every day.
Any idea what pipeline he's checking that often?

[Abeo]

There is a sludge pipeline in the area, I guess if its corrosive/abrasive/biohazard they would want to keep a good eye on it, especially if its nearing its end of useful life... on the other hand, it could be an O&G pipeline operator being paranoid.

[delled]

There is a refined product pipeline along there as well. I can't remember who it belongs to though.

[JfuckinC]

anyone have more info on this, i'm interested..

[Abeo]

Theres a couple sizeable nat gas lines through there, along with a LVP line. Not a whole lot else aside from distribution lines.

[JfuckinC]

Originally posted by Abeo
Theres a couple sizeable nat gas lines through there, along with a LVP line. Not a whole lot else aside from distribution lines.

And they're not buried?

[revelations]

They are all buried as far as my eyes could tell when I was surveying the area east of 100st SE.

[Abeo]

Originally posted by JfuckinC


And they're not buried?

They are buried. Its rare for a pipeline not to be buried, pipelines are above ground only where the ground is environmentally sensitive (ie, parts of Alaska), some bridged crossings, an inside facilities.

[e31]

Originally posted by delled
There is a refined product pipeline along there as well. I can't remember who it belongs to though.

The plane, pipeline, and tanks are all IOL operations IIRC. I could get more specifics, but there really isn't much to it. The inspection plane is for leaks and vapour detection around the IOL site. Pretty boring flight details if you ask me. The pilot probably could fly it with his eyes closed if it weren't for other air traffic.

Must say that is a pretty easy way to rack up some serious flight time.

[JfuckinC]

Originally posted by Abeo


They are buried. Its rare for a pipeline not to be buried, pipelines are above ground only where the ground is environmentally sensitive (ie, parts of Alaska), some bridged crossings, an inside facilities.

Yah i thought so, i just don't understand how inspecting from an airplane does much unless there was an extremely obvious failure, which you'd think someone would already notice haha...

[n1zm0]

Originally posted by revelations
Pipeline inspection aircraft.

or electrical cable inspection, we had a 206 in our hangar for the longest time, these oil or electrical company would get an AME to come out, fit the 206 with LIDAR, has this almost FLIR looking ball on the nose and 2 huge computers in the cabin and the 'brains' of the LIDAR in a box hanging outside fo the fuselage. then the pilot goes out to the area and scans the pipelines for sagging as well as electrical lines (sagging electrical line meaning the insulator is getting too hot from the current running through iirc).

then the data can build this 3d image and measure the new data against the old to check for abnormalities. very retardedly easy job the helo pilot said, boring but pays really good.

you can read the stuff here:

electrical scanning

theres also IR survey, sulfur analyzing, hydrocarbon analyzing bla bla bla, theres TONS of Navajos and the smaller king airs out here at CYBW with this equipment in them. smarter than driving the whole pipeline/electrical line for inspection yes?

example of a local company offering the service

edit:
LOL heres the exact one that i'm talking about, the one that used to rent our hangar:


» Click image for larger version

what it looks like on a fixed wing:


» Click image for larger version

http://lidarservices.com/

[JfuckinC]

LIDAR doesn't penatrate ground though, so i wonder if they would just be looking for new surface depressions or something...

[kaput]

.

[revelations]

Thats the company I work for ... we had the near miss with that B206 aircraft. We dont do "pipeline" surveys (eg gases, IR), but we do survey new corridors.

Glacier moved out of SpringBank, we do the installation work out of Madonna Helicopters as its closer to our office.

Originally posted by n1zm0
edit:
LOL heres the exact one that i'm talking about, the one that used to rent our hangar:


» Click image for larger version

what it looks like on a fixed wing:


» Click image for larger version

http://lidarservices.com/