Every now and then some very unique airplanes visit us here at Galt Airport. On Saturday, April 17, I was hanging out in the Galt FBO, and noticed a plain white Cessna 206 pull up to the gas pump. What caught my eye about this airplane was not only its all-white paint job, but the very unique exhaust pipe protruding down the underside of the fuselage. What the heck is that all about!?, I thought. I looked up its “N” number and found it to be registered as a 1999 Cessna T206H to a company called Aerial Services in Cedar Falls, Iowa. The pilot of this aircraft overheard me looking up his registration and identified himself. I quickly asked him, “Hey, what’s that crazy-looking exhaust system all about on your airplane?!” The pilot, Mr. Nate Ieck, invited me to come out and have a look! We strolled out to the airplane to look closer. He explained that the extended exhaust pipe was to prevent exhaust gasses from interfering with imagery equipment located in the back of the airplane. Behind the back seat, there was a very expensive camera unit with a lens beaming down through the aircraft’s belly. Hmmm. What’s that all about? Nate said the airplane’s mission is aerial mapping. A large camera peers down at the earth on predetermined GPS tracks to do aerial surveying. The data is saved on a high-capacity memory device that is downloaded for processing on the ground. Neat stuff!
