No Clouds Today - book?

[Dave Homewood]

I have just discovered that there was a book released in 1991 called "No Clouds Today" by Peter Stephens, Piet Van Asch and Mairi Clark.

It appears that it was the history of aerial photography in New Zealand. Does anyone happen to have this book? I am wondering if it coveres anything on the aerial photographic work carried out by the General Reconnaissance squadrons of the RNZAF, or the RNZAF's Army Co-op squadrons?

Is it mostly photos or is there a lot of text too?

[hairy]

I've got that book, but I haven't read it yet. It is mainly text with alot of very good photos. There are two chapters that involve the RNZAF (and NZPAF), chapter 2 is about "Military Photographic Survey Prior to World War II" (20 pages) and chapter 6, "Royal New Zealand Air Force" (15 pages) which is basically a brief overview of of the RNZAFs photographic role in the Pacific in WWII and post war.

Some interesting tit-bits I have picked up going through the book to answer Daves question.
-A U-2 was based at Christchurch International Airport in June 1966 for a joint British-French-American research project on high altitude clear air turbulence.
-A U-2 can carry up to 12 000ft of film.
-Four US Navy AJ-2P Savages and 100 ground staff from Guam were based in NZ for 2 months in 1959 for a joint RNZAF/US Navy project called "Operation Coast Crawl" an intensive photographic survey of the entire NZ coastline. Interestingly "after the operation the developed film and proof prints were taken back to Guam for sorting, arranging and printing to produce the required mosaics. No mosaics, or prints, were sent back to New Zealand - they were all kept by the Americans, although New Zealand military formations had access to them."

[Dave Homewood]

Very interesting stuff.

Imagine how many staff members must be involved in the processing and examining of film for each U-2, a real industry I'd imagine.

[flyjoe180]

I recently saw a documentary on the air war in Vietnam, and part of that doco covered the development and analysis of the photo reconnaissance results from all sorts of reconnaissance aircraft. Quite a feat, and all arranged to create one massive overall photo which was then poured over by intelligence personnel using magnifying lenses. Probably not too far removed from the methods used during World War Two, but the photos would hav ebeen better I presume. They showed a computer in the background with tapes turning and lights flashing like something out of Buck Rogers. The computer was the size of my lounge.

I suppose all they have to do now is download the information onto a desktop computer and zoom in.