FLIR Cameras

[LakeSuperior]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Yes, purpose of taking the video was to show the Martin Marietta tech rep. We were thinking maybe bleed over from the TV somehow, never really did figure it out, as you say couldn’t have been FLIR, but somehow it was?
FLIR can really fool you though, common ordinary things don’t look the same under FLIR, even with a lot of experience.
I was shooting an approach into a field in Germany and we noticed the field was full of cows, so of course we didn’t land, did a high fly over, when we returned every cow was gone.
Couldn’t figure it out until the cows began to reappear.
It was rabbits, not cows and we had scared them into their holes.
Sure looked like cows though.

I was saying that what you saw in the FLIR may have a different root cause. As you say, FLIR images can sometimes be extremely tricky to explain. BTW, I personally know a number of the authors that were referenced by the article you linked above.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by LakeSuperior

I was saying that what you saw in the FLIR may have a different root cause. As you say, FLIR images can sometimes be extremely tricky to explain. BTW, I personally know a number of the authors that were referenced by the article you linked above.

I understand, it was very unlikely FLIR, yet I had the video.
You had to know this Tech rep, Jerry was an absolute genius, but had no common sense, never picked up on a joke etc.
I met him when he was troubleshooting a tads electronic unit, a black box. I walked up and told him I knew what was wrong with it, he wanted to hear, so I told him the speal about the smoke leaking out. He avoided me for days, cause he thought I was stupid enough to believe that and didn’t know what to say to me.

By Article, you mean the one on IR crossover? If so I just found that on a google search to try to show that FLIR has limits and I can’t imagine things being resolvable floating and being soaked by the water with no outside heat, surely it would be within the MRT?
Now a person ought to stick out especially white hot.

There was a video of a Panther floating around Ft Rucker, we had all heard of Florida Panthers, but there wasn’t supposed to be any that far North.
It was a house cat, but you can’t tell size under FLIR and as your looking at only heat not the actual image, rabbits can look like cows, or a house cat like a mountain lion.

[FlyingScot]

FLIR sells a monocular for $600 retail. Both the gray Ocean Scout TK and the green Scout TK appear to be identical except color, so check prices of both.

Much cheaper than a full setup for the limited times you may want to use it.

-Chris

[Airjordi]

[QUOTE=
However the real honest truth is your not going to be staring at a little screen for hours and hours on end looking for what will barely appear, and then extremely highly unlikely.
[/QUOTE]

That's the point. To be of any use on a long distance sail it would have to automatically scan the whole horizon and warn of anything in the way. Like a radar. That does not seem to be available. At least not with Raymarine.

Also, somebody who would run this thing 24/7 would probably have the radar and AIS on at the same time. That would cost around 250Ah a day I suppose.

[CatNewBee]

Also if you put it at the top of the mast there are so much movements while sailing in the open waters, you will barely see anything meaningfull on the screen.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

We used to have IR strobes that snapped onto a 9V battery, had two metal studs that stuck out to the side to program flash rate etc, so your strobe could be different than your buddy’s.
This kind of IR can only be seen by goggles.
We had to boresight our two sensors, the TV and the FLIR once the internal boresight was done we had to do an outfront which would compensate for the 12.1” between the two. I made a metal box with a 6” cut out and put a Coleman lantern in it, TV saw the light, FLIR the heat, an electric light in a metal box like a headlight couldn’t be seen, not enough heat.

Before we went down range to Bosnia, a friend, a CW2 George Kalstom was sent out in an Apache to see if it could find land mines, a ridiculous task of course so we sent the WOJ, well George found every one of the things. Somehow the news found out and there was a cover story on Newsweek I think showing an Apache finding land mines and with the Satcom sending the data to the Pentagon.
What happened was they were only buried a few hours before, so there were little circles of cooler dirt where all the mines were and George found them.
You would not believe how long even Military officers thought we could find land mines.
You could see as plain as day where a vehicle had driven in the desert at night, cause of course the sand was cooler in its tracks, it was very discernible.
The difference between a male and a female can also easily be seen from the heat differences on your upper body.

However every day twice a day you get IR crossover where essentially everything not manmade and or emitting or absorbing heat is the same temp and therefore pretty invisible
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5298629/
Different systems have what is called minimum resolvable temperature, it’s the min temp difference that the sensor could resolve, the TADS on the AH64, the MRT was classified, but it was so good that I had video of rotor blades shadows coasting down in the moonlight, now realize it wasn’t moonlight, but the heat reflected off the moon and its shadow slightly cooling the concrete that I was seeing, it was that good.
Military FLIR of this quality is supercooled and of course in the Millions of $$, really, really good FLIR is supercooled, the thermal detector can detect heat much better if it’s very, very cold.

However give us a day of good, hard rain, and I pretty much was flying blind, everything was within the MRT.
Anything floating and being washed by waves unless it’s alive, has to be very, very close to the waters temp, and therefore not resolvable.

And now that he's told you all of that, he's going to have to kill you.

[HankOnthewater]

We had Flir cameras on our rescue boats for at least ?12 years. Nice toys, and the government like paying for them, as the "feel good" hype is large.

To my knowledge they have not aided in any rescue of a person in our state (West Australia). But let me start to spell out the positives:
- government is paying for it
- public is awed by the technology
- good pictures/video on a stationary boat in flat water

The other side of the coin:
- controls are hard to impossible to use in a smallish (6-11 mt) boat travelling at speed (20 to 50 knots)
- although the screen can be large as your budget, there is little to see on a moving boat looking for a body, boat, or floating object
- when zoomed out, the viewing angle is large and nothing can be seen, unless the object is massive, like a 20 or 50 mt boat, certainly not a body at 200 mt, or a dinghy at 500 mt
- when zoomed in, the viewing angle is small, only a few degrees and when the boat is moving or bouncing, again nothing can be seen, as the location of the camera is often high, on a targa bar, deckhouse or small mast, multiplies the effect of the motion.... or if it can be seen .... so easy to miss if the movement and panning is too quick.

When zoomed in and boat is steady in relatively calm water, it takes at least 3 full circles of panning, and possibly 5 or 6 circles to check for anything floating, ie body, that exercise takes one to six minutes without being sure that all water surface has been looked at/scanned, then move the boat another 100 to 200 mt and repeat the same.
To cover dozens square kms or miles this way....... is a near impossible mission. Using a good quality drone with IR equipment would do that a hundred times faster (and yes, we trying that as well), eh... this "hundred" is an estimate, it could be a "thousand".

On board of a boat directed to the water in front of bow..... a Flir may have some benefit, but staring at a screen, using the Flir, you will see a mooring buoy, but... oops, you you just missed that large black barge, that was just outside the picture of your screen.

I have also seen a Flir mounted on top of a (estimated) 20 mt mast (sailing boat), eh... in my view a waste of space, electrons and $$$ for similar reasons, maybe only good for security purposes, or a good topic for conversation, and maybe when entering an anchorage/marina, but only if one has a dedicated person looking at that screen, that is addition to someone with 2 eyes on the bow.

Now a question for all. I have seen that Raymarine is advertising for a sales rep. Do you think with my (perceived) knowledge I have a good chance getting that?

BTW I have purchased for sea rescue boats Raymarine equipment and have mostly Raymarine on my boat as well.

[Pizzazz]

I have had positive experiences with simple security cameras, aided by IR illuminators. You can get inexpensive IR illuminators (<$100) that go to 200-300 feet and consume only 1-2 amps when lit. I display the image on a 32" TV in the cabin. It is not a replacement for the Mark I eyeball but it gives you a sense of awareness when you have to go down below for a few minutes to make coffee or take care of something.

I think it is better value for sailing than cheap thermal cameras. Listen to what a64pilot says, he is one of the people with serious experience with high end thermal cameras. I think they are better for targeting than search and I see little applicability for cruisers.

[Airjordi]

Originally Posted by HankOnthewater

We had Flir cameras on our rescue boats for at least ?12 years. Nice toys, and the government like paying for them, as the "feel good" hype is large.

To my knowledge they have not aided in any rescue of a person in our state (West Australia). But let me start to spell out the positives:
- government is paying for it
- public is awed by the technology
- good pictures/video on a stationary boat in flat water

The other side of the coin:
- controls are hard to impossible to use in a smallish (6-11 mt) boat travelling at speed (20 to 50 knots)
- although the screen can be large as your budget, there is little to see on a moving boat looking for a body, boat, or floating object
- when zoomed out, the viewing angle is large and nothing can be seen, unless the object is massive, like a 20 or 50 mt boat, certainly not a body at 200 mt, or a dinghy at 500 mt
- when zoomed in, the viewing angle is small, only a few degrees and when the boat is moving or bouncing, again nothing can be seen, as the location of the camera is often high, on a targa bar, deckhouse or small mast, multiplies the effect of the motion.... or if it can be seen .... so easy to miss if the movement and panning is too quick.

When zoomed in and boat is steady in relatively calm water, it takes at least 3 full circles of panning, and possibly 5 or 6 circles to check for anything floating, ie body, that exercise takes one to six minutes without being sure that all water surface has been looked at/scanned, then move the boat another 100 to 200 mt and repeat the same.
To cover dozens square kms or miles this way....... is a near impossible mission. Using a good quality drone with IR equipment would do that a hundred times faster (and yes, we trying that as well), eh... this "hundred" is an estimate, it could be a "thousand".

On board of a boat directed to the water in front of bow..... a Flir may have some benefit, but staring at a screen, using the Flir, you will see a mooring buoy, but... oops, you you just missed that large black barge, that was just outside the picture of your screen.

I have also seen a Flir mounted on top of a (estimated) 20 mt mast (sailing boat), eh... in my view a waste of space, electrons and $$$ for similar reasons, maybe only good for security purposes, or a good topic for conversation, and maybe when entering an anchorage/marina, but only if one has a dedicated person looking at that screen, that is addition to someone with 2 eyes on the bow.

Now a question for all. I have seen that Raymarine is advertising for a sales rep. Do you think with my (perceived) knowledge I have a good chance getting that? [emoji2]

BTW I have purchased for sea rescue boats Raymarine equipment and have mostly Raymarine on my boat as well.

Thank you for these valuable informations, Hank!

[mikereed100]

Anybody tried one of these?

https://www.flir.com/products/flir-o...AaAnGiEALw_wcB