By Lesley Parilla, Field Book Project
Aviation has had significant effects on the nature of field work. It has changed not only how the collectors get to a site, but also how they see and collected, resulting in wide-ranging consequences.
By the mid-twentieth century, commercial aviation was dramatically changing the speed of travel; collectors, up to that time, would commonly travel long distances via train or boat. With commercial aviation, a weeklong boat trip to Africa became a multi-hour long flight. During the 1960’s when commercial air travel became more widespread, there was an influx of major surveys by Smithsonian departments involving large numbers of staff that would have proven far more logistically complicated prior to commercial aviation. The speed and ease of commercial air travel meant collectors could spend significantly less time getting to their sites and more time on-site. With the time they saved, collectors could spend longer at one location or visit additional ones.
The advent of planes also affected collecting by changing collectors’ perspectives. Collectors could see the environments they studied from an entirely new vantage, hundreds or thousands of feet in the air. Some scientists even took it a step further and used aviation as a way to collect the specimens. Perry A. Glick, an entomologist with the US Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service, used nets that attached to planes, enabling insect collecting in air to study the altitudinal distribution of insects. He produced several publications about this during the 1950’s and 1960’s.
By the 1940’s, there are examples of scientists attempting to integrate the aviation into their field work observations and collecting. Some of these attempts proved less than successful, while others helped demonstrate aviation’s value to field work. I found a reference to an unsuccessful attempt with a helicopter in a journal of C. O. Handley, Jr. Judging from the results, I am assuming they did not try it again.
[Thule, Greenland, 1948] The way it turned out he flew in the helicopter instead and spent the afternoon trying to fish from that. On the water, with its rotors off, the plane blows about like a kite even in a small breeze. Thus no matter where they would land, they would soon drift in to the beach. Another disadvantage was that when the helicopter starts on the water after its rotor has been dead, the whole thing spins with the rotor until the latter attains sufficient speed to stabilize the plane.
Though the helicopter proved less than useful over water, it yielded results over land. The journal includes hand drawn maps that indicate that survey results were successful, as seen in recorded observation taken via helicopter and on foot.
A more successful example of aerial observations is the work of F. Raymond Fosberg, (discussed in the February 24, 2012 article by Emily Hunter), who recognized the benefits of aerial observations alongside ground observations for his field of botany. Several of his field books include extended aerial observations of sites where he collected botanical specimens. Fosberg even published articles promoting the use of aerial photographs for surveying and studying botanical distribution. He proposed using military aerial photographs (that were taken during World War II) for this purpose. I have not been able to determine whether his hopes for these photographs came to fruition, but there are now a considerable number of examples of aerial photography being used for this type of botanical study.
Botany was not the only other field to make use of aviation. Harry S. Ladd used aerial observations in his field of paleontology and geology. Field notes document his observations via helicopter, noting the shape and character of reefs in Fiji, as seen below in a journal excerpt.
May 7, 1968 Tues - By Hill helicopter from Heron Id to Gladstone [Fiji]. Flying over reefs confirms impressions obtained on ground – i.e. if lee reefs and lagoons. Reefs appear to be more saw-toothed on lee than on windward. No suggestion of lithothamnion(?) ridge to windward – only what looks like a low marinol bulge (of debris?). Lagoon of Wistari(?) appears to have small ring-like structure-comparable to that seen yesterday in Heron lagoon plus irregular.
Since the 1960’s, the use of aviation and aerial photographs has spun off in a myriad of directions. Aircraft and aerial photographs are now used for monitoring and management wildlife habitat, locating and analyzing archaeological sites, and studying plant ecology. Scientists and even the National Park Service are beginning to utilize unmanned aerial vehicles.
All of the forms of transportation discussed in our transportation series have helped shape the research recorded by the field notes we document. Sometimes they present challenges to the collectors, sometimes a new advantage or perspective. For me, it demonstrates the flexibility and ingenuity of our collectors to see and to use opportunities as they present themselves. Field work often seems to be journey of the unexpected; I can’t wait to see what comes next.