Google Earth Announcement

[red_kola]

If you're a Macintosh zealot, or just platform agnostic like me and can't always be arsed firing-up the PC, you'll have been waiting eagerly for the Mac version of Google Earth.

It seemsthat this is now close to completion but if you can't wait any longer then click here

This is a beta, so download and install at your own risk...

[Flyingscot]

The pictures in the Crookston area are taken at least before October 2001 as our old car is still in the drive and that was the last month we had it.

[Schiehallion]

I'm coming to the conclusion these images are composites. I originally reckoned it was a Sunday afternoon in July around 3pm. There are fans heading into Celtic Park (pre-season friendly) but not Hampden, Firhill or Love St. (Ibrox wouldn't be in use anyway.) Love St isn't even marked out, neither are 1 or 2 junior grounds pointing to July.

As McShad said the Barras are open and there are games getting played on the pitches on Glasgow Green - all pointing to a Sunday.

But if I look at the south side I see evidence which says it's a week day. Still between 3pm and 4pm because there are loads of cars parked outside the Victoria Infirmary for visiting time.

But two nearby workplaces, Scottish Power HQ in Spean St Cathcart and Weir Pumps have loads of cars parked, a level only seen during the week. Even my own street is busy with cars, as it is during the week with Scottish Power workers. On a Sunday afternoon my street is very quiet with cars.

Also car parks that are very busy at the weekend are quiet - B&Q / Sainsbury's at Darnley, the retail park at Pollokshaws and Asda at Toryglen.

So I reckon the east end is a Sunday but the south side is a weekday!

[Apollo]

The images will have taken months to obtain, as they are all taken without any sort of interference from bad weather or clouds.

The Rotten Row area is easy to tie down with some certainty, as they held a pre-demolition open day for visitors on Saturday, Feb 23 2002, and the Evening Times ran a story on the progress of the demolition on July 26 2002.

The Google Earth Hacks site (unconnected to Google Earth) gave the 2002 date, so it looks good.

I remember watching a twin engined plane flying regular sweeps all aver Glasgow back then, was around for months, and I noticed it elswehere whenever the weather was good. Guess my suspicions were right, expect who it was flying for.

[engineer]

how about a sticky for any GE glasgow discoveries? i found a garden atop a parking deck next to jordanhill station. cant see the garden from the road, but i suppose it could be seen from the train
re date i worked on the flats being built in mcphater street in summer 2002, i think about july/august time
check out prestwick airport, 3 USAF jumbos (or are they?) there (prob just 1?) and the fire crews on the runway

[Alycidon]

check out prestwick airport, 3 USAF jumbos (or are they?) there (prob just 1?) and the fire crews on the runway

The aircraft on the runways are either the Lockheed C5 Galaxy or the smaller transport, the C141 Starlifter. Both aircraft have the distinctive high T-tail, 25-degree wing sweep, and four turbofan engines mounted on pylons beneath the wings.
I owned a caravan at Prestwick Holiday Park around 1998-2000 and during this time Nato were involved in operations in the Balkans. The C5s and C141s were operating round the clock missions and you knew all about it when one of these monsters took off in the middle of the night, the noise was incredible!

[Apollo]

Thanks for the heads up on the hi-res stuff along the coast, I wouldn't have bothered to look as the area I have an interest in still isn't covered, and I'd assumed that if it took them so long to do Glasgow, Aberdeen etc, then there was no point in looking at smaller places. Ah well, wrong again

No use, I had to go look it up once I'd seen the pics.

They are C-5 Galaxy. Giveaway is the 6 section split of the trailing edge flaps, and lack of an odd raised area above the C-141 cockpit, whch I couldn't identify.

The C-5 fuel load is almost equal to the gross weight of a C-141 Starlifter.

Enough fuel for the average American car to make 130 round trips from Los Angeles to New York, or to make 31 trips around the world.

The C-5 is also known as FRED (Fucking Ridiculous Economic/Environmental Disaster) by its crews.

Seems C-141s are pretty rare now. 20 were listed in service in 2004, and this had fallen to only 8 in 2005. FRED is planned to be guzzling fuel until 2040.

[engineer]

used alanm's ww2 recon photos for an overlay...looks no bad, river misaligned a wee bit on the right though
d'l it at
http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showthreaded.php/Cat/0/Number/230472/an/0/page/0/gonew/1#UNREAD

trying a few others

[smartie]

The clearing the cache tip is immense !!!!

[mustardman]

There's me thinking all the photos were taken by a satelite

[AlanM]

The Drumchapel pics look like they were taken in the late afternoon on a school day as my old car is in the car park of St. Clare's Primary (after August as the wife started in that school in August 02). The emptiness of the carparks at Great Western Retail park also suggest a school day as they're virtually deserted.

[Flyingscot]

Anyone who has the Glasgow from the Air atlas will recognise a lot of the photos too!"

[Bingo Bango]

If you do a Roy Keane and take a trip over to Celtic park you will see that it was match day whenever it was photogrpahed - theres loads of buses in and the crowd of people making their way to the stadium is fantastic!

[Vladimir]

[Bingo Bango]

if you go to ibrox park, there appears to be a glitch in the matrix.....

and you can just make out the ginger dome of alex mcleish lurking in the shadows....