tgibson
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With typical aerial images I can usually get within 20 feet or so, which should be plenty close even for someone that is familiar with the airport. As for runway information, AirNav has the exact lat and lon values for each end of the current runways. Then you use an aerial image to determine how much shorter the runways were back then vs current day.
An aerial image of KBHM from 1970 is here:
https://www.historicaerials.com/viewer#
Type in kbhm in the search box in the upper left of the map.
Click on Aerials at the upper left
Choose the year you are interested in.
Also check out the Topos button, there are often other years available there (but the accuracy of such topos vary widely).
Click the Measure button, click on Create a New Measurement
Click on the map, a dot will appear with the lat and long in the measure box.
Click on the map again, a measurement will appear for the distance between the two dots.
Click on Cancel to create a new measurement, or click the Measure button to close the box.
I take screen shots from this page (zoomed in enough to give me reasonable detail) and paste them together in my paint program, creating a background image of the full airport. Don't change the zoom value once you start taking screen shots. I then add this to ADE. I correct any perspective errors based on the runways.
And no, these values will not be exact to the foot. But between the accurate modern runways and the aerial image, you can get very close.
Hope this helps,
An aerial image of KBHM from 1970 is here:
https://www.historicaerials.com/viewer#
Type in kbhm in the search box in the upper left of the map.
Click on Aerials at the upper left
Choose the year you are interested in.
Also check out the Topos button, there are often other years available there (but the accuracy of such topos vary widely).
Click the Measure button, click on Create a New Measurement
Click on the map, a dot will appear with the lat and long in the measure box.
Click on the map again, a measurement will appear for the distance between the two dots.
Click on Cancel to create a new measurement, or click the Measure button to close the box.
I take screen shots from this page (zoomed in enough to give me reasonable detail) and paste them together in my paint program, creating a background image of the full airport. Don't change the zoom value once you start taking screen shots. I then add this to ADE. I correct any perspective errors based on the runways.
And no, these values will not be exact to the foot. But between the accurate modern runways and the aerial image, you can get very close.
Hope this helps,