By Gregg Mansfield
Ventura County Star writer
Friday April 21, 2000              Link to Camarillo Star

A Camarillo man says he has developed an inexpensive and accurate way to monitor whether airplanes are flying too low on their approach to the airport.

The system involves five video cameras, VCRs and some high school geometry.

Al DeLorey said he could put the system in place for less than $10,000 but has received a cool reception from the Ventura County Department of Airports, which operates the Camarillo and Oxnard airports.

"It's a training tool for the pilots," DeLorey said Thursday. "It's not a tool for law enforcement."

DeLorey said he started thinking about the concept two years ago while working on a home he owns in Old Town Camarillo. Homes near Ventura Boulevard are in the approach to the Camarillo Airport.

Bothered by the noise, he wondered if there was a way to measure the altitude of the airplanes from the ground.

He started in January to work on the monitoring system, which uses a basic triangle. Two cameras placed on opposite sides of the airplane's approach form the base of the triangle.

The airplane creates the third point of the triangle, DeLorey said. The cameras are fixed in position and by knowing the angle of the cameras, DeLorey said, he can determine the height of the aircraft.

The process also takes into account the elevations of the cameras. DeLorey said he can accurately determine the altitude of an aircraft within 6 feet.

"I've run 100 different configurations and come up with the same answer," said DeLorey, who is a retired electronic engineer from the Navy base at Point Mugu.

DeLorey borrowed a neighbor's Camcorder last month and ran a test, finding that most of the aircraft flew below the recommended height level.

The lower the aircraft usually means a higher noise level for people on the ground.

Rod Murphy, county director of airports, said he is intrigued by DeLorey's proposal. Murphy said he's been approached before by engineers and mathematicians and when their system is tested, it fails to work out.

"It has potential," Murphy said. "We would basically have to do a lot of testing to verify the accuracy. It's not something you could set up in the next month.

"The (Federal Aviation Administration) takes years to do testing," he said.

Murphy said if the monitoring system is successful, it would have to be used as an advisory tool.

DeLorey said he's hoping to get the public interested in the proposed monitoring system. If successful, he would like to set it up at the Oxnard Airport.

-- Gregg Mansfield's e-mail address is gmansfield@insidevc.com