PA SHPO recently learned that the Penn Pilot website for historical aerial photographs will be taken offline in the near future. Two new online websites offer free access to these photographs, so update your bookmarks!
We know many of you make use of this data, as do our staff members, for all types of survey, research, and documentation projects – particularly projects involving farms, transportation, and large-scale landscapes.
Because Penn Pilot is built on outdated technology, Penn State is finding it more difficult to find the resources to keep it running, especially when there are alternative sites where users can acquire the same Penn Pilot imagery.
Here are two alternatives to the Penn Pilot website:
PASDA Imagery Navigator
PennPilot data can be identified and downloaded through the PASDA Imagery Navigator located at https://maps.psiee.psu.edu/ImageryNavigator/
You’ll see the approximate display tile indexes available near the bottom of the “Display Tile Index” scrolling menu.
Right-clicking anywhere on the map will bring up the PASDA Download Links box for that location.
Historical Aerial Viewer
PASDA staff has also completed the Historical Aerial Viewer application at https://datacommons.maps.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=10af5f75f9f94f01866359ba398cb6a9
This application also has links to all of the PennPilot historical imagery eras. A nice thing about this application is that the user can view the approximate location of links on the map from all eras at the same time.
