VFR Sectional Chart: Underground pipelines ... why do i care?

WannFly

WannFly

Final Approach
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<Begin rant>

why do VFR sectional charts have underground pipelines depicted? its not like i can see it from the air and make it a waypoint or something. If i am about to make a smoking hole... i dont think i care if there are underground pipelines there or not.


<end rant>

go on
 
perhaps they could affect a magnetic compass?
 
WannFly said:
its not like i can see it from the air and make it a waypoint or something.
Click to expand...
While you can't see the pipe you sure can follow their path. Pipeline right of ways can be more evident that a lot electrical transmission right of ways. Have followed their paths for hundreds of miles at times.
 
WannFly said:
<Begin rant>

why do VFR sectional charts have underground pipelines depicted? its not like i can see it from the air and make it a waypoint or something. If i am about to make a smoking hole... i dont think i care if there are underground pipelines there or not.


<end rant>

go on
Click to expand...

Dana said:
Long straight grassy clearing, looks like a power line cut without the power lines. Good VFR navigation landmark.
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This. Very easy to pick out when there is trees and such, but since you live in North Dakota which has only 6 trees in the entire state, I can understand why it's pretty useless to note them there.
 
Dana said:
Long straight grassy clearing, looks like a power line cut without the power lines. Good VFR navigation landmark.
Click to expand...


Most of the time you can't see the power lines either.
 
You must admit that there is a certain irony in an underground pipeline being depicted on an aeronautical chart. This thread came up a few years ago I believe and people had some cool photos posted where you can see the clearing for them.
 
Tantalum said:
You must admit that there is a certain irony in an underground pipeline being depicted on an aeronautical chart. This thread came up a few years ago I believe and people had some cool photos posted where you can see the clearing for them.
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If you zoom in just south and west of Sidnaw, MI on Google maps, https://www.google.com/maps/@46.4944913,-88.7519073,2293m/data=!3m1!1e3 you can see the pipeline cut through the trees. The map should be centered on that swampy area. Then it runs east of town and through the Baraga Plains. Very straight, and very noticeable.
 
Go on Google satellite view and try to find the former East German border. Same thing. Pretty easy to spot.
 
In Rinker Buck’s book “Flight of Passage,” the two boys completed their 1966 cross-continent flight eastbound by following a pipeline across several states east of the Mississippi. I assume it cut through forests mostly, but in any case the pipeline was so good for navigation that they needed little else.
 
Some of these will be visible for a hundred years after they are buried, they do affect the appearance of the surface in some types of climate/flora situations.
As an emergency landing area, I will try to take some pics of ‘our’ pipeline - it’s the smoothest obstruction-free surface in the many areas out here.
 
In the "plains states" there may not be a reason to put them on the chart...and I haven't looked to see if they are.

But in states where we actually have trees, as others have said, they're just as handy as charted power lines, more handy actually, because they're just as noticeable and, unlike what someone previously said, I'd consider that strip in an emergency situation long before I'd consider a "power line strip."
 
Great question. I learned something.
 
EdFred said:
This. Very easy to pick out when there is trees and such, but since you live in North Dakota which has only 6 trees in the entire state, I can understand why it's pretty useless to note them there.
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I take serious offense about your comment about my state, just the other day I was at a podunk airport with a series of trees at the end and I was not sure if I would take one out upon take off or not.

Wait, those were corn !!

Never mind, you’re probably right
 
WannFly said:
<Begin rant>

why do VFR sectional charts have underground pipelines depicted? its not like i can see it from the air and make it a waypoint or something. If i am about to make a smoking hole... i dont think i care if there are underground pipelines there or not.


<end rant>

go on
Click to expand...
Same as following the railway line all the way to Minot...

Sent from my SM-T580 using Tapatalk
 
And I never knew sectional charts had pipelines depicted...

Yep - I learned something from this zoo!
 
Fiber optic cuts also show up pretty well in the rare cases where they aren’t buried in something else’s right of way. But they’re not charted.

Our pipeline that went through here five years ago has almost disappeared as the grass they planted over the top of it and the prairie grasses have mixed. No trees of course. So it would be very difficult to see unless you’re low enough to count the little warning poles painted yellow every so often. :)

But for the first three years it was a strip of greener grass that went from somewhere in Texas to Greeley, CO. :)
 
I live in an area of high density pipelines and also lots of pipeline patrols...they are real good about reporting location most days...but we are always looking...probably the last choice for a forced landing if there are other options...
 
Dana said:
Long straight grassy clearing, looks like a power line cut without the power lines. Good VFR navigation landmark.
Click to expand...
Yep. One of them runs 1,000' through my property.
 
WannFly said:
<Begin rant>

why do VFR sectional charts have underground pipelines depicted? its not like i can see it from the air and make it a waypoint or something. If i am about to make a smoking hole... i dont think i care if there are underground pipelines there or not.


<end rant>

go on
Click to expand...

You can absolutely see them from the air...all vegetation is cleared away for a 200-foot swath above the pipeline. They make checkpoints just as good as railroads or highways (best when at right-angles to your flight path). When I was delivering PA-28s from Vero Beach to Seattle and chose a route across the southwest I made good use of them.

Bob Gardner
 
NoHeat said:
In Rinker Buck’s book “Flight of Passage,” the two boys completed their 1966 cross-continent flight eastbound by following a pipeline across several states east of the Mississippi. I assume it cut through forests mostly, but in any case the pipeline was so good for navigation that they needed little else.
Click to expand...

I love that book. A great read. And if you can read the section where they are trying to leave California with a box of avocados on board without busting a gut, you have no sense of humor whatsoever.
 
WannFly said:
I take serious offense about your comment about my state, just the other day I was at a podunk airport with a series of trees at the end and I was not sure if I would take one out upon take off or not.

Wait, those were corn !!

Never mind, you’re probably right
Click to expand...

'North Dakota State Forester' is one of the more redundant jobs out there.
 
VFR Sectional Chart: Underground pipelines ... why do i care?
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Because if I am about to pile drive a plane into the ground I will want to know if it is a natural gas line or a sewer line.??
 
bobmrg said:
When I was delivering PA-28s from Vero Beach to Seattle and chose a route across the southwest I made good use of them.
Click to expand...

The climate of American Southwest makes pipelines visible for decades, even if the pipeline company does not care about clearing anything at all. The vegetation is sensitive to the disruption during the construction of the pipeline, I guess. In fact when the pipeline clearing is grown over, the color remains different and easy to see.

In addition, a human eye can pick up geometric features. So old railways that disappeared in the 1980s are still visible because they deleniate properties, change the flow of water, or have trails running on them.
 
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