Vaughn E. Nelson nelsonv@thorin.atsc.allied.com kindly provided us with the following description of this image:

I took the picture of the B-50 that is currently in your aviation image data base. The plane is a RB-50 of the 1370th Photo Mapping Wing, at the time based at Turner AFB, Georgia. The photo was taken in Port Morsby, New Guinea in 1961. I have the original Kodachrome slide along with several others showing the plane with the 2nd B-50 that was on the project. I also have photos of the B-50s' that were at Hickam AFB in Honolulu when we were based in Hawaii. The aircraft was supporting a joint (U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force, and U.S. Navy) mapping project which extended from the island of Midway to Australia.

The plane had been modified with a large "bubble" of landing lights on the fuselage, under the tail, which Army geodetic survey personnel used as a target to determine azimuth between widely spaced points. The plane was also equipped with a HIRAN distance measuring system to measure the distance between the points.

I was one on the Army personnel on the project and consider the photo my personnel property. If anyone using your data base would like to use the image I would ask only that I be credited with the photo.

Regards

Vaughn Nelson
CW3 U.S. Army Retired