Dryden Aircraft Photo Collection

http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/index.html

This collection contains 2460 photos “of many of the unique research aircraft flown at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards, California”. Some of those pictures are also of the facilities and people. Strangely, the number of listed images in the index does not always correspond to the actual number, sometimes more sometimes less.



1) Selection Decisions
There is no official reason given as to what images are chosen. I suspect what happens is that as NASA digitizes its images, whenever they come across a Dryden Image it goes into the collection. I suspect this because the “What’s New” page shows anywhere from 4 to 40 new images per month, suggesting that the process is random.



2) Metadata
There is lots of metadata available. Each image page contains the Title, photo number, photo date, photo description, program description, photo by, and keywords. The photo itself has a footer that lists the name of the photo collection, the website, photo number, photo date, photo by, and title. The website states that there is no copyright on these photos. There is no information on who did the actual digitizing but the e-mails for the “Responsible NASA Official” and “Curator” are listed.



3) Object Characteristics
Images are JPEGS there are at least 2, usually three sizes available; the largest being suitable for an 8x10 photo, usually about 3000 pixels wide. A few only have lower res but that’s the exception. Images are listed alphabetically by aircraft with a small representative thumbnail. Click on the name and you are taken to a page with the photo number, date and image description. Click on the description and you are taken to the photo page where there are usually three links to the three sizes of the photo.
Ex: “3000x2670 JPEG Image (3,329 KBytes)”



4) Intended Audience
Aviation Buffs would really like this site. Since Dryden is a government facility the true audience is the American taxpayer. Anybody who needs a high quality image of an experimental NASA airplane would come here.