Murfreesboro
Tennessee

J.S. and S.W. Aber
Jeremy W. Aber

Introduction

In March 2014, we visited our son and daughter-in-law, Jeremy and Amy, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. He had just completed building his first KAP rig based on a Canon Powershot Elph 130is camera with electronic shutter trigger and 2.4 GHz radio control. We also used our new Nikon Coolpix AW110 camera with built-in GPS and compass direction (see building a rig). We flew at two sites, a soccer complex at the Richard Siegel Park on the northern edge of the city, and Murfreeboro's Stones River Greenway next to the Stones River National Battlefield.

Both days were mostly to partly cloudy with light to moderate wind from the south/southwest. The ground was wet and rivers running high, after considerable rain a couple days earlier. Conifer trees were green, and cool-season grass was beginning to green up, but most other deciduous vegetation was still dormant following an unusually cold winter.

Soccer complex

Overviews of the soccer fields complex with a large landfill (hill) in the background. Left: Nikon Coolpix shot with uniform lighting. Right: Canon Elph view with patchy illumination through broken cloud cover.
Left: view southward showing many puddles in the field beyond the park. Right: unusual parking-lot arrangement adjacent to a soccer-field pavilion.
Vertical shots. Left: park pavilion and small "junior" soccer fields. Right: different soccer fields are marked by white and red lines. Note variations in grass/soil color due to moisture content.
JWA bringing down his kite after conducting successful KAP on the soccer field (left). This kite is called the fled and was designed by Brooks Leffler for light-wind KAP. Right: self-portrait taken at camera liftoff.
Left: storage case with camera rig, radio control, and various accessories. Right: inserting a stake for The Claw, which proved to be an excellent ground anchor.

Greenway and battlefield site

West Fork Stones River. Left: view to southeast with the Greenway beside the river. Right: looking westward showing Thompson Lane bridge over the river, and McFadden Farm Monument of the Stones River National Battlefield is visible in the background.
Left: McFadden's Ford is marked by shallow rocks in the river channel near scene center with housing on York Court cul-de-sac to right. Asterisk (*) marks canoe access to the river. Right: vertical shot over the river channel.

The authors (JSA & SWA) testing
the camera rig prior to launch.

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All text and imagery © by the authors.
Last update March 2014.