Maintaining and enhancing aviation safety at all times is an essential factor at various airports around the world. It is not enough to keep it at that level, as we also see from history that the volume of air traffic doubles almost every 15 years. The number of aircraft in traffic is constantly increasing, and airport infrastructure needs to be developed. Consequently, the challenges for aviation are also greater. Electronic Terrain- and Obstacle Data Collection (eTOD) at airports and their surroundings are an essential procedure for aviation safety that aims to organize databases of potentially dangerous flight obstacles. The process is based on passive optical aerial remote sensing from a fixed-wing aircraft. With the help of point cloud and geoinformatics software created during the processing of in-flight recordings and additional data, strictly defined terrain- and obstacle data can be organized into databases, the format of which is regulated by international standards and documents, according to which the obstacle database can be used internationally. These data sets are needed not only because they are required by law, but also because they form the basis for the design of various aircraft procedures and make a major contribution to safe aviation.

In the nearly 120 years of aviation history, the industry and technology have evolved with the world. In the early decades, the focus was on preparing aircraft for passenger transport, and gradually the industry developed different areas such as airports, navigation, in-flight services and air traffic control. The aviation industry has faced quite many challenges in different periods. At the beginning of the JET era, the first very controversial factor, noise pollution, was already apparent. The gas turbines of the time were much less efficient than today’, and although the technology worked, some factors were less considered by developers, such as the noise and environmental impact mentioned above. As we moved into more modern times, the focus shifted more and more to the pollutants emitted by aircraft, which has become one of the most studied factors to date. This research examines the sustainability of aviation, past, present and future, in the light of global warming. It presents technologies that already work in the present, but their possible spread only points to the near or even distant future.

A repülési ágazat fejlődése folyamatos jellegű. A repülésbiztonság egyik alappillére az akadályadatokat tartalmazó adatbázis, amelyet a nemzetközi irányelveknek megfelelően nem elég csupán szinten tartani, hanem fokozni is kell annak megbízhatóságát. A legmodernebb technológiák ehhez nagymértékben hozzájárulnak. Ilyen például az elektronikus terep- és akadály-adatgyűjtés, angol nyelven és rövidítve eTOD (electronic Terrain- and Obstacle Data Collection). A folyamat alapja merevszárnyú repülőgéppel történő légi távérzékelés. A repülőgéppel gyűjtött adatokból előállított pontfelhő és a geoinformatikai szoftverek segítségével kinyert információk a szigorúan definiált terep- és akadályadatok adatbázisaiba rendezhetők, amelyek jellegét olyan nemzetközi szabványok és dokumentumok szabályozzák, amelyeknek megfelelve nemzetközi szinten alkalmazható lesz az akadály-adatbázis. Az adathalmazokra nemcsak amiatt van szükség, mert rendeletek megkövetelik azok meglétét, hanem azért, mert különféle repülőgépes eljárások tervezésének alapját képezik, és nagymértékben hozzájárulnak a biztonságos légi közlekedéshez.

We have been looking for a safe and economical technique for making an Electronic Terrain and Obstacle Data collection (eTOD). We have developed a method and a quality assurance system which covers the complete process from making an aerial survey to data processing. In addition to presenting the method, the article focuses on the dependence of the aerial photogrammetric obstacle survey on spatial resolution. We have found that the most effective way of making an obstacle database is by making a passive aerial remote sensing, which is supported by a high-speed (200-600 km/h) fixed-wing aircraft. The high-speed aerial camera systems with vertical and oblique camera axis are more accurate and more aerial triangulation can be used with them than with classic single camera solutions. The carefully planned flights for fixed-wing platforms provide a stable camera position and the homogeneous shooting network more easily, and obstruct the air transport for less time. In most cases, a terrestrial survey in itself does not allow the creation of the eTOD within a reasonable time frame and with complete safety, because of hard-to-reach areas, subjectivity and slow traversal in the field.