Commercial aerial photography[edit]

The first commercial aerial photography company in the UK was Aerofilms Ltd, founded by World
War I veterans Francis Wills and Claude Graham White in 1919. The company soon expanded into a
business with major contracts in Africa and Asia as well as in the UK. Operations began from
the Stag Lane Aerodrome at Edgware, using the aircraft of the London Flying School. Subsequently
the Aircraft Manufacturing Company (later the De Havilland Aircraft Company), hired an Airco
DH.9 along with pilot entrepreneur Alan Cobham.[11]

New York City 1930, aerial photograph of Fairchild Aerial Surveys Inc.

From 1921, Aerofilms carried out vertical photography for survey and mapping purposes. During the
1930s, the company pioneered the science of photogrammetry (mapping from aerial photographs),
with the Ordnance Survey amongst the company's clients.[12]
Another successful pioneer of the commercial use of aerial photography was the American Sherman
Fairchild who started his own aircraft firm Fairchild Aircraft to develop and build specialized aircraft
for high altitude aerial survey missions.[13] One Fairchild aerial survey aircraft in 1935 carried unit that
combined two synchronized cameras, and each camera having five six inch lenses with a ten-inch
lenses and took photos from 23,000 feet. Each photo covered two hundred and twenty five square
miles. One of its first government contracts was an aerial survey of New Mexico to study soil
erosion.[14] A year later, Fairchild introduced a better high altitude camera with nine-lens in one unit
that could take a photo of 600 square miles with each exposure from 30,000 feet. [15]