Applying exploratory airplanes in geographic study

Human beings have always been interested in reaching a better understanding of their environment and its phenomena. They have experienced different methods to achieve an understanding of land resources, and in this way they have reached new technologies. Using air and space has always been one of their goals in this regard. With the first controllable flying airplane in about a century ago, the first aerial photo was taken from the ground and remote sensing was born. With the outbreak of First World War and military use of aircrafts, the necessity of applying aerial photos in information collecting and identifying land resources was recognized. The second World War followed by the Cold war on one hand, and technological developments on the other hand resulted in the emergence of exploratory airplanes in aviation and remote sensing realms. The present article investigates and reviews the most important exploratory airplanes and their applications in remote sensing. Despite many satellites that have been launched with different sensors, equipment and resolutions, results indicate that still many geographic studies take advantage of exploratory airplanes.