wrote in message
oups.com...
I was shopping at a Wal-Mart on December 17, 2004, when I noticed
outside a helicopter flying just over the tops of the parked vehicles
in front of the store. It was flying towards me, about 20 feet above
the ground and climbing. I got a photograph of it when it was about 50
to 70 feet in the air. It quickly flew up past me and over the top of
the building.

I realize that helicopters have a lot of flight freedom, but it is
still shocking to see one flying directly towards oneself like this.

Why? It is always flying towards somebody. Anyway, if that helicopter is
only 50-70 feet up it is an RC model. I know that you insist that you were
there and know better, but what did you do, use a tape measure? How the heck
do you know that it was only 50-70 feet up?

This one, measuring by the height of the fuselage, is at least 150 feet up.
If it is smaller, then it is even higher. Even so, helicopters fly into all
kinds of places, including Wal-Mart parking lots, schools, homes, or
practically any open field, and they do a lot of aerial photography work at
very low level.

There are some third hand accounts of Wal-Mart having a policy of not
allowing photography in their stores. Apparently the chain is concerned
about competitors who have been sending corporate spies into the stores to
study inventory control. Just as a guess, analysis of a series of pictures
could tip off competitors into Wal-Mart's ordering and restocking practices,
which would be very valuable information. Given enough study, one could
re-engineer Wal-Mart's whole computerized inventory control system.
Considering that Wal-Mart spent a fortune on this system, I doubt that they
would be interested in just handing it over to a competitor for free.

That said, one would think that Wal-Mart would post signs informing
customers of this policy. As usual, the anti-Wal-Mart crowd has attributed
the whole thing to Wal-Mart's sinister plot to take over the world.