The Fort Worth Aviation Museum (petting zoo) hosted another night shoot last weekend.
Good times with some old friends and some new one's...playing with light in the dark.
The I2 is an incredible piece of technology. Mike Brewington has been instrumental in spurring me on to make the addition and he's been right on the money. You can see the roof a/c unit covers blowing in Sunday's wind on that video, never would have flown the Phantom 4 Pro in that wind. The I2 sounds like a gaggle of really ticked off hornets as it fights the breeze, but it's as stable as can be. There's so much to learn beyond just flying it, every time I fly I come home, download the footage and see things that I wish I had done differently. Video is like that anyway, so different from still photography because you not only need to capture great footage, you also need to know the story you will tell with it and how you will put it together. When you add flying the drone to the mix the videographer needs to be accomplished with the drone itself in order to capture smooth and engaging footage, as well as figuring out how to tell your story without using all the same movements over and over. Like anything else, I guess it all will come with experience. Frustrating though, to be at the top of your game with one facet of imaging and to jump into another where you are in the "crawling" stage........ Keeps life interesting!
Probably the question I get the most about my MAKS experience is "how do the teams compare to..." X. I will say that comparing them to the blues I would still put the blues on top. Their show is just more dynamic than the Russian Teams. That being said, there's something special about a formation of Russian Fighters performing overhead.
The swifts were pretty excellent for a different reason than the blues show is excellent...they fly what seems like 3/4 of the show in burner, including a 6 ship min radius turn that is very impressive.
They do not use a smoke system...the trails you see in this shot are just wing tip vortices because of how fast they're going.
It does Joe the whole package is nice because when you show up the client knows you’re serious. The look, the sound, it all gives a professional impression. I like the P4Pro, but you know someone is thinking, “ I got my kid one like that last Christmas “, that’s not going through their head when you light up the Inspire. Funny, I’m getting pretty decent with it but when I came home Sunday after a couple of hours of flying , my legs were a little wobbly. The concentration and adrenaline mix I guess . Subconsciously the thought of sending all that cash into the air with nothing but a couple of gimbals in your fingers is a bit unnerving. Like anything, I guess you get used to it. My hat is off to Mike, he sends me beautiful imagery over 100’ pines and water as far as one can see, “cojones grande” from my fledgling perspective.
I don’t think I’m quite over my Phantom 2 experience way back when you launched the drone and prayed that it would go somewhere in the direction you pointed it.
Just saw that myself. It's the Collings Foundation B-17 Nine O Nine. Unfortunately, they usually give rides at their events. Good chance that there were passengers on board, in addition to Collings staff.
This tank is 80 years old and it's beautifully preserved in running order.
It was build in Czechslovakia, overall 24 vehicles of this model entered service in the Swiss Army. Luckily 9 of them survived to these days.
I think those leather mudguards add something special to it
I think there are still quite a few people critical with extensive burns. Looking at images of the scene, it's hard to believe anyone got out. Only things recognizable are the starboard wing, the tail section, the bent and melted top turret, maybe an engine. Everything else was incinerated.
Looks like it went nose-first into a large deicing tank after they lost control on landing. Crew was probably killed instantly, and the poor passengers in the fuselage that survived the impact had to fight their way out of the flames.
Got a call a little while ago from the FAA (kind of gets your blood pressure up!) but this was a good one. I had requested Part 107 Drone authorization for a site on the south end of DFW a few weeks ago. The gentleman calling me said they had reviewed my credentials and request and they were granting my request and expanding it to a DFW area blanket authorization adhering to the LAANC map parameters. This is great because now I can fly any drone mission in that area with the LAANC map as my guide without having to submit a request. Just applied for the same authorization for McKinney National Airport airspace.
Thanks Mark! My drone skills are fledgling (in my estimation) at this point, I wonder if it has anything to do with my pilot ratings thus familiarity with airspace? Could also be that they are so inundated with airspace waiver requests that if they see a drone operator with reasonable credibility they grant a blanket waiver in that area just to lessen their future workload. Whatever the reason, I came home this afternoon and applied for waivers in three addition areas that I want to fly in, we'll see what happens with those. This first one took about two weeks to get approved, which is actually remarkable in FAA timeframes, they have to be swamped given the explosion of commercial drone operators. The gentleman who called me today, really nice guy, mentioned that his office alone is slogging through over 1,000 waiver requests currently.
I'm guessing that, as your name becomes known in their office (and no incidents pop up) approvals should get faster and easier. Who knows, this is all new ground for everyone involved. I do take this first one as a bit of a confidence builder given it's smack dab in the middle of The Holy Grail of airspaces around here.
The serial number of this tank is lost, so we can't trace its whole story, but we know it's already 100 years old. It was restored to running order in 2009.
Back in its days it was classified as "fast" tank, reaching a top speed of almost 8 km/h. It was indeed fast, because other early tanks did barely 4 km/h
Keeps life interesting!
