One reason for this trip was to get some air-to-air video. Joe agreed his 2-place Bandit could be used as the camera ship. After discussing the plan, Tim strapped in the passenger seat of Joe's 2-place Bandit for the first time, armed with a digital video camera. Joe took the pilot seat and Gary followed us out to the runway.
Gary flew south along the river. Joe flew the camera ship and kept plenty of horizontal and vertical separation at all times. Tim meanwhile tried to keep the camera pointed at Gary. What a challenge! It was difficult to keep the camera still and to see through that tiny viewfinder in the 50 mph wind.
Upon returning, we confirmed the video was pretty shaky. But there were a few good shots that made it worthwhile. We all took a break and went to lunch.
After lunch we had time to go out for one more shoot, this time taking video of Joe's ship with Tim along for the ride in the passenger seat. Two Garys got in Gary's RAF with a video camera and we all departed.
This time Joe flew along the river and the Garys followed to capture the video. Again the camara ship pilot maintained plenty of horizontal and vertical separation. A safe distance here is way more important to us than the video. After flying for a while more, we called it a day and returned to the airport.
What fun! We did a better job the second time out. I think we could get much better at this with a warmer day and some practice. We all agreed to try again later this spring. It would be nice to have video of all our machines in flight.
Probably more than this happened this month. But since you didn't tell me about it, it's not here in your newsletter! Do you know of any area fly-ins we should go to this spring? Bring the dates and places to the meeting. Let's get some events on the calendar and go to some fly-ins. See you all Sunday.
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http://www.quiknet.com/~twitham/gyro/pra5/Timothy D. Witham <twitham@quiknet.com> Last modified: Mon Feb 21 19:42:39 PST 2000