A cockpit POV video from the FlyingMAir YouTube channel.

COME FLY WITH ME as I take my helicopter from Wenatchee Pangborn Memorial Airport to Cave B Inn and Resort to pick up some passengers for tours. Along the way, I give you a special VIP “backstage tour” of the Gorge Amphitheater on the last morning of the Watershed event there.

Throughout this video, I mention making a video of the return flight and I did — or I THOUGHT I did. One of my cameras crapped out on me a few minutes into that return flight so I only have footage from one camera — sadly, the one facing me. The trouble with recording video while flying a helicopter is that I really can’t pay ANY attention to the cameras. They say pilots need to handle workload in this order: Aviate, Navigate, Communicate. Monitoring video cameras is not on that list so unless the camera stops working literally before my eyes — as it did in my recent Ellensburg to a Friend’s House video (https://youtu.be/ktoUs_mIrRo) — I’m probably not going to be able to see or fix it. Lately, this has been happening entirely too much, making about 20% of my flights unusable for sharing on YouTube. Ouch. I’m trying to figure out what’s going wrong so I can fix it on the ground and get you more content without me spending a lot more of my money on flight time.

About Me and the Helicopter

• I have been flying for about 20 years. My nearly 4,000 hours of flight time is in Robinson R44, Robinson R22, and Bell 206L (Long Ranger) helicopters.
• The helicopter is a 2005 Robinson R44 Raven II — the same one that appears in the photo at the beginning of the video. You can learn more about them here: https://robinsonheli.com/r44-specifications/ I own this helicopter. It is the third helicopter I’ve owned since 2000.
• My helicopter has ADS-B Out and is picked up by radar facilities. You can see my track for recent flights on Flightradar24: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/n7534D This is a great site for tracking any almost any flight, including the airlines.

About the Video

• The video was recorded with a pair of GoPro cameras, one of which is connected to the helicopter’s intercom system. Both cameras record audio, but I dialed down the helicopter sound to about 25% of normal volume so it wouldn’t be annoying. Some viewers say they want to hear it so there it is.
• The video was edited on a Macintosh using Screenflow software. Learn more about it here: https://www.telestream.net/screenflow/overview.htm
• The intro music is by Bob Levitus, famed “Dr. Mac.” You can find him here: http://www.boblevitus.com/

I try to drop cockpit POV videos every Sunday morning and drop “extras” with more info about owning and operating a helicopter midweek. I also host occasional livestreams with Q&A chats. Subscribe so you don’t miss anything new! And tell your friends. The more subscribers I have, the more motivated I am to keep producing videos like this one.

Any Amazon links on my channel are affiliate links. If you click one of them and buy something, Amazon sends me a few pennies. Enough pennies make a dollar. Enough dollars buy new equipment. It doesn’t cost you anything so I hope you’ll shop with one of those links. Thanks.

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