A late afternoon takeoff from the helipad on the west end of Wickenburg Airport’s ramp. On board with me are three wranglers from the local guest ranch — each on their very first helicopter ride. But the shadow steals the show.
I don’t know why, but the audio didn’t come through on Viddler. I may try to upload it again. For now, you’ll have to be satisfied with the video only.
Update: After fiddling around with the original video and compressing it prior to re-upload, I got the sound to work right. Here’s the good version of the video, with sound.
Join me for the last 2 minutes of a flight to Sky Harbor.
Well, I finally worked out the kinks in my POV.1 camera. This time, I mounted it to the outside of the helicopter on my door pointing forward, slightly right, and slightly down.
I took this video while coming in for a landing on the Terminal 3 helipad at Phoenix Sky Harbor airport (PHX). The helipad is on top of the parking structure beside the tower, between the north and south runways. It was a quiet morning; not much traffic at all.
Here’s a photo I snapped after I shut down and my passengers had gone away. (Yes, I used that darn fisheye lens again.)
Here’s the first video I shot with my POV.1 camera from my helicopter.
I mounted the camera on the bar between the two front seats, using a camera mount I’d bought a few years back for my camcorder. I pointed it pretty much straight out the front. This is the view someone sitting in the back would have if he stuck his face between the two front seats.
The best I could do for sound was to run a small tape recorder microphone into the earpiece of my headset. This works by picking up all the sound I hear and has the added benefit of muffling the aircraft noise. The microphone goes directly into the Mic port on the POV.1. You’ll hear me and Ed talking about the video and various things around town. You’ll also hear all radio communications.
The original video was 14 minutes long — the amount of time it took to take off from Wickenburg, swing past the west side of Vulture Peak, fly over Vulture Mine, fly past the east side of Vulture Peak (low), and land back at the airport. I edited out about half of it.
I know it isn’t the greatest video, but it is my first try. (Be gentle with your comments.) I’m hoping to build up a little library of clips and someday turn them into something good.
