Tag Archives: helicopters

Colockum Ridge by Helicopter

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Another video from the FlyingMAir YouTube Channel.

SIT ON THE NOSE OF MY HELICOPTER as we take a flight up into the Colockum Ridge area south of Wenatchee, WA and east of the Columbia River. This footage is from an elk scouting flight I did in September 2019 and we see plenty of elk up in the national forest as we fly around in a random route over the forest and its clearings. My only edits were to cut out the parts where I flew around in circles for more than one lap.

I made this video to offer a holiday viewing alternative for family gatherings. Perfect for any age, with music that’s more likely to put you to sleep than to offend you (or grandma), it has gorgeous mountain views and plenty of spotting opportunities: the helicopter’s shadow, Mount Rainier, elk, trucks in the middle of nowhere, etc. (Use the video comments to share other weird things you spotted.) And, for the record, I think some of the best footage is in the second half of this video, especially some of the canyon and river footage.

If you’re looking for something exciting, this ain’t it. But not everything about flying helicopters is exciting. Sometimes it’s just beautiful and calming and a feeling like you’re a bird. I hope you enjoy this.

Happy Holidays from Flying M Air.

About Me and the Helicopter

  • I have been flying since 1998. My nearly 4,000 hours of flight time is in Robinson R44, Robinson R22, and Bell 206L (Long Ranger) helicopters.
  • My helicopter is a 2005 Robinson R44 Raven II. You can learn more about R44s here: https://robinsonheli.com/r44-specifications/ This 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

I try to drop cockpit POV videos every Sunday morning and “extras” with more info about owning and operating a helicopter midweek. (Some channel members get early access to some of these videos.) 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.

Some links on my channel are affiliate links, including all links to Amazon (https://amzn.to/32PLHTD). If you click one of them and buy something, I get a small referral reward. It doesn’t cost you anything so I hope you’ll shop with one of those links. Thanks.

Want to support the FlyingMAir channel? Here are four suggestions:

Helicopter Commute: Airport to Home

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Another video from the FlyingMAir YouTube channel.

SIT ON THE NOSE OF MY OLD HELICOPTER as I from the airport in Wenatchee across the Columbia River to my home under construction in Malaga.

This “Throwback Thursday” video is the whole flight from June 2014. I’ve just refueled after cherry drying and have gone home to wait for the next call out. It’s a beautiful day with great reflections in the river. I tell you a little about the area and my home in a narration added in editing.

About Me and the Helicopter

  • I have been flying since 1998. My nearly 4,000 hours of flight time (as of 2019) 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. This was my first R44, which was lost in a crash back in 2018. You can learn more about R44s here: https://robinsonheli.com/r44-specifications/ I owned this helicopter and now own another one very much like it, but blue. I’ve owned a helicopter since 2000.

About the Video

  • This video was recorded in 2014 with a GoPro Hero 3 camera mounted on the nose of the helicopter. Audio comes from the camera’s built-in speaker and has been incorporated into this video at 25% normal volume.
  • Narration was added using a Røde Podcaster microphone (https://amzn.to/2IFnbNr) connected to a Macintosh. I recorded the narration while I was watching the video in the editing software.
  • 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 “extras” with more info about owning and operating a helicopter midweek. (Some channel members and patrons get early access to some of these videos.) 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 (https://amzn.to/32PLHTD). 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.

Want to support the FlyingMAir channel? Here are four suggestions:

Helicopter Flight: Nick Over the Rocks, Part 3

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Another video from the FlyingMAir YouTube channel.

COME FLY WITH ME as I take Central Washington University geology professor and star of “Nick on the Rocks” Nick Zentner on a helicopter tour of the eastern Malaga, Rock Island, and Lower Moses Coulee with a focus on geology. It was a beautiful day for this second flight together and we start off by laughing about the camera problems I had on our first flight. The Nosecam footage is amazing and Nick points out many geological features along the way. This is part 3 of a multi-part series and the longest so far; I’m trying to keep them short and sweet.

Places mentioned in this video:

About Me and the Helicopter

  • I have been flying since 1998. My nearly 4,000 hours of flight time (as of 2019) is in Robinson R44, Robinson R22, and Bell 206L (Long Ranger) helicopters.
  • My 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 Nick Zentner

About the Video

I try to drop cockpit POV videos every Sunday morning and “extras” with more info about owning and operating a helicopter midweek. (Some channel members and patrons get early access to some of these videos.) 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 (https://amzn.to/32PLHTD). 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.

Want to support the FlyingMAir channel? Here are four suggestions:

Behind the Scenes: Cockpit Cam Instrument View Setup

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A video from the FlyingMAir YouTube Channel.

COME BEHIND THE SCENES at Flying M Air while I show you my new “cockpit cam instrument view” setup. This is the same setup first used in the Helicopter POV Flight: Autumn at Mission Ridge & Wenatchee video (https://youtu.be/4aktQnGbC68), although the audio connection failed me that day.

IMPORTANT NOTE: In this video, I mentioned the GoPro Tripod mount. That is not necessary. The MyPilotPro Helicopter mount comes with a GoPro-compatible mount.

Also note that the camera setup I have here is customized to raise the camera above the bar by an extra 6-8 inches. That’s so that the camera clears the shoulders of the two front seat occupants and looks down at the instrument panel (instead of through the top of the cyclic). If you do not need the camera raised, you don’t need to bother with the extra RAM Mount equipment; the MyPilotPro helicopter mount includes everything you need to mount a GoPro to a bar.

Here are some links where you can find components mentioned in this video:

MyPilotPro: https://mypilotpro.com/shop/?wpam_id=13
Helicopter Mount: https://mypilotpro.com/product/helicopter-gopro-mount/?wpam_id=13
Other airplane and helicopter mounts are available. Check their site to see what products might work best for you.

RAM Mounts: http://www.rammounts.com/
PVC Pipe Products: https://www.rammount.com/shop-all/pvc-pipes

GoPro Hero 7 Black: https://amzn.to/2Lxyzwl

Nflightcam Aviation Audio + Power Cable for GoPro Hero: https://amzn.to/31syLTm

About Me and the Helicopter

  • I have been flying since 1998. My nearly 4,000 hours of flight time (as of 2019) is in Robinson R44, Robinson R22, and Bell 206L (Long Ranger) helicopters.
  • My 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 this Video

I try to drop cockpit POV videos every Sunday morning and “extras” with more info about owning and operating a helicopter midweek. (Some channel members get early access to some of these videos.) 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.

Some links on my channel are affiliate links, including all links to Amazon (https://amzn.to/32PLHTD) and MyPilotPro (https://mypilotpro.com/shop/?wpam_id=13). If you click one of them and buy something, I get a small referral reward. It doesn’t cost you anything so I hope you’ll shop with one of those links. Thanks.

Want to support the FlyingMAir channel? Here are four suggestions:

Helicopter Photo Flight: 737 MAX Airplanes at Moses Lake

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A video from the FlyingMAir YouTube Channel.

SIT ON THE NOSE OF MY HELICOPTER as I take a professional photographer over Grant County International Airport in Moses Lake, WA to shoot photos of Boeing 737 MAX airplanes parked there. There are over 100 planes, parked in three big areas, and this video gives you a good view of all of them.

The video starts with a cockpit POV radio call requesting permission from the tower to make the flight. We’d taken off at sunrise from Wenatchee, so it was still early when we arrived and there was no other aircraft traffic. The tower told us to “proceed as requested,” giving us free-rein to conduct the flight as needed. The view then switches to an unobstructed forward view from the helicopter’s nose. The photographer was sitting behind me so we both had the same view; that made it easy for me to get into position for his shots. Iit also meant that the best shots were off the right side of the aircraft and not the nose where my camera was. Still, I think you’ll agree that I got some good footage of a lot of parked planes.

A few more notes about this video:

You can find the photos David Ryder took that morning here: https://www.gettyimages.com/search/photographer?photographer=david%20ryder&assettype=image&events=775425765&family=editorial &phrase=David%20Ryder&sort=newest#license His photos are AMAZING and I highly recommend taking a look.

David also flew with me back in 2016 to shooting aerial news photos of the aftermath of the Sleepy Hollow Fire that destroyed 25 homes in a Wenatchee subdivision.

The big runway at Grand County Airport is 13,502 feet long and 200 feet wide. This is big enough for 747 airplanes to land.

(When I did an air-to-air photo flight with the Global SuperTanker some years ago, this is where the crew landed to refuel between passes. You can learn all about that flight and see video of the inside of the Global SuperTanker here: https://aneclecticmind.com/2016/06/25/flying-with-the-global-supertanker/)

You can learn more about the retired Quantas 747 at Moses Lake here: https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/Qantas-747-final-flight-14540153.php

About Me and the Helicopter

  • I have been flying since 1998. My nearly 4,000 hours of flight time is in Robinson R44, Robinson R22, and Bell 206L (Long Ranger) helicopters.
  • My helicopter is a 2005 Robinson R44 Raven II — the same one that appears in the photo near the beginning of the video. You can learn more about R44s here: https://robinsonheli.com/r44-specifications/ This 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

I try to drop cockpit POV videos every Sunday morning and “extras” with more info about owning and operating a helicopter midweek. (Some channel members get early access to some of these videos.) 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.

Some links on my channel are affiliate links, including all links to Amazon (https://amzn.to/32PLHTD). If you click one of them and buy something, I get a small referral reward. It doesn’t cost you anything so I hope you’ll shop with one of those links. Thanks.

Want to see YOUR name on the member list? So do I! Becoming a member financially supports this channel and gets you a handful of benefits — including discounts on merchandise in my Etsy store (https://www.etsy.com/shop/FlyingMAir) — on an ongoing basis. The Join button or this link will get you started: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLGD_GbGsS6YKK_Ekx0QMqQ/join