Today was a long and arduous day. No really - it was a day so long and tiring that by the time we got to the hotel in the evening I actually fell asleep in the lobby whilst waiting for us to check in. Richard had to wake me up! How embarassing...
The start of the day was beset with small problems. Our missing bracket finally arrived, and we spent a couple of hours fitting it. Then we went for a test flight, and shot some air to air stuff around Crazy Horse. Simon found that the helicopter was only delivering 98% of its power, and so the next couple of hours were spent tuning up the Jet Ranger to get those missing 2%. Ordinarily that might sound like perfectionism gone mad - particularly when were were starting so late in the day, but a Jet Ranger with a Cineflex and three people and all the gear is pretty heavy - those 2% matter a lot!
Finally, we set off and roared into the skies of Wyoming.
I shot a bit of footage on my GoPro - and have decided the mount is useless. I'm going to try and improvise tomorrow, but it looks like it's sat on a washing machine on full spin.
Due to our late start, we weren't able to stop for lunch. So I ate a packet of beef jerky, a banana and a bag of popcorn. Nice.
The rest of the day went well, and we landed just as night was falling. The footage came out perfect, and all in all our first filming day went swimmingly.
I also made an interesting observation (at least to me - everyone else will no doubt find it utterly dull). At the end of the day, we need to charge up a battery that we use to run the system at the end of the day once the helicopter has powered down and I'm checking tapes. Charging the battery up is a bit of a pain, as you aren't supposed to do it in a hotel room or office room (due to the very small chance of leakage of noxious fumes). So we need to get it into a hanger and leave it on charge over night. And I've observed the following.
1) If I walk into the terminal and ask if we can charge our battery, they say no.
2) If I bring the battery into the terminal (it's big - like a car battery), hold it up, and say can I charge it, they say yes. If I ask where and explain it can't be in an office they will often say "sorry, we can't help"
3) If I bring the battery into the terminal, hold it up, and say "Hey, can we charge this up, we normally leave it in a hanger overnight", they say yes, without question, every time.
What I'm asking is the same each time, but it's the way I ask that makes the difference.
Oh, and cos this post is just a wall of text, here's a picture that made me laugh:
The start of the day was beset with small problems. Our missing bracket finally arrived, and we spent a couple of hours fitting it. Then we went for a test flight, and shot some air to air stuff around Crazy Horse. Simon found that the helicopter was only delivering 98% of its power, and so the next couple of hours were spent tuning up the Jet Ranger to get those missing 2%. Ordinarily that might sound like perfectionism gone mad - particularly when were were starting so late in the day, but a Jet Ranger with a Cineflex and three people and all the gear is pretty heavy - those 2% matter a lot!
Finally, we set off and roared into the skies of Wyoming.
I shot a bit of footage on my GoPro - and have decided the mount is useless. I'm going to try and improvise tomorrow, but it looks like it's sat on a washing machine on full spin.
Due to our late start, we weren't able to stop for lunch. So I ate a packet of beef jerky, a banana and a bag of popcorn. Nice.
The rest of the day went well, and we landed just as night was falling. The footage came out perfect, and all in all our first filming day went swimmingly.
I also made an interesting observation (at least to me - everyone else will no doubt find it utterly dull). At the end of the day, we need to charge up a battery that we use to run the system at the end of the day once the helicopter has powered down and I'm checking tapes. Charging the battery up is a bit of a pain, as you aren't supposed to do it in a hotel room or office room (due to the very small chance of leakage of noxious fumes). So we need to get it into a hanger and leave it on charge over night. And I've observed the following.
1) If I walk into the terminal and ask if we can charge our battery, they say no.
2) If I bring the battery into the terminal (it's big - like a car battery), hold it up, and say can I charge it, they say yes. If I ask where and explain it can't be in an office they will often say "sorry, we can't help"
3) If I bring the battery into the terminal, hold it up, and say "Hey, can we charge this up, we normally leave it in a hanger overnight", they say yes, without question, every time.
What I'm asking is the same each time, but it's the way I ask that makes the difference.
Oh, and cos this post is just a wall of text, here's a picture that made me laugh:
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