New Project Sugestion/Request - Air to Air Filming with a twist

Joespeeder

Junior Member
Hey Guys,

I'm hoping you can help point me to a good project or develop a new episode and/or style of FPV....

I'm looking for a good solid set up to do air to air FPV with a slight twist.

1. I don't want to see the structure of the FPV camera ship.
2. I want to be able to film.... er record the target aircraft from above, below, looking back onto the front for the target plane and looking forward onto the back of the target aircraft.
3. Use a dedicated cameraman using head-tracker to "follow" the target aircraft while the camera ship is flown normally or FPV. Really doesn't matter how it's flown as long as it can match the flight characteristics of the group. Maybe a 2nd radio dedicated to the head-tracking FPV Camera set up to allow the camera ship pilot to just fly normally??

Getting tracked fly bys and other air to air shots is the goal.

Ok the challenges.... This could be done as a system on the X8 or similar plane, but would be very cool as a pod design that could be transferred from warbird to warbird. However, that would limit some of the view objectives and jello would be a challenge depending on the plane you strapped a "pod" onto for a flight. Plus many warbirds need flaps to land comfortably so a pod might get difficult to place on some of them. Either way this needs to be able to be flown comfortably with in a formation flight of warbirds 60-80inch ws.

Last, the camera plane or pod should be warbirdish looking somehow. Maybe as simple as painting the X8 in military trainer style paint with orange or yellow details or maybe WWII German camo with yellow nose and wing tips for the wingman to find and track as they fly by the camera aircraft. Maybe a way to show when the camera is recording?? LED's ???

The headtracking will stabilize the shot and we should see stable flybys or tracking shots that keep the target aircraft in frame as it moves through the range of the camera.

This would not need to be long range so the fpv gear can be simple and the more compact the better. But the picture should be the priority. GoPro camera or smaller. But no SLR or super high end stuff like the Black Magic. Simple, good quality HD and reasonable pricing is the goal.

I think that pretty well lays out the project. I'm looking to film air to air while flying formation using a cameraman to headtrack the action.

Here is a video that you guys might enjoy. Imagine filming while flying formation inside these group flights and knowing what your filming in real-time, plus being able to track the target aircraft without worrying about flying....

Hope this sounds like a cool project.

https://youtu.be/h_k7ulW56Oc

I having been thinking about mounting the cam on a triangulated boom (carbon) structure in front of the camera plane with the lens centered on the center of the boom..... ?????

Flying warbirds in big groups is a challenge and trying to film and fly is too much, I think, so a dedicated camera pilot would soften the work load and get shots like we don't get to see very often.

Joe

BTW, that's me ground looping the FW-190.... It's also me greasing in the Hurricane..... :p

We love our warbirds and this would be a great addition... You can see more of what we do in these vids.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=pmac+warbirds


Thanks for your interest and talk to you soon.
 
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