Touch the skies

Like most of us online folks, I’ve been enjoying some pretty nice videos created and posted to the internet. Some of them are made using small high resolution cameras, like the Go Pro. If you visit that site, you’ll see some high quality, creative and innovative work, often set to just the right music. I wanted to give this a shot, but since I couldn’t afford the Go Pro,I searched for a smaller, cheaper alternative. This winter, I purchased a small camera that is literally the size of a keychain. In fact, it is called a 808 HD Car Key Micro Camera (#16). The only details I will bore you with is that it records using a 1/4” CMOS WXGA HD Sensor using H.264 video format with 1280 x 720 resolution. In other words, true 16×9 HD format. If you want to learn more, RC Groups has a well maintained forum here. For about $40, I couldn’t resist seeing what I could do with it.

The main reason I wanted something like this was to fly my remote control airplanes and helicopter with it. I’ve made a few test recordings with my heli, but the first one I wanted to publish was a recent flight with the Sig FourStar 40 airplane that Adam and I built some years ago. The kit was a gift from Adam’s godfather, Dr Jeff Morgenthaler. Adam has flown it in the past quite a bit, but not in a while. He let’s me fly it now, but I give him title of Owner/Builder. On this day, it was very windy. The plane is fairly light, so my take off was poor; the landing was worse, but the plane is fine. My ego, thanks to the peanut gallery, is in tatters. However, when setting the flight to music, the video seems to take on a somewhat more acceptable life of it’s own. Being the perfectionist, I’m now scripting a series of maneuvers for a higher quality flight video, as well as designing some better camera mounts. But for now, I hope you enjoy the movie

PS: The music I used is entitled “It’s for You,” recorded by Lyle Mays and Pat Metheny in 1981 on the album “As Falls Witchita, So Falls Witchita Falls”. I discovered it in a movie I saw in high school called Fandango, recommended by my high school buddy, Marc Eckhardt. It’s one of my favorite movies, and I think the song communicated what I was trying to capture in my little video.