Formation Flying Around The Clouds

[Guest DavidH10]

I have finally managed to finish editing this video. Footage actually taken back at the start of October and with video collected from two cameras on a flight of over an hour to edit it has taken some time to edit it down to 27 minutes. This is my first video utilising video from two aircraft and I've since added some damping to my camera mount to reduce the bounce. It's a trade-off between eliminating vibration and not having any bounce from a floating mount.

 

The clouds and cloud formations look pretty good, the sun through the clouds was spectacular and the flight was a real pleasure, with the exception of a nasty patch of heavy turbulence encountered on the way back to the aerodrome. There's some more notes on the flight posted with it on YouTube. It is in full 1080p HD.

 

There were three aircraft in the formation and it should be noted that some of the clouds filmed are of a nature that would present a significant hazard to light aircraft. We certainly kept our distance, but even so encountered some light hail at one point. You could not actually see it ahead. The same was the case with rain over Lake Mulwala, which disclosed its presence only from the pattern on the water. Over a third of the flight was above the freezing level (- 4 degrees).

 

Hope you all enjoy the video as much as we enjoyed the flight.

 

 

 

[Guest OzChris]

David - what an awesome video! Thank you so much for sharing - I loved it!

 

 

[dazza 38]

Top Stuff David.Cheers

 

 

[Guest JabJockey]

That looks like a lot of fun David! Must get myself up in one of them soon

 

 

[Guest BlackRod]

Another brilliant video. Thanks David - I thoroughly enjoyed that. Next best thing to being there.

 

 

[Guest DWB]

BY crikey David you've nailed it. PiP was great - that was going to be my next experiment but I was going to just use a camera on the instruments for the small picture.

 

 

[Guest DavidH10]

Thanks, Guys. It is nice to hear that other people are enjoying it.

 

Feedback from my wife, in contrast, indicates there are two distinct and separate audiences. Pilots, who have a much greater appreciation and tolerance of long scenes, and non-pilots for whom long scenes with no action or quickly changing background becomes very quickly boring. Another observation from a non-pilot is that a scene with only one aircraft visible isn't formation, despite the proximity of the filming aircraft, which has no meaning or realisation for non-pilots.

 

It is the first time I have tried PiP and there's lessons to learn there too. The second camera has now been changed to 16:9 aspect ratio as well, so the pictures will match in both aspect ratio and resolution.

 

Hopefully, as I produce new videos, I continue to improve the watchability and appeal, however there is a lag in new approaches becoming evident, as there's always a pipeline of video that has already been taken and some of the lessons need to be applied in taking the original video as well as in editing.

 

All good fun anyway :-)