The Union Pacific RR plans to move its 70 year-old "Big Boy" locomotive sometime this spring from Colton, California, to Cheyenne, Wyoming, for a multimillion dollar restoration. A friend will take ground video and I intend to take video with my P2V along part of the route through California. He will then splice his takes with mine to make a video story.
We went out into the local mountains this past weekend to practice and to see what problems we would have. The wind was gusting enough that I was very hesitant about flying, but it was calm often enough and long enough that I said, "Oh what the heck". I hovered at 8-10 feet for about 5 minutes and the P2V tried valiantly to keep its position within about 5 feet during the gusting wind, which I'd estimate reached as much as 15 mph. I was sufficiently satisfied with its performance in the wind, confident that it wouldn't fly away, and sent it up to about 50 feet with the idea that I would merely yaw over a point and film Ken's car as he drove along the road. As you will see and hear from the video, we'll have to hope it is not windy on the day the locomotive makes its move.
But the purpose of sharing our video here is to elicit your comments on what we might do better during the rest of our practice sessions and for the final video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot-2Bva6w4o
We went out into the local mountains this past weekend to practice and to see what problems we would have. The wind was gusting enough that I was very hesitant about flying, but it was calm often enough and long enough that I said, "Oh what the heck". I hovered at 8-10 feet for about 5 minutes and the P2V tried valiantly to keep its position within about 5 feet during the gusting wind, which I'd estimate reached as much as 15 mph. I was sufficiently satisfied with its performance in the wind, confident that it wouldn't fly away, and sent it up to about 50 feet with the idea that I would merely yaw over a point and film Ken's car as he drove along the road. As you will see and hear from the video, we'll have to hope it is not windy on the day the locomotive makes its move.
But the purpose of sharing our video here is to elicit your comments on what we might do better during the rest of our practice sessions and for the final video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot-2Bva6w4o