Interesting point-of-view video of helicopter lesson

by philg

One of the instructors at our flight school found an interesting way to mount a GoPro camera and make a video of a helicopter flying lesson. Comments would be appreciated because we could edit it. And yes I know that there is no sound! It would be nice to pipe in the radio transmissions at least but they’d have to be recorded with a separate device. The drone of the engines and blades would not be interesting. We don’t have a license for any inspiring music.

11 thoughts on “Interesting point-of-view video of helicopter lesson”

  1. Pretty sure we all expected the camera to be mounted on a rotor. Turned out much better than I feared.

  2. I have a Drift HD170 Stealth, and it works quite well for recording flights either strapped onto a headrest of a DA40, or clipped onto a passenger headset.

    They sell a cable you can use to plug it straight into the PA system and record all radio and in-flight conversation. It works.

  3. I’d think the drone of the engine and blades would be better than no sound, especially to your target audience, to help infuse the feeling of flight. But getting the chatter among those in the craft (and perhaps with flight control) would be a big plus. A Zoom recorder may well be sufficient if you have an extra feed to plug into it.

    As for music, you’re free to lift anything from a US government broadcast, such as the music on this NASA video from last week: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010900/a010996/index.html I don’t know whether that specific music fits your vibe, but they may have others there you like.

  5. The wipe between the takeoff and Boston segments was a bit disconcerting. 🙂

    Also the visual whuffing near the landing might deter some customers.

    Otherwise, looks like lots of fun, I’d definitely put some of the real audio low in the mix though. No inspirational music necessary. Voice over on top of the real audio would be ok and might serve your promotional purposes.

  6. Looks compelling enough. Agree, sound would add to it (what was the intructor pointing at all those times?) but maybe it’s good there was some mystery 😉

    It looks like the color of the craft changed from Yellow at the beginning, to red at the end when it was being stowed.

    If you fly during the morning or evening in the golden hour of light, the city might look even better through the windscreen.

    But it’s nice none-the-less. I myself stick to still photography. Video is too much work in Post.

    Scott

  8. The video is great. Really gives a good view and impression. The lack of sound is unnerving. We aren’t used to seeing video without sound. You’ll at least need a voiceover, I’d think.
    I am amazed the helicopter stays in the air with the blades turning so slowly, based on the shadow of the blades. Perhaps this is some weird video artifact?

  9. I didn’t see the one thing I expected to see – seeing the perspective slow down and come to a stop in a hover. That’s one of the things that I expect is unique about flying in a helicopter. I thought I’d see it at the end when they were getting close to the ground, but the video ended.

  11. Remove the ads for the school and add captions explaining what we see: i.e. instructor telling student to do X, what out for Y, etc. Otherwise, who cares? Not having sound is in fact beneficial, because I doubt the instructor is giving sound bites for the camera.

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