{"id":2568,"date":"2013-12-27T11:01:37","date_gmt":"2013-12-27T19:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.mechadigital.net\/?p=2568"},"modified":"2021-08-26T20:37:57","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T20:37:57","slug":"94-day-shooting-pville","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/94-day-shooting-pville\/","title":{"rendered":"# 94 A Day of shooting at P\u2019ville"},"content":{"rendered":"

Written on February 5, 2013<\/p>\n

\"Brian<\/a>
L3 Wescam’s HK 36, often used for providing overhead views for televised events. Referred to as “The Stealth”, it was very difficult to hear when 1,000 feet overhead.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What is it that us flier-types have which seems to separate us from the rest of the yayhoos?\u00a0 Do you suppose it\u2019s the passion we feel for our air time?\u00a0 It\u2019s occurred to me that, because I feel that some of us should pursue our passions, we can fall victim to that old nemesis, familiarity, and the contempt that so often follows it around.\u00a0 It\u2019s certainly happened to me.\u00a0It seems that whenever I\u2019ve flown a job for a long period of time, I\u2019ve experienced this phenomenon of getting a bit too used to this special work.\u00a0 I remember one night over Tampa Bay Stadium.\u00a0 I was flying an HK36 motor glider for L3 Wescam.\u00a0 It carried a gyro-stabilized camera under one wing.\u00a0 Ashley was the camera operator sitting next to me.\u00a0 Her steady fingers kept the camera trained on the \u201cMonday Night Football\u201d game in the stadium below. \u00a0I circled endlessly, our video signal beaming to the ABC trailer parked next to the stadium.\u00a0 Thousands of viewers thought they were looking at footage from \u201cThe Blimp\u201d.\u00a0 The blimp couldn\u2019t make it.\u00a0 We were filling in anonymously. The game went into overtime.\u00a0 We were in the air that night for over four hours.\u00a0 I remember having one of those moments.\u00a0 I was tired of going around in circles and thinking about emergency procedures.\u00a0 Tired of listening for the director\u2019s instructions and having to keep the shot steady.\u00a0 But then I had to give myself a figurative slap in the face.\u00a0 I was flying and filming.\u00a0 It was a dream job.\u00a0 Sure, this was a rather lengthy sameness, but I loved this work.\u00a0 Others would kill to do what I was doing.\u00a0 Repetition \"Glider<\/a>had made me complacent.\u00a0 I snapped out of it. When I ran Sunriver Soaring, I was flying every day and it was a pretty special world of flying glider tours with a great crew and really appreciative passengers. \u00a0There were times, however, when I took it for granted.\u00a0 There were plenty of passengers who would comment on what a special life I was living.\u00a0 They helped keep me from taking it for granted. Most of us, however, don\u2019t have a steady diet of the activities that drew us to the winged life. But then we have a day of flying which reminds us of how much we love this \u201cwinged life\u201d. Yesterday was such a day.\u00a0 I think it was the ideal day for a guy like me.\u00a0 We needed to get some footage for three different stories on the Tailwheeler\u2019s Journal.\u00a0 One story was about \u201cMultiple Landings\u201d, that operation I teach, where the airplane is touched down, then lifted off for another subsequent landing.\u00a0 As many as five or six of these can be done \u00a0with one pass down the runway.\u00a0 It can be a tricky maneuver, mostly because I stress quality over quantity.\u00a0 I always tell a student who is just learning the maneuver, \u201cJust try to do two.\u00a0 Let\u2019s concentrate on doing these landings and takeoffs well.\u00a0 Then we\u2019ll work on increasing the number of them we can do on each pass.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0But today I wasn\u2019t teaching.\u00a0 Today I was doing.\u00a0 \u00a0Accordingly, I was working hard at getting about five cycles per pass and to make them as smooth and as good as I could.\u00a0 As an added complication, I felt it might be a good idea not to crash into the camera car, which was racing alongside me down the runway. That last concern would be even more important while we shot \u201cSlaloms\u201d.\u00a0 This maneuver was begun with a landing in a turn, then the airplane was flown in a serpentine pattern, back and forth across the centerline with first one wheel on the ground and then the other, the ship carving turns back and forth.\u00a0 It\u2019s probably a lot more difficult than the Multiple Landings, but I teach them both in my Master Class and, time permitting, in a tailwheel class as well.\u00a0 When I arced to the right this day, I was looking Ol\u2019 Bert Garrison right in the lens as he hung out of the speeding camera car right next to me.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0629\"<\/a>
(Photo by Bert Garrison<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Normally, I don’t usually fly these maneuvers.\u00a0 Normally, I teach them with only an occasional demo to show a student how it\u2019s done.\u00a0 But this day there was no student.\u00a0 Just Bert and our other camera operator, Ginger, on the ground or in the camera car being driven by Vern.\u00a0 I\u2019d zip around the patch doing the runs over and over while Bert advised me on the radio as to what he needed or how it looked in the camera.\u00a0 I was a busy guy.\u00a0 I had to think like a pilot, like a film maker and like a politician, making sure I didn\u2019t piss anyone off while doing these maneuvers, which to whuffos look insane.\u00a0 So professionalism was uppermost in my mind.\u00a0 But you know something?\u00a0 I had a ball.\u00a0 I so rarely get to actually fly the airplane that this was a huge treat for me. So the next time you happen to see one of my videos which might feature the demonstration of a maneuver, you will know that you are watching a guy who, for a little slice of time, is having a wonderful time. And that, after all, is what brought me to this life.<\/p>\n

Happy Swooping!<\/p>\n

Brian<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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