Hard to compete with the fun, and the videos, from HSF, but we had a pretty nice lunch...

Well done! Looked like a very fun day. Thanks for sharing.

Brett

Good stuff right there. Cheers...Rob

Nice video! Cool to see Guanajuato from the air.

Well done. Cool drone shot. What camera/lens are you running on that? Seemed less distorted or corrected.

That was fun Rich. What is the elevation of the airstrip that you visited?

Nice video!

Nice one!!

Zzz wrote:Well done. Cool drone shot. What camera/lens are you running on that? Seemed less distorted or corrected.

The new Phantoms (3) have integrated cameras instead of gopro mounts. The lens is much better (most notably, non-fisheye) and the rest of the electronics are strong with the features you would expect.

One notable strength is that it does 4k/30fps so you can do a bit of panning and zooming in post and still release 1080P if you like (though, obviously, at the expense of being able to shoot 60fps).

One notable weakness is in low light, so it's not a great platform for sunset to sunrise.

The other noteworthy thing is that it has an SDK and new features are starting to come out on top of it. This shot uses a new "point of interest" mode that allows the DP to define the shot and then the platform flies a circle around the point of interest. Makes it easy to get shots like this:



That's possible without POI mode, but takes a lot of practice and focus at the shoot.

Trivia: The train in that shot is the legendary Beast (la bestia) from the heart wrenching movie Sin Nombre.

Crzyivan13 wrote:That was fun Rich. What is the elevation of the airstrip that you visited?

Thanks dude. Yeah, it was a fun day.

The strip is 8,400 ft elevation at the normal approach end. The other end is about 8,700 and a much more technically interesting approach because of yet higher terrain over the approach path.

In terms of planning, the "normal" runway, 24, should be treated as a no go around except in very capable aircraft. A decision height of 300 feet is plenty as you can turn left to lower terrain and continue 180 to follow the drainage downhill for miles if necessary. But if you start to touch down and decide to change your mind, that 3% grade and 8,400+ elevation eat up the performance of your aircraft.

It would have to be pretty windy, and right down the runway, to get me to consider taking off on 24. Better to go back into the valley, sample some Penca y Piedra mezcal and see how things look the next morning instead.

Runway 06 is a little intimidating looking because you'll be at 100-300 ft agl on your approach (or, I like to making a non-standard approach and turn into the runway a few hundred feet past the threshold to stay over lower ground) if the winds are favoring that direction. Departing 06 is a breeze though. Downhill toward yet lower terrain (as you see Santiago do in the video).

Oregon180 wrote:Nice video! Cool to see Guanajuato from the air.

Thanks buddy.

You can see lots more from the area here:

Very nice. The video technology and editing is great!