So when I got down there on friday I went and had a chat with the chopper guys going over flight plans ect at point cook airbase. this went alot quicker than expecting which was a bonus as it gave me some free time to kill. Point cook is an ex RAAF base and has a brilliant museum of which I cleverly forgot to take my phone into to get some shots but just trust me, its brilliant and a must do for anyone who finds themselves in the Melbourne vicinity! when I got out of there, I went and got my camera and headed over to the "restoration hangar" where they re fixing up the aircraft to later become exhibits. I just about crumbled at the knees when I went in to see this! can anyone guess what it is?
anyway so once there I called a mate of mine who is the editor of an Australian warbird magazine, he also has a bid dog and a 195 at point cook. I thought I would see if he was about for a catch up, which he sadly wasnt as he was getting ready for deadline, though he did give me a tip to hang around a while, something pretty special was going to arrive that at point cook, something there is only 1 of in Australia and has only just got airborne for the first time after a 20 year restoration. He wasnt kidding!
anyway I went and picked up the other 2 guys I was working with on the project from the airport (they came in lter as they didnt have to organise helicopters) and we headed down to Philip Island.
On saturday we got to hang around the track from the pre qualifying training sessions which was a good experience. I got a couple of videos of it all for you guys.
this is the moto 3's. They are only a singe cylinder 250 but they fly! they are defiantly the loudest of the 3 classes. plus an aussie won this category on the weekend so it was very popular!
this is the moto GP bike in action. I unfortunatly didnt get any of the moto 2 bikes, the 600's but I actually thought they where the most impressive
the lean these guys achieve is amazing! there elbows touch the ground! one of the guys during practice lost the back end of his bike in a corner and actually propped himself back up with his elbow and kept ridding!
the roulettes put a display on to, I only got a quick snippet of it, but there great! I never get sick of watching them. I've seen alot of display teams including even the blue angles and the red arrows, but I really do think these guys take the cake!
so it was off to work then and into the chopper. effectively all we did was fly back and forward in lines taking photos with a couple of different camers, one being just a standard cannon 5D with a nice wide lense, that is just to help us with the meshing, an the other was a $125 000 dollar 80 MPG phase one camera, that was for the detail! after the race over the next week we will be meshing these together with out software and geo rectifying them to make a high resolution map and 3d model of the site for planing and analysis. for the camera buffs out there (which should add I'm not! there just a tool for me), this is the toy
this was our ride. we got a run in a squirrel to which is such a nicer machine! it just makes the 44 feel so insufficient!
Our view of the track for the weekend! was a great seat because you could see all the crashes! its a bloody nice track!
they also had a great super cross track going for you dirt bike lovers!
so now its just a wait till the f1 next year to get to do it all over again! which I cant wait for as I'm a HUGE f1 fan. on that note are any of you fellas from over the pond heading to Austin Texas for the next round!?
