My Movie Ate My Podcast!

These are the show notes to an audio episode. You can listen to the show audio by clicking here: http://traffic.libsyn.com/airspeed/AirspeedMovieAtePodcast.mp3. Better yet, subscribe to Airspeed through iTunes or your other favorite podcatcher. It’s all free!

By way of getting some content up into the feed, I though it might be a good time to sit down with Will Hawkins, director of A Pilot’s Story and talk about both his film and my film, Acro Camp. We’re each coming down to the final stages of editing our respective films and this conversation turned into a good discussion of what independent filmmaking is and can be. Especially when it’s independent filmmaking about aviation!

Check out A Pilot’s Story at www.apilotsstory.com. Check out Will and Rico’s production company at www.wilcofilms.com.

And, of course, follow progress on the Acro Camp films at www.acrocamp.com!

Technical note: The mic on my headset didn’t connect properly, so my voice is being picked up by the built-in mic on my Mac. Not the best audio quality, but a good conversation nevertheless.

Acro Camp Debrief with Don Weaver and Barry Sutton

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After the props stopped turning for the last flights of Acro Camp, I took Michelle Kole back to Detroit Metro for her flight back to California. While I was gone, DP Will Hawkins sat down instructor pilots Don Weaver and Barry Sutton to debrief after five days and 41 sorties.

This is the audio, essentially unedited, from that debrief.

Neither Don nor Barry had done a camp as intensive as this in some time. Both were ready for some rest. But both remained energetic about what happened at the camp. Each felt that he had made a difference in each pilot's life and flying skills. Each was impressed at the transformation that each pilot experienced.

Will initially planned to ask questions to keep the conversation going. In fact, all he had to do was say "So how did it go?" and adjust the camera once. These guys laid a rope 25 minutes or more long that was every bit as poignant as anything that any camper had to say.

It's a privilege having guys like this with whom to shoot a movie. And, for me personally, it's amazing that I get to go fly with each of them with some regularity.

Stay tuned for an announcement about Acro Camp II. It's tentatively planned and don't be surprised to hear a casting call go out some time in the next few weeks!

Aerial Videography Panel

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These are the show notes to an audio episode. If you want to listen online, please use the direct link below. http://media.libsyn.com/media/airspeed/AirspeedVideo01.mp3.

With principal photography for Acro Camp coming up in a just over a month, I thought that now would be a great time to gather some of new media’s most noted experts on capturing images aloft and pick their brains for an hour.

The panel includes Acro Camp director of photography Will Hawkins, Indianapolis Airshow Director Roger Bishop, and independent aviation video producer and enthusiast Rick Felty, each of whom brings a different view of the task of capturing the visual elements of flight and making them exciting for aviators and non-aviators alike.

We talk about equipment, mounting techniques, stabilization, editing, rendering, safety, and more.

Check out the movie’s website at www.acrocamp.com for news about production and building the buzz!

New Scheyden Ad in Post

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I’ve been back and forth on Skype with Will Hawkins all day and he got a moment to put together the latest Scheyden ad. I’ll publish it as soon as it’s ready and will start putting it in episodes shortly.

In the meantime, we went over the voiceover script and some color correction stuff on the T-6A flight and we’re both pretty excited about the video episode covering the flight that’ll be coming out of the trip to Randolph AFB. I know that I've said before that the in-flight video is gorgeous, but it's gorgeous. This is going to be the best video episode yet! To say nothing of what I'm going to do with the audio!

Exciting stuff! Watch this space!

Airspeed Video Feature - Aerobatic Conditioning

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These are the show notes to a video episode. You can watch online right here by clicking on this direct link. http://media.libsyn.com/media/airspeed/AirspeedVideoAcro01iPod.m4v.

So here it is! The first full-up Airspeed video feature. 14 minutes of good stuff featuring my last acro conditioning flight before heading down to Randolph AFB for the T-6A Texan II ride.

This is some new ground for Airspeed. I’m by no means abandoning audio. Audio will remain my primary vehicle. But some stuff just works better in video and this is a great example.

Please let me know what you think and how I can continue to improve Airspeed for the greatest and most loyal audience in the world: You guys!

Many thanks to Will Hawkins of Wilco Films for his tutelage in the mysterious ways of video editing. This would have been possible without him, but only with a lot of suffering and trial and error!

Contact information for Sutton Aviation (where you, too, can strap on a parachute and fly this very aircraft with this very Barry Sutton!):

Sutton Aviation, Inc.
Oakland County International Airport
6230 North Service Drive - Waterford, Michigan 48327

248-666-9160
http://www.sutton-aviation.com/

Airspeed Alfresco - Inaugurating the Patio for the 2009 Season

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So I’ve finally had the opportunity to set up the studio in one of my favorite authoring spaces, namely my patio. It’s in the low 70s and sunny and it’s the perfect circumstances to categorize, edit, assemble, write, and think. Which is what I intend to do, along with a whole boatload of work from the office (three hours already billed today, so I’m taking a little break here and I feel good about that).

I have a lot to do. I have the seaplane rating audio to categorize and edit. I have pictures and video of that, as well, that I need to figure out how best to present. I have loads of audio and video from recent acro training that I need to marry up and then cut for release. And all of this is to say nothing of the great material from the T-6A Texan II ride (as well as the voiceovers that I need to write and record for that).

(By the way, thanks, Uncontrolled Airspace, for the kind shout-outs in Episode 135. I’ll try to not disappoint your listeners that hop over here for a taste!)

I’m still on a high from the Randolph AFB trip. Here’s a shot of Jo Hunter and Will Hawkins in the conference room that we used for the preflight briefing and as a staging area. One of the few pictures I think we have of Jo. She’s a wizard behind the lens but seems to avoid the other end of the lens for the most part.

One of the central resources of any incarnation of Firebase Airspeed (and especially in 94F San Antonio) is the beverage station. The hotel was very nice in almost all respects, but no fridge. So we loaded up the sink with ice and brushed out teeth using the bath tub. Got to get your priorities right!

Back to herding electrons. Look for really good stuff in the feed soon!

More Shots from the T-6A Texan II Flight

Check out the Airspeed episode Firebase Airspeed: T-6A Style right here: http://media.libsyn.com/media/airspeed/AirspeedFirebaseAirspeedT-6A.mp3.

The crazy-talented photographer and fellow aviation enthusiast Jo Hunter of Futurshox was a part of the coverage crew at the recent T-6A Texan II sortie at Randolph AFB and she made her Airspeed debut that night on the episode Firebase Airspeed T-6A Style, along with Will Hawkins of Wilco Films and A Pilot’s Story.

Jo shot stills, assisted with video, and contributed her distinctive Texas drawl (listen to the episode for details) to the proceedings.

Jo has posted several shots from the coverage at her site, www.futurshox.net and in a blog entry at http://futurshox.net/blog/blogger.html. Please be sure to check it out!

The lead shot of this blog entry is one of my favorites. After the flight, will shot some commentary from me for a Scheyden ad next to the aircraft. Glad I got a haircut the day I left for Randolph. I had developed a pretty good rooster tail in the helmet, but a little water and it looked like hair again for the shoot. And there’s nothing like a zoom bag, gee suit, helmet, and oxygen mask to make stuff like that just not matter.


Here’s a shot of the aircraft taxiing in. Maj Jarrett Edge in front and yours truly in back.


Just after takeoff. You can see the video camera pretty clearly in this one. I remain very indebted to the 559th and AETC generally for the accommodations that they made to allow this coverage. The in-flight video came out very well and we’re all pretty excited about it. I recognize that the jet teams have gee- and systems- based reasons for not flying better-resolution cameras, but I’m not complaining a bit about the Thunderbirds ride, but the video from this flight is orders of magnitude better than any I’ve seen from a jet team flight.

And the T-6A is such a wonderful-looking (to say nothing of performing) aircraft, I think the footage is actually more exciting than the jet team footage I’ve seen.

Will is hard at work editing and I’m going to be providing music and voiceovers to put together the video episode. I’ll also be doing a comprehensive audio episode of the whole thing and I’m hard at work writing and editing for that.

Are there luckier people on the planet? Three days of hanging out with perfectly resonant folks who love what you love for all of the right reasons. Having access to beautiful airplanes that turn mere pilots into the best-trained aviators in the world. Meeting and talking to the people at the top of their games who train the trainers. And now having a little breathing space to take that raw material and use it to tell a story to a loyal and enthusiastic audience.

I can’t thank Will, Jo, the US Air Force, and many others enough. Look for a great couple of episodes (probably a couple in audio and one in video) soon!

Airspeed Video Teaser

So Will Hawkins of Wilco Films and A Pilot's Story has begun to create a monster.  Namely me.  Will gave me a quick tutorial on Final Cut last night and I've now had a chance to integrate some of the video I've been shooting into a teaser for future Airspeed episodes.  The first will likely be the coverage of the T-6A Texan II ride at Randolph AFB last week.  But I'll also try to load in bits of video from other experiences this summer and try to do at least a couple of bits of aerobatic video.

Stay tuned as Airspeed just gets better and better!

More Frame Grabs from the T-6A Texan II Flight

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I’m just now getting a chance to look at the video from the T-6A Texan II ride and start parsing out the pieces that are going to be the most useful. It’s also a great way to remember the flight and make sure that I get all of my impressions down so that I can incorporate them into the episodes. I thought I’d post a few frame grabs so that you could see what I’m working with.

The day was fairly overcast, which means that we’re going to have to pump up the color a little in places. That said, we have a lot of great sequences of flying by - and through - big ragged cumulus clouds, and those are going to be great once we make the clouds pop a little better.

Here’s a shot of the strap-in process just after we turned on the camera. The camera is mounted on one of the vertical structures above the front ejection seat and the horizontal stabilization bar of the canopy just barely clears it coming down. I mounted the camera and Maj Edge turned it on and hit the REC button just before strapping himself in. Here, the LtCol is helping me complete my own strap-in. I’m carrying the audio recorder in my shoulder pocket and I have a condenser tie-clip mic (sans tie clip) dangling behind my ear to capture the intercom and ATC sound. I was pretty worried about the audio because I’d never tried doing it this way before, but it ended up working very well. You need to adjust the audio levels once you’re taxiing to make sure that you have it right, but it worked very well.


A nice shot of me and the Texas countryside as the aircraft went vertical in a maneuver. It’s a little gray and shadowy, but Will is working on that in post. Want to talk superpowers? Will can change the weather in post and actually use those clouds to his advantage!

Just before touchdown on Runway 14R at Randolph AFB. It’s hard to see much up front for landing and I’m craning a little to get an idea of Maj Edge’s sight picture.

A lot to chew on over the next few weeks. I need to write the backing music, hit the studio to record it, and get the mix in process. I wrote a lot on the flights on the way home last night from San Antonio and there’s much more yet to write. And then there’s the triage of w3hat I’ve written to get the whole thing down to the core story. I feel a little like Quincy Jones sitting down with a whole bunch of stupendous material and trying to figure out how best to tell the story. My favorite problem!

Happy Holidays - Capt Force Puts His Money Where His Mouth Is

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If the story as told to me by the EAA is true, in the early 1920s, engineer William B. Stout sent out a number of letters to wealthy potential investors asking $1,000 from each. In his letter, he said, in relevant part, "For your one thousand dollars you will get one definite promise: You will never get your money back."

By all accounts I can find, Stout kept his promise.

Stout's project and passion? On a beautiful August day this year, I took the controls of one of only 199 units that this particular dream produced. But what a unit! It was a 1929 Ford TriMotor, a silver, corrugated, and cantankerous, but awe-inspiring, harbinger of the golden age of aviation. Because of Stout's dream and the loving labors of countless people from then to now, I added 0.3 hours dual received in the Tin Goose to my logbook.

Several months ago, I found out that friends, independent filmmakers, and fellow pilots Will Hawkins and Rico Sharqawi had decided to make a documentary film about aviation. It's called A Pilot's Story. Will noticed that, no matter the circumstances of the individual pilot or aviation enthusiast, some magical core part of each of their stories was always the same. As a labor of love, Will and Rico have set out to capture the essence of what it is to become, and be, a pilot. Although Will and Rico's appeal for donations to help pay for the project was a lot less dramatic than Stout's, the core idea was the same. This is a labor of love and we might get to watch a really spectacular movie about people and aircraft (and so much more) if the project gets finished.

So, as is my practice, in lieu of fruit baskets, nut trays, and other indicia of the season, I have elected to contribute to a worthy cause. Earlier this week, I made a contribution in your collective honor to the making of A Pilot's Story.

Though I am certainly no captain of industry, I share at least one thing with Stout's investors. I don't expect to get my money back. I don't want it back. Neither does anyone else I know who has donated. We have traded our funds, time, and talents to the universe, confident in the knowledge that the universe (and, in non-trivial part, Will and Rico) will deliver a film that will be an artifact of our hopes and aspirations that will tell a story that defies conventional storytelling. I hope that you get to see it when it comes out in late 2009 or early 2010.

If you're interested, you can see the newly-mixed trailer for the film at www.apilotsstory.com.

I hope that you'll regard this gesture as appropriate to a season that is, after all, about a very similar kind of wonderment and joy. Thanks for the opportunity to work, play, fly, and/or laugh with you this year. It's been a privilege and I hope that you'll receive this note with the appreciation that I continue to have for each of you and for our professional and personal relationships.

Happy holidays, everyone!

A Pilot's Story - Interview with Will Hawkins and Rico Sharqaui

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These are the show notes to an audio episode. You can listen online right here by clicking: http://media.libsyn.com/media/airspeed/AirspeedAPilotsStory1.mp3.

Here’s an early look at the production of the new independent film, A Pilot’s Story. Many of you know Will Hawkins from The Pilot’s Flight PodLog, but not many of you know him as the extraordinary filmmaker that he is. He and Rico are working on the film with release scheduled for 2009 or 2010.

And you might be able to have a say about that release date. This is a labor of love. The aviation documentary is a largely untested genre, the success of One Six Right notwithstanding. And it’s not like there’s a lot of money around the economy for much of anything anyway.

But this is a film that needs to be made. Check out the interview with Will and Rico on this episode and then head to the film’s website and watch the trailer.

Then – and this is the important thing – scroll down and click the Donate button. Give what you can so that Will and Rico can complete this film.

I’m contributing music and other energies. Contribute what you can. Contributions that jingle help. But contributions that fold get the project made!



The story of flight is a sweeping saga that has exceeded the imaginations of even those who first dreamed it. And yet it unfolds (as all truly special stories do) in moments, places . . . and people. Always and ever in people.

Just above the heads of most of our brothers, sisters, coworkers, and neighbors there hang gossamer cathedrals of piled cotton below the cobalt dome of a perfect sky. But fewer than one in 500 will ever experience this through the front window of a flying machine. A Pilot's Story seeks out the special few who have answered the call of the skies, those with the discipline, aptitude, and courage to become pilots.


Filmed in hangars and homes, at restaurants and on ramps, A Pilot's Story tells the story of flight in the words of pilots themselves. What it means to fly an airplane all alone for the first time. What it means to fly an airplane for the last time. The easy rapport one can have with a person who is a complete stranger but for the shared experience of flying.

And the excitement that consumes pilots at the opportunity to share this world of aviation with non-pilots, airport communities, community leaders, and anyone else who will listen.


A Pilot's Story is a film for anyone who has sat all alone in an aircraft, firewalled the throttle, charged down the runway, and rotated. And especially for those who might if given the chance.

For most people, the sky is the limit. For a pilot, the sky is home.

This is the story of the journey home. A Pilot's Story.

Airspeed Alfresco - Gotta Write!

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Writing a lot today. Set up on the patio for now and will likely head for the office this afternoon late to get a bunch of work done. Mostly the Thunderbirds summary episode, tentatively titled “Sometimes Alternates Fly.”


I also need to edit down and post the episode I recorded with Will and Rico of Wilco Films about A Pilot’s Story. Good episode, I think. And Airspeed’s first outright request for funding – For the film. A worthy project that deserves to get made.


Then it’s recording the intro and outro for the David Kneupper interview and grabbing a couple of snippets of the Apollo/Saturn V Center and Star of Destiny music to load in at the right moments.

Got a lot to get over the tipping point this weekend. I was at Starbucks this morning shortly after it opened, cranking away and got most of the way through the cockpit audio itself. I was just writing the part about the nine-gee pull when I had to pack up to take the kids to Panera for breakfast and then to Lowes for a Guild and Grow project. Not I’m back at it. Would really love to record the narration this weekend! It’s possible! Got to knuckle down and get it out!

Pilot Will Hawkins Starts Next Podcast

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Will Hawkins of The Student Pilot Flight PodLog is starting his next venture in the Podsphere!

Will has already posted Episode 0 of The Pilot's Flight PodLog. See http://pilotwill.libsyn.com/ and subscrbe through iTunes or your favorite other podcatcher. Will will swap stories of his aviation exploits with guests and feature yet other accounts by listeners and other contributors. Look for the first full episode soon, which is slated to feature hangar-flying with Pilot Kent of The Pilotcast. Yours truly will also join as soon as Will and I can both carve out some time.

Now if only Will could operate Skype! (And then teach me!)