Firebase Airspeed - Beale AFB Style

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Jo Hunter (www.futurshox.net) and Mark LaCoste (www.twitter.com/stdntpilotmark) joined me at Beale to shoot stills and video, respectively. And, as is the custom of merry bands of new-media producers, we gathered around an MP3 recorder to talk about the experience and get some content out into the podsphere.

This session happened in the VOQ at Beale Air Force Base about 45 minutes north of Sacramento, California on the morning of my T-38 ride.

We’re compiling the video, audio, and stills and I should have content get into the feed soon!

Cessna Citation Mustang - Video Episode

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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/AirspeedMustangVideo.m4v.

Remember when I said that I spent the summer building up great content and spent the off-season here in the northern US editing it all and making it compelling? Well, here’s some of that content.

You’ll recall the audio episode covering the demo flight in the Cessna Citation Mustang? Here’s the video from the flight. I had the camera up front for the takeoff, then David Allen ably took over the HD camera duties while Rod Rakic took the Flip video, Jo Hunter shot stills, and Cole (“FOD”) provided color commentary.

Be sure to check out the audio episode, Flying the Cessna Citation Mustang, for a complete account of the flight, including 30-odd cockpit audio outtakes!

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!