Latest Fun Flight: Aerial Pictures & Pizza

Sinistar

Sinistar

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Brad
TLDR: The wx finally got nice up here in Minnesota so I queued up our local fun flights group for a airplane pictures and pizza day. The goal was to take a few aerial photo runs and then grab pizzas to bring back for whoever wanted to hang around.

It started off with a decent logistical challenge. I need to order enough pizzas to feed about 15 pilots. The pizza place is 45 miles away. I needed to meet the photo plane 30 minutes out after they wrapped the previous run. Plus...I didn't want to prepay $120 of pizza only to find the plane doesn't start. So I knew it would be fun when I did the run-up first then right afterwards (engine idling) put the Zulu 3 bluetooth to the test and ordered pizza. Worked perfect.

I departed 1 minute later and headed for the meetup in the air. Not complaining about ADSB for this stuff. All three planes have GTX345's so with a bunch of watts of "I'm here" power we could all see each other at all times even down low.

We did the photos between 1000agl and 1400agl. Definitely pretty bland backgrounds as its snow covered plus the overcast so our photographer did a pretty darn good considering. He was also shooting through glass which doesn't help. This was his 3rd time ever doing this and my second time flying like this.

I love the Dakota pictures! He just had his plane painted and it looks like new :) Our paint job is old and outdated and I take the pants off for the winter. But it is still cool to see it flying from outside. We'll probably redo mine this summer when everything is green and the pants are back on.

My friend in his Cherokee 180 was the photo ship (did his last summer). We kept it simple and he just flew a fixed course that our photographer wanted. Both target planes agreed to never cross their path. Plus agreements on what to do if lost visual, etc. Flying 95kts (indicated). Closest distance for the planes was about 4 wingspans for a close up or two and then back to about 2x or 3x that distance for most photos. We switched over to 122.75 for all coordination and matched altimeters once we were about a mile from each other.

I was able to make the pizza pickup with 5 minutes to spare. Nice tip for the Pizza guy. Bonus: great tailwind back pushing 180mph. We kept it safe and everyone seemed to have a great time!

Crude video of the flight from my POV:

The Dakota With Fresh Paint Job
StuartsPlane.jpg

Our Old Skylane (Over the Minnesota River)
BradsPlane.png
The Photo Plane (Shot This Summer - Definitely Better Time For Photos!)
GregsPlane.png

Nice Ground Speed Back = Pizzas Stayed Warm
BradsGarmin.jpg
 
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Sounds like some fun for you and the other people.
Tough to get good photos of a mostly white plane against a white background this time of year. If you have a chance, try a few photos in the golden hour with the long shadows and with the sun at the photographers back. It might make that Cherokee stand out better. If done right, winter photos can be spectacular.
 
Nice photos. Interesting to use a Cherokee as the photo ship. I suppose he was able to get clear shots from the back seat.

BTW- is that the Garmin app on the tablet? I'm not used to seeing anything other than ForeFlight.
 
Brad Z said:
Nice photos. Interesting to use a Cherokee as the photo ship. I suppose he was able to get clear shots from the back seat.

BTW- is that the Garmin app on the tablet? I'm not used to seeing anything other than ForeFlight.
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Yeah we only had 3 planes and we had already done that Cherokee so my buddy hopped in the back seat. I think he did good considering he was shooting thru the plane window and a tele converter because he didn't think wed get close enough. He is shooting a Fuji so crop sensor and a lens that was something like 150-500 but he didnt end up needing beyond 500mm.

And yes, that is Garmin Pilot running on a android tablet. My wife always leaves it on the sectional view that you are seeing. I usually use the Garmin view that looks mostly like their avionics. But on this a day I only cared about ADSB until I had a visual and it was eyes outside on the photo plane from then on.

It was fun. It's so nice to get the old planes out and flying instead of just sitting at the airport talking about it. The photoshoot mixed it up nicely.
 
Be careful. I know everyone can't get air-to-air photography training, but it can turn deadly in a second. It sounds like you briefed pretty well and allowed a lot of room between planes.

In the third photo, the pilot isn't looking at you. This is the first rule of any formation flying. My rule is, if you're not looking at me, I'll delete the photo. If you're not looking at me during the shoot, I'll warn you, then I'll call the shoot off the next time. I've done hundreds of shoots and only had around three that scared me... trust me, that's too many!

Flying on a heading is a simple way to help everyone stay safe. Learn how to do some turning and you'll increase the chance of getting the shot the photographer wants. You have to clearly communicate your turns. I usually tell them I'm starting a left turn in 3, 2, 1... then start a shallow turn and increase the bank angle as needed.

As your photographer knows, shooting through glass sucks! I refuse!

Check out my Briefing Page and feel free to have your subjects read it. I'm not criticizing, just trying to help! Nice photos.
 
champ driver said:
Sounds like some fun for you and the other people.
Tough to get good photos of a mostly white plane against a white background this time of year. If you have a chance, try a few photos in the golden hour with the long shadows and with the sun at the photographers back. It might make that Cherokee stand out better. If done right, winter photos can be spectacular.
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These pictures, or at least the time of day really dont help for that beautiful Dakota. I know he was thrilled to see new pictures of his baby up in the air though.

The other thing that didnt help was the snow sublimating off and relatively low surface winds so a light haze/mist down below.

Totally agree on the later in the day shots with the much warmer color temperatures.
 
Lowflynjack said:
Be careful. I know everyone can't get air-to-air photography training, but it can turn deadly in a second. It sounds like you briefed pretty well and allowed a lot of room between planes.

In the third photo, the pilot isn't looking at you. This is the first rule of any formation flying. My rule is, if you're not looking at me, I'll delete the photo. If you're not looking at me during the shoot, I'll warn you, then I'll call the shoot off the next time. I've done hundreds of shoots and only had around three that scared me... trust me, that's too many!

Flying on a heading is a simple way to help everyone stay safe. Learn how to do some turning and you'll increase the chance of getting the shot the photographer wants. You have to clearly communicate your turns. I usually tell them I'm starting a left turn in 3, 2, 1... then start a shallow turn and increase the bank angle as needed.

As your photographer knows, shooting through glass sucks! I refuse!

Check out my Briefing Page and feel free to have your subjects read it. I'm not criticizing, just trying to help! Nice photos.
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I bow to your skills and expertise. And I welcome all your advice and critiques.

For us it was single heading, matched altimeters and 122.75. Subject plane never crosses to the other side of the photo plane. So basically with a low wing photo plane we worked on staying level or just slightly behind and below. If any confusion photo plane remains on course and subject plane moves away to right. Photographer selected the course.

All pilots had the exact same comment. Once you are within 500ft and especially within 250ft the closure comes on surprisingly fast. And related to that just a subtle turn towards the photo plane to close some distance it's easy to think you are parallel when you are still slightly vectored towards them. Is that a parallax thing or just lack of other nearby reference objects?

I have video from my POV, maybe I should edit it up and people can hear and see how it worked. Not that it would any type of teaching example LOL!

What I should really do is see if i could find you enough takers to have you swing up our way during our summer time. It has been crazy green the last few summers with all the rain. And the Lake Superior shoreline and/or Mississippi River Valley (especially around Winona) makes for awesome backgrounds in our otherwise flat lands.
 
Sinistar said:
These pictures, or at least the time of day really dont help for that beautiful Dakota. I know he was thrilled to see new pictures of his baby up in the air though.
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I think it looks great against the snow. It actually accentuates the white of the plane to me. Especially with that color blue.
 
I justed added a link to a video of the flight from my perspective. It's back up on the first post.

Jump in a bit over half way to see the other plane and how close we were. I was the one doing slight changes to give them different angles as the pilot of the photo plane wanted to fly straight and level.
 
Sinistar said:
Damn pilots. They are all of it. I think it's cool that they will deliver it to the airport. Since it's a small airport the delivery guys arentveven sure if they can be out there.
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I know for a fact that Domino’s will deliver to a bunch of guys drinking beer in a parking lot after a late-night men’s league hockey game. :)
 
Those are great pics but I really wanted to see pics of the pizza.
 
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