5.4.9 Mynah Bird Condensed Flight.mov

The "Mynah Bird" aircraft was built for the specific purpose of shooting HD background plates for a scene from a Hollywood movie being filmed in Vancouver in spring 2009. Unfortunately, a mysterious design flaw kept it grounded and it wasn't able to fly for the film. It took a month to solve the design issue, and here you see it in the midst of it's first on-board HD cam flight. In-frame, you see the bottom of the nose which remained for flight testing, but would be modified and not visible in working flights. The "Mynah Bird's" failure left a sore spot with me, but I'm growing nostaligic for this plane that seemed impossible to fly, but ultimately did...The flight captured here was a test flight, and not flown for the tecnique that would have been used to get a steady film "take"....I was extremely nervous and concerened to just get the expensive camera back safely on the ground...as this plane had an extensive history of not getting off the ground at all. Now that I'm used to flying the HD camera on routine successful flights on a different plane (Which is designed to take stills, not cinema shots), maybe I'll give the design an overhaul and the get "Mynah Bird" flying again.
Trivia: The plane was conceived, desgined and built in about a week. (Including selection and purchase of the flight camera) Flight testing in Mn was impossible due to a major snowstorm...it was too late and expensive to ship the plane to Vancouver, so it came on the jet and flew in the plane's closet...the plane was so heavy it seemed impossible it would fly...in spite of prior testing and calculations that said it would. The plane did not go airborne in Vancouver after several attempts. It took exactly a month to solve the problem, which was the design center of gravity was based on the original airframe's CG, and that turned out to be 1/2 inch off from where it was supposed to be. There were about 15 succesful pre-camera test flights. The plane was grounded after 5 camera tests...after it went into an unrecoverable wing-stall. The plane was nearly destroyed in the crash, but the HD cam was recovered completely intact. The HD cam now flies routinely without complications for FlightFlash.com in a new plane designed for still photos.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Vancouver
• Steven Sohlstrom
• Flight Flash

[JeremyTheJetplane918]

that is so cool steve :)