Sunday, December 2, 2007
Welcome to Rio de Janeiro/BRAZIL!
We have to say that Rio de Janeiro is one of the most beautiful cities we have ever visited. A unique mixture of mountains, bays, beaches (Copacabana!) and the city itself with a lot of green environment hides its 12 million citizens perfectly well. And no, it is not the capital of Brazil even though that's what most people think! Instead, this is the much smaller city of Brasilia (2.2 million inhabitants). But don't panic if you, too, shouted out loud Rio was the capital. It used to be – for almost 200 years until 1960.
Prior to our visit we received many warnings; it is fact that Rio is one of the most dangerous places on the planet. It is no joke at all some thugs will kill you for a new pair of sneakers. My cousin's friend was murdered in Brazil some years ago when as a mere reflex she was trying to protect her backpack against theft. It's the same rules as everywhere: Avoid hot areas, behave normal and don't make yourself an obvious target by running around like a stupid tourist.
The Federal Republic of Brazil has a complex history and became independent from Portugal in 1825. Right, it wasn't Spain this time! As a matter of fact Spain and Portugal had a contract how South America would be divided between them once the terrain was conquered. Total population of Brazil today is about 190 million; this makes it effectively the fifth largest state of the world (same goes for its total area, although major parts are more or less inaccessible tropical rainforest).
It is a shame what Copa Airlines do with your baggage. Our specially designed helicopter transport box was wet and looked quite damaged when it came lying on the belt in the baggage claim area. This meant repair work was necessary; very nice, Portuguese-speaking Rio de Janeiro is the perfect place for finding a DIY store … What's more it increasingly turns out our schedule is very tight, making traveling exhausting. You never get the chance to feel at home anywhere. Once you start getting an overview of your surroundings it's already time to board the next plane. We barely find the time to wash our clothes or get a haircut every now and then.
Ah! The guys have to do more things than just rush from country to country, explore the environment, deal with authorities, film and take pictures, do AFD panoramas, write, write, write, transfer and process data, do backups, send them home, etc. – they have to eat, sleep and deal with everyday issues as well! How right you are!
"Rio de Janeiro" got its name form a Portuguese explorer – it means "River of January"; guess why! What famous landmarks do we find here? Well, there is the statue of Christ on top of the 700 m high Cocorvado mountain; it is 30 m high plus an 8 m tall base. Apart from strong winds, serious security and crowds of visitors there are two major problems associated with it. Firstly, if you want to see it from the front (for sure you will) rather than from its back then you have to stand on the visitor's platform which is just over 100 m long; bad angle! From the ground or the nearest other hill it is a mere speck in the sky. And then, there is still the second problem: Since we are on the southern hemisphere the sun rises in the east and moves over the north to the west where it finally goes down. Unfortunately this means that Christ is mostly lit from the side or even from the back – which would leave you with a black silhouette on the video!
Okay, what else do we have? All over Rio you will find granite rock of very distinct shape. One of them is world-famous, and not only since the showdown between James Bond and Jaws in Moonraker in 1979. It is the Sugar Loaf Mountain; no other "hill" (it's only 394 m! :-) ) has a shape as cool as this one. And now comes the best: It is situated on a peninsula which means you can film it from across the bay! Perfect lighting, a nice harbor panorama with houses and ships – what else could you wish for?!
When looking back these were the first truly relaxed flights of the whole WSF project. The only thing which spoilt the scene a little was the strong wind; I wanted to loop around the Sugar Loaf Mountain but had to do it flying with the wind. At full pitch the 90-size Three Dee MP XL-E (and this heli really has plenty of excess power!) barely made it back against the wind once it was in the loop. So on top I had to do sort of half a flip and then push it against the wind with full negative pitch. It looks a little funny in the video as there – of course – you don't see any trace of the wind.
We think that when the WSF video is out some of you will want to reread part of these lines. All the readers of this blog and of ROTOR magazine have a wide and really interesting background of why what was shot how. It is very cool to experience how something as big and of the nature of the WSF is created, isn't it?!
We were lucky with the weather – the day of our flying was the only one without rain and overcast skies. Nonetheless we shot a very cool AFD panorama the next day! Actually we found a heli pad and got permission to take the pictures from there. It is on top of a hill, high above the city and vis-à-vis of the Christ statue. Just 300 m away was another visitor's platform (that's where the picture on top was taken the day before); theoretically we could have flown from there as well. It's just that the full-size heli came in every 7 minutes to pick up new people, and if there is one thing you must never do, then it is to interfere with full-size aircraft. But like said before, the weather wasn't as good as the day before anyway and we saw plenty of armed security in the vicinity.
All in all, Rio de Janeiro was a cool stop – we'll be cherishing the memory of it and can only recommend it to you!
Labels: Brazil, Copacabana, crime, full-size aircraft, Rio de Janeiro, Sugar Loaf Mountain, WSF tasks
# posted by hg/tuw @ 23:15 
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