World Scenic Flights by HeliGraphix

Writing History: The "World Scenic Flights"!

2008-05-02T11:02:00.006+02:00

It is a moving moment now that the "World Scenic Flights" are completed and finally go public after all those hundreds of nights spent awake, after all those countless adventures and efforts worldwide. The feelings are hard to describe, and the faces of the people and friends we met around the globe are constantly in my mind's eye. We truly thank you for making this absolutely world unique venture possible. It was an honour to meet and "work" with you, and we will cherish the moments we spent together. It is unbelievable with how much enthusiasm people from different cultures can work together, excelling themselves and creating something as brilliant and warm and colourful as the "World Scenic Flights". The film shows how beautiful and many facetted the world is - and at the same time how close it all lies together. It is a small world, and more importantly: It is one and the same world. Let's never foget that when watching the news every evening.

Download the "World Scenic Flights" movie in high quality (84 MB) here:

http://download.remotemadness.com/download/HeliGraphix_WorldScenicFlights.wmv

Or watch it on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xL272SpvKtw

There is nothing we get for the film except your input - so please DO share the film with as many friends as you can, and we're very happy about any comments you may have. You can leave them either here in the blog, or even better in the website guest book (www.heligraphix.com/wsf.htm) or on YouTube.

Take care!

Soundtrack, WSF Calendar & release date

2008-04-29T17:12:00.010+02:00

Just recently our old friend Ken Yap from Singapore wrote in and asked us not to let down all the blog readers. That's cool because he was the only one amongst many others who did not ask "when's the WSF movie coming out?!" :-)

The past weeks we've been working on the WSF soundtrack, and the efforts behind it are far beyond our wildest dreams. My original idea had been that we use a "carrier sound" and implement country specific elements by using special instruments. It is obvious that this idea opens up an ultra-wide range of possibilities and that finding or composing a carrier melody is everything but simple.

After experimenting for a while we decided that the only type of music suitable for superimposing such a variety of additional elements and which could change its tempo in harmony with the picture was classical music. So the task was to put together a piece that was harmonic in itself but with enough room so you could add things like a didgeridoo for Australia or Arabic tunes for Egypt.

Well, we blocked Patrick's studio for much longer than expected (weeks!), so the soundtrack basically costs a couple of thousand Euros … The result, however, is so good that it can compete with any Hollywood soundtrack! Really, it's fantastic and we can only hope you will not watch the film on a laptop computer or hear it on small PC active boxes. Please do use a home cinema system! We did professional mastering as well and used premium analogue audio compression equipment (not the blunt digital stuff!) to achieve a good volume and not to compromise on the clarity of the sound. It is all crystal clear and deserves the best audio playback equipment you can get hold of! (Granted, the Windows audio codec to compress the file for the internet will diminish the sound experience a little. But later this year on our "Empire of Madness" DVD we'll have the same movie in very best audio/video quality. It's worth the wait!)

Talking about later this year … In May 2008 (i.e. merely three weeks from now) the WSF calendar will be out. It's a brilliant collection of the very best WSF pictures, combined with a stylish calendar in A3 format (42 x 30 cm). It's not just the perfect gift, but you will want one for your office or R/C workshop, too! Make sure to get your copy soon – you'll be thrilled again! :-)

Okay, now as for that "question of the decade": When's the "World Scenic Flights" movie coming out?!

The release is planned for 02. May 2008 over the HeliGraphix website and this blog. Our partners will feature the video on their websites, too. We'll be happy to hear what you think about all this global insanity!

Midnight Jokes: The Russian Kremlin

2008-03-28T14:09:00.007+01:00

Usually I'm the type of person who works (very) long into the night/morning hours and prefers to get up a little later when possible. Yesterday it was all different - I went to bed at 01 o'clock already but woke up at 05 for some undefined reason. And the first thing that came to my mind was a little joke about the Kremlin; in fact I like it so much I decided to share it with you:

Question: "Who lives in the Kremlin?"

Answer: "Kremlins." Don't feed after midnight ... :-D

The Moscow Madness!

2008-03-25T11:05:00.005+01:00

The night train to Moscow takes 8 hours; it is safe to use it these days, and apart from a drunken guy in our compartment who dropped his beer can and spilled the contents all over the radiator the journey was quite comfortable. "Nice" beer smell though.

Our friend Ruud Westerhout was born in the Netherlands but has spent the better part of his life in Russia. He knows how the system works and how to make use of it – in other words, he's an organizational marvel. He collected us at one of the many Moscow train stations (they have one for every direction), and off we went into the semi-chaotic Moscow traffic. Ruud thought driving here was something you needed to get used to; well, after driving in India, Nepal and Arabic states we think that Moscow is quite moderate for its size.
The greater city counts about 10 million inhabitants by the way; this effectively makes it the biggest European metropolis, and it is the home of the largest number of billionaires. It is commonly known as the world's most expensive city, too.

First stop this morning was at the Hobbyline R/C store (http://www.hobbyline.ru/), a well-stocked helicopter specialist shop run by Igor "Garry" Orlov and his father. Igor is one of the best Russian 3D pilots and – more than that – a bright kid! He holds a PhD degree in law, is a talented musician playing in a Rock-N-Roll band and has many more interests. The striking thing about him is his healthy and unbiased attitude towards model helicopters. He talks frankly about how "famous" 3D Masters goes down the drain by being commercialized, how things there are not always really fair, how narrow-minded many well-known R/C pilots are and think they're cool while they certainly aren't, and how he enjoys the hobby without any pressures. A sharp mind and a good perception like his are rare, so it was definitely interesting and fun talking to him. And no surprise either we took two or three hours before we left the shop for the world-famous Red Square.

Incredible St. Basil cathedral, the Red Square and the Moscow Kremlin certainly belong to the best-known landmarks of the world. Since the latter is the home of the Russian government it goes without saying that any attempts to fly here will get you into serious trouble – and worse than that. So what you need is an official permission! All the people we had talked to said it was simply impossible and advised us to just forget about it. Well, what you guys forgot is that we are HeliGraphix! ;-))
The serious problem for us, however, was that we did not have a helicopter to fly with. Just before we'd left for Moscow Jan Henseleit called and reported that FedEx had contacted him. They could deliver a parcel to almost any place in the world within 1 - 2 days – but not to Moscow. The shipment would be held up by customs for at least one full week! Phhhhwwwww … So that was 'game over' for scenic flights with an MP-XL in Moscow. :-(

We discussed possible alternatives with Igor but sadly had to realize it won't be the same to fly another heli (even with our spare canopy) in front of that monument. Better come back another time and try to get a new permission. This automatically means that for the final WSF movie we'll be using the (absolutely representative) St. Petersburg shots then.
The four of us (Igor, Ruud, Saskia and me) still went to Red Square and checked the location for the best WSF perspective. What's more, we had lots of fun filming a quick scene for the upcoming Sergeji Stanikow movie by HeliGraphix; Ruud plays a Russian government official rushing out of the Kremlin and phoning Sergeji in the German exile to help his country which is about to suffer from a serious vodka shortage … :-) The film is really cool as it is about Sergeji's 'Insane Turbine Cart' (turbine-driven vehicle); it will be released later this year. You certainly don't want to miss that one!

The first day was over way too fast, and the next day we went flying with Ruud's T-Rex 450 in central Moscow. Are there any flying fields? Not really, but we simply chose sort of a traffic island; there was everything you could wish for: Many cars, a frequented railway line, overhead power lines, police patrols (who liked the heli) and bad weather.
Ruud crashed the heli within 10 seconds. :-) But despite some broken parts like cracked blades it flew really well. So the fun lasted all the five battery packs we had; very cool action! :-)

After an incredible time and lots of fun with Ruud and Igor we had to say bye and went back to St. Petersburg. There we met again Alex and heli-Alexey for a relaxing coffee – nice guys! Back at the hotel we packed up our stuff and are now heading for the airport. Another very cool adventure is over – probably the last one before the WSF movie is finally released. Now when's that again?!
As of now there will be another short WSF article in ROTOR 05/2008, and the video will be out pretty much at the same time – so that'd be end of April 2008. Make sure to follow this blog because it's here that the very day will be published first!

St. Petersburg/RUSSIA – Hot Action!

2008-03-23T21:26:00.002+01:00

Apart from the fact that Russia – the Russian Federation, to be more exact – is the largest country in the world and thus simply has to be part of the WSF project, the idea to go there had been born more than a year ago during our visit to Sweden. Our good friend Alex Bagrov who lives there has his roots in Saint Petersburg (the former Leningrad) and we agreed that it would be cool to fly there, too.

Russia was founded in the 9th century by a viking warrior from Norway. Since then its history has been diverse – what else would you expect of a country (or federation of states) spanning 11 time zones, covering all northern Asia plus about 40% of Europe and incorporating all major types of landforms and climatic zones. So it is no surprise either that Russia has the largest energy and mineral resources of the globe. When looking at the population of this superpower then you may be (very) surprised to hear it's just over 140 million – no kidding!
Under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev the USSR (Soviet Union) became more open to the West (so-called "glasnost" policy). In 1991 the old union collapsed and was succeeded by today's Russian Federation; since then a diversity of problems has shaken the country. Only recently the reign of Vladimir Putin – although sometimes criticized by the West for being undemocratic – has brought back some stability to the nation.

Even though we only had tourist visa it was less a problem than expected to bring good camera equipment into the country. The helicopter did cause some discussion but nothing that couldn't be solved. Alex Bagrov and his father Alexeji collected us at the airport and drove us through Saint Petersburg. Apart from incredible traffic jams at certain times and on certain streets the old part of the city is well-restored and simply breathtaking! Its looks are definitely European, not Russian – the reasons for this lie way back in history when rulers followed a policy of openness to the West.
We've been told that the glamour may fade quickly when entering the buildings unless it's official or touristy places. But anyway, Saint Petersburg is great!

Why Saint Petersburg for the WSF project? Well, there's a whole number of good reasons. Apart from the obvious fact that we have friends there it's been the Russian capital for quite some time, and not just once. It certainly is one of the culturally most important places of the whole country, and it is famous throughout the world. Like said before, the city is just amazing – so how many more reasons do you need?!
Right, typically Russian architecture wouldn't be bad – good point! But not a problem since there is one big cathedral which is built in exactly the same style than famous St. Basil in Moscow; it is called the "Blood Church". The name sounds cruel, but it was built by Alexander III. to commemorate the assassination of his father.

The weather in St. Petersburg is more of the British type: Wet and fast changing. The day of our arrival it was snowing and overcast skies, partly with very low temperatures. The second day was (unexpectedly!) much better with short sunny periods. We met up with Alex, his father Alexeji and heli-Alexey (stunning variety of names, we know :-) ) from a cool group of St. Petersburg pilots (the above picture shows us with heli-Alexey). There was even a bunch of other pilots who wanted to attend but had to work. Bad and good at the same time since it is not wise to show up with a whole group of people for unannounced scenic flights.

The real problem about the Blood Church is that it stands next to a canal which is spanned by dozens (hundreds!) of steel and electric wires. Most of them go straight over the water, but some are diagonal and there are some additional lines in greater height. Hmm …
We waited until two police patrols passed the spot we had chosen and then positioned the heli in a free parking space. Alex was a little worried about the traffic and some spectators, but it was not a problem compared to other places where we'd flown before. The water in combination with the many steel wires was a challenge, but on the other hand it was helpful because staying over the canal meant there was no threat for any onlookers. Our strategy was to stay low, possibly under the level of the first steel wires.

The first four passes went well and luckily we got quite good shots. That's nothing to take for granted because when filming WSF scenes many many things have to be considered; the most important are how to frame the relevant object, good perspective, good lighting, reasonable size of the heli in relation to the chosen landmark, long enough time for the viewer to actually recognize what he is seeing, appropriate moves of the helicopter, possible dynamics within the scene and start and final camera picture, aso. Please keep in mind that when flying at such places there is often tricky wind conditions and the pilot is not at all free in the choice of position. What's more, spectators may not be aware of inherent dangers and the whole action may be perceived unlawful or whatever by officials. So there are many things to watch out for while flying and the often very limited time frame puts extra pressure on you.

Anyway, the fifth pass brought the heli really close to one of the wires. I'm not sure if I really saw it – both Alex and his father did but unfortunately said nothing in order to not stress me more than necessary. Fatal!!!
With a chirping sound the heli suddenly stopped in the air, followed by a louder sound of breaking rotor blades. Things happened really very fast now! The heli had lost almost its whole rotor disc and appeared to be catapulted downwards. It hit the railing next to the canal quite hard and broke into two pieces; the tail dropped onto the ground while all the rest went straight down into the water. Then total silence again – if you blinked you missed the whole action!

30 minutes later. We were driving through town and finally found a store selling fishing equipment. While Alex and Saskia bought a big hook and some rope I called Nicolas Kaiser and Jan Henseleit. I didn't know exactly but was pretty sure the machine had been significantly damaged when hitting the balustrade. It turned out Jan was incredibly busy shipping the latest series of MP-XL helis; at the same time some (positive) family issues literally ate up the last bit of his time. Nonetheless he stopped all of his work immediately to disassemble his very own MP-XL E for us; thank you very much! Meanwhile Nicolas Kaiser from Switzerland once again prepared the FedEx logistics provided by Big Boys Toys for shipping Jan's heli directly to Moscow (no, not St. Petersburg – we'll explain that later). Okay, so far so good!

We went back to the crash site where heli-Alexey had been holding the position. No serious police action or anything since the crash, so it was safe to start fishing for the main part of the sunken heli. As most of you know it was not the first time I had crashed into water … :-) (I think it actually was the 5th time!)

Provided it is fresh water the electronics are often still okay when drying them slowly, so it's always worth to try and recover the machine. Alex did a great job – after only 10 minutes the MP-XL was on the hook! Badly damaged, including motor and speed controller, not to speak of the mechanics. Still a good feeling to not have to let the parts back and wonder what the actual damage might have been.

Okay, that's the St. Petersburg story for now – broken helicopter but successful mission. We're nonetheless continuing to Moscow, so the adventure is not yet over. Stay tuned!

(pictures (4) courtesy of Alexey Neztaiminov)

The Longest Day

2008-03-20T23:43:00.010+01:00

Things are very different in Russia. This we knew before and thus a great deal of pre-planning has gone into this trip. We arrived in St. Petersburg just yesterday evening - and are busy ever since. In fact we feel like we've been living here for weeks already.

Right now things are changing ultra-fast. I've talked to so many people on the phone within the past 48 hours, I have a feeling the bill might be in the range of 1000.- EUR. Right now we have the slowest ever internet connection and we'll be long dead before posting a complete blog entry with pictures.

So for now we would like to THANK ALL THE MANY HELPERS here in St. Petersburg and Moscow, plus Nicolas Kaiser from Switzerland, Jan Henseleit and Michael Klan (Big Boys Toys) in Germany. It is pure pleasure "working" with you - this definitely is the front line of extreme R/C helicopter flying!

We're planning to come up with a detailed story shortly. Till then, here's some good work by our friend Alexey; even though you may not be able to read the text the pictures will give you a first impression of what is going on.

http://www.heli-spb.ru/heligraphix.html

Welcome back to the very fast lane in life! :-)

Aftermath & picture quality issue

2008-02-29T18:14:00.010+01:00

Stansted Airport near London has changed a lot since last time I was here. It looks modern and the one thing that they now take very seriously is security and baggage restrictions. We've seen countless airports worldwide but Stansted may well beat them all. What certainly is a good thing on the one hand can sometimes become a little annoying on the other.

The flight back from Great Britain was fine; we landed at the EuroAirport in France late at night. "Remain seated with your seatbelt properly fastened while taxiing." Okay, here we are, no problems. "Be careful when opening the overhead compartments as any luggage may have shifted during the flight." I hand part of the baggage to Saskia and put the rest onto my seat. A few seconds later the doors are open and we can disembark the aircraft. As common at smaller airports that don't have that many gates the plane is parked somewhere near the terminal building and you have to leave the craft via stairs rather than an aerobridge. It is dark and the stairs are wet and surprisingly slippery. I'm almost down on the ground when trying to get a better grip of my backpack that I'm carrying in the one hand and one of our cameras in the other. And phhhffffliippp – gone! Damn, in the dark I grabbed the second belt of the camera instead of the backpack! It fell about 1.5 meters onto the concrete ground – and as you would expect from Murphy's Law it hit the floor in a way that our trusty little notebook computer got seriously damaged. Perfect, well done! I was in a killing mood with an air of desperation.

Later on in the terminal building we had a closer look at the device. The chassis was damaged in several spots and when shaking it you could hear small parts falling around. Turning it on did not work.
To cut a longer story short, we finally got the hard disk data back and the notebook is in a semi-stable operating condition at the moment. It is the unexpected and unnecessary things such as this incident that are the most annoying. It is amazing how important computers have become for everyday life and one's personality. Striking! But anyway, it's just a computer, and life goes on with or without it.

The picture quality issue

After returning from the continuous WSF trip around the globe we processed all the acquired data and sent out a compilation to our partners; as expected the response was very good.
While having a second look at all the pictures we found that some of them were pretty dark and the colours incorrect. Hmm … strange, because we had invested lots of time during the trip to select the best shots out of many and to make sure that white balance, etc. were as close to perfect as possible. Seeing the images on a regular tube monitor instead of a TFT laptop screen now revealed a number of flaws! Hell, really! I had always suspected this might be the case, and it was still a little shock to realize it was actually true! So that meant additional post production time … The images in this weblog are still unchanged, so depending on whether you watch them on a real monitor or a flat screen the result may vary significantly.

The first prerender verson of the WSF movie already exists and Patrick Damiani is working on the official soundtrack. We'll be back with details shortly!

STONEHENGE

2008-02-18T17:17:00.008+01:00

Scenic Flights anywhere in the greater London area certainly aren't a good idea after those terrorist strikes in recent history – especially since there are so many other suitable landmarks. We again asked all the people we could get hold of what sights they associated with Great Britain. The answers were varied, but one of the things we heard the most often was "Stonehenge".
Stonehenge definitely is English Heritage. It's basically concentric stone circles used for religious ceremonies, dated back to the Bronze Age (about 2,000 BC) and even further. The stones are really huge so many people today have their very own theories about Stonehenge and who could have built it – even aliens from outer space (no, not the French!).

Stonehenge is situated in the county of Wiltshere near the city of Salisbury. You cannot miss it when driving on the A303 or A344 – or maybe you can since the stones don't glow and are primarily not much more than some rocks in a meadow. We scanned the vicinity a little and found three large military camps plus at least one airfield. Certainly not the best of conditions for operating a remote-controlled model aircraft!

Today the stone circles themselves are fenced in; inside the area are marked footpaths which mustn't be left by any visitor. Right, this means you cannot go directly to the stones and touch them! There is security on the site to make sure everybody keeps to the rules; they are there around the clock to prevent madmen from sleeping on the stones or doing other nonsense. Too bad because this also keeps out the "good insane guys" like us! ;-)
At the Stonehenge ticket office we explained what we had come for and were a little surprised they could not really help us. We'd have to call the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) plus the director of the site to obtain an official permission. Since the director was on holiday there was no realistic chance to get an authorization within our limited time frame. On this occasion we also learned that there is a 200 m no-fly zone around the stone circles. Hmm …

Knowing that we are the good guys we showed up the next morning just after sunrise. The site is still closed at that time, only the security guys wearing bright yellow jackets are on patrol. We positioned on the hill across the street in a distance of about 500 m. Quite large but the only reasonable way to pull off the stunt without causing trouble.
What actually matters for WSF pictures is the size of the heli in relation to the monument; the further you are away from it the further also the distance between heli and pilot needs to be. This in turn has two major consequences:
1) The camera angle is very acute which means the corridor in which the heli can move is ultra small.
2) It's easy to end up with blurred images or a shaky video.

The sloping terrain was a problem for the helicopter. Taking off fast was okay, but landing was definitely impossible. So we had to allow for two extra minutes for running (!) up the hill and landing on a more even surface. Sounds funny, but it isn't! Running like hell with the heli in front of you, flying low over the ground to not make it an obvious target in the sky is quite exhausting. The small 2.4 GHz aerial is a big help here; we're not sure if you could have done the same thing with one of the long 35/72 MHz antennas.
Taking the above explanations into account there was not much we could actually do to have both Stonehenge and the heli in the picture. We tried to drift sideways inverted in direction of the stones; unfortunately this meant flying in greater distance and thus close to or even over the busy street. This puts even more load on you – bad feeling! Add to this the cold and strong wind, and there you have it, another real adventure!

WAAAAAAAAHHHH!!! All of a sudden it happened! It hit us like a bolt from the blue. There was nothing I could do – I worked the controls like wild, but no effect! The machine did not respond to any transmitter commands. It just sat there, in 150 m distance, inverted and not too far from Stonehenge. But wait! Why does it not crash?! We cannot believe it but there seems to be a faint glow around the silhouette of the helicopter. And then it happens! Off it goes with full negative pitch, 90 degrees up into the sky, then another sharp turn to the right. Next is two loops, followed by a vertical descent and another horizontal section. NOW WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?! It looks like if it is trying to communicate with us by painting letters into the sky: "F – O – O – L"! Heh?! What does that mean, some kind of abbreviation?!

Heh heh heh, just kidding folks, sorry. :-) But it was too cool, we just couldn't resist! ;-)
There is nothing mystique at all about Stonehenge, at least nothing stronger than robbe/Futaba's 2.4 GHz FASST system. ;-) Sorry again! The heli behaved well and the footage we shot was quite good given the circumstances.

Salisbury is a nice place which could also be classified as – well – "typically English". They have a famous cathedral there, and it is really --- WOW, big! We had inspected the site the day before and found that despite renovation works on two sides of the building there was one angle from which it looked good and where it was possible to fly. The light situation was bad, though – overcast skies usually mean that any larger structure will just appear as a black silhouette against the bright white sky. Sure, you can do something about that, but then smaller contours like the helicopter will fade away. It's pretty much the same kind of high-contrast problem we discussed at the Grand Canyon (you may want to reread that interesting post). Anyway, we chose a suitable contrast and ended up with some useable footage.

The nice watchman in the picture below first explained to us that it was not possible to fly near the cathedral. Then we explained to him what a great project the WSF actually are – and were allowed to carry on under his supervision. Isn't that fantastic?! :-)

Right now we are undecided whether to use the Stonehenge or the Salisbury flight in the final WSF movie. If you have an opinion, why not let us know?!

So after a little odyssey we are about to leave the British island again. Maybe it's not the most brilliant footage we've ever shot, but it's definitely cool and we will cherish the memories of this adventure. There is not much left to say except: Great Britain has become a successful part of the World Scenic Flights project; it was a great trip!

BBC – The Big Brother Country

2008-02-16T14:02:00.008+01:00

It's been a while since I last visited Great Britain. I've been on the island a couple of times, and judging from my own personal reflection I'd say not much has changed. People are still driving on the wrong side of the road (there is only the RIGHT and the WRONG side, isn't there?!) and it's one of the unexplained miracles why there aren't countless accidents due to visitors from countries where they drive on the right-hand side. I've more or less gotten used to driving also on the left, but shifting with the left hand is still a funny feeling. The potentially most dangerous thing is to make a right-turn – one tends to look left first and to roll onto the street already. Fatal!

We have travelled more than 150,000 km around the whole world and talked English most of the time. Especially eastern cultures often have their problems with the language – and ironically, so do the Brits! :-) It depends on where you are, but the pronunciation varies greatly throughout the country, and there are parts where it gets difficult to understand people. At least for those who are used to BBC English or the American version of the language (whatever that may be).

Talking about BBC: That may well stand for "Big Brother Country". Wherever you go, there are loads of electronic eyes watching you. Every place, 24 hours, no escape. People may have gotten used to it; they seem not to see the signs anymore: "CCTV surveillance – for your protection". It's a good question whether or not the extra safety outweighs the loss of personal freedom. Some will now cry "of course!" while others may think twice and frown. Matter of fact, everybody has to decide for himself. But the truth is: It won't make a difference! And on the long run the rest of the world will follow the British example. This way we'll create a safe world. Just, equal – and possibly totally uniform. Hey, wait a second! Isn't this exactly what went so terribly wrong in eastern states some decades ago? Well, if there is one thing that humanity obviously never does, then it is to learn from history. But let's stop here; we didn't make the trip to save the nation or the world, did we?!

Great Britain definitely is a class of its own, and there are traces of its rich history all over the country. Countless castles and other monuments await you to pay a visit (you actually do have to pay most of the time!), each of them has an exciting story to tell. Since compared to other countries there weren't many physical destructions during the last World War, the whole territory is a historical place in itself. We haven't seen many places in the world where it looks similar – the old, "typically English" glamour is still visible in all the pretty villages. Some may call it outdated, others picturesque; both may be true in its own unique kind of way. But the fact remains – England is still there, in all its glory, and it is as cool as ever! After all, we came here for a reason!

To avoid the usual confusion, here are three definitions:
a) The "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" (the UK) comprises England, Scotland and Wales, plus the northern part of the Irish island.
b) "Great Britain" refers to the British main island and its smaller satellite islands. Like said above, that's England, Scotland and Wales. Officially, the term Great Britain does no longer stand for a country, but only for the island as such.
c) "England" is the country covering the larger part of Great Britain.

Okay, that's it for the moment. We're right in the middle of the adventure and will be back with stunning details shortly. Stay tuned!

The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg

2008-02-14T20:54:00.003+01:00

Life was really a big stress the past days and weeks after our return from the continuous WSF trip around the globe. Okay, it's always stress, but somehow HeliGraphix seems to grow beyond limits and causes an amount of both operative and logistic work that could easily keep a league of persons busy all day long. It's a good question how we all manage to integrate it into our lives – but then, maybe this is what makes our real lives, and the "normal" work just helps to keep things going.
Nonetheless all the extra load takes its toll: A lack of sleep and the responsibility and loyalty to our partners sometimes makes it hard to see the initial fire, the original spirit shine through everyday's thicket. Today HeliGraphix has got an excellent worldwide reputation; we get the means and are capable of handling projects we could only have dreamed of a few years back. But since we never compromise on quality and we will never fail our partners and those who believe in us the workload has increased at the same pace. There may be a time in the future when we will (need to) return to our original roots.

Right after returning home from Nuremberg Toy Fair the past Saturday we repacked our stuff and left for Luxembourg – after a mere handful of hours of sleep. The drive was quite okay and we reached the last sovereign grand duchy in the world in the early Sunday afternoon. The weather was perfect, strikingly blue sky with a few nice condensation trails of jet airplanes. We'd talked to a number of people from Luxembourg to find out what was their number one landmark worthy of representing their country; it was always the same answer: The "Gëlle Fra" – the "Golden Woman". Patrick Damiani gave us the directions, and like a number of times before we had used a navigation system to drive as closely to the spot as possible. The difference this time was that the golden statue of a woman was on top of a column – and the column … was situated right in the middle of a crowded public car park!

Luxembourg is a small landlocked country bordered by Belgium, Germany and France. It is a member of the European Union and counts about 500,000 inhabitants, a good portion of them immigrants from other European states, mostly Portugal. It has a highly developed economy and with almost 90,000 USD the highest per capita GDP in the world. Stunning! Official languages of the parliamentary democracy (but constitutional grand duchy) are Luxembourgish, German and French.
What is today a reputable country hosting several institutions and agencies of the European Union was originally founded as a Roman fortress. And to avoid any confusions: Luxembourg is not just the name of the country, but also of its capital and largest city. In 1994 the latter was added to the list of UNESCO world cultural heritage because of its historic importance and rich architecture. That's something impossible to miss when walking through the older parts of the town.

The "Gëlle Fra" is something like the Statue of Liberty for Luxembourg. It had been originally built in 1923 and destroyed by German occupants in 1940 during World War II. This act turned it into a symbol for resistance and later on freedom; in 1985 it was re-erected in its original form. Quite impressive, especially when properly lit by the sun.
Symbols are generally a very important thing in human thinking as they represent ideas. Neglecting such connections in any kind of (political) negotiations or warfare is a fatal mistake because ideas are more than flesh and bones – they are unstoppable! They will outlast generations – by the help of symbols. Such as the "Golden Woman".

Robbe/Futaba's 2.4 GHz FASST system hadn't let us down during countless flights in countries all around the globe. When lifting off with our Henseleit Three Dee MP-XL E from the public parking lot around the "Golden Woman" we prayed it would perform just as well this one more time. Well, it didn't fail us, and despite the somewhat gusty wind conditions caused by some nearby branched out trees the flights went well enough.

Since the statue itself is just about two meters high but stands on a high column the number of suitable manoeuvres you could fly was very limited. We chose a more or less straightforward approach where the heli starts in front of the Luxembourgish flag and flies towards the column, then climbs up to the sculpture, pauses for a short while and finally pirouettes away into the wonderfully blue sky. We were quite happy with the footage, and so were all the many nice spectators. We explained the WSF mission and showed lots of cool pictures; one of the guys was from Argentina and looked at us sharply: "When will you go to Argentina?" The next guy immediately jumped onto the same subject: "How about Turkey, why don't you come to Turkey?!" --- Puh, really guys, there are close to 200 independent countries in this world, and even though most of them are well worth a visit we are unsure if we'll be able to make it to all of them. So patience, please!! :-)

We've just arrived at London/Stansted airport in Great Britain and are eternally worn out. Time to build the heli, get some rest and grab some food. After that it's driving to some very famous ancient site … let's see if the British nation, too, is willing to help us to go on with the world's biggest mission in the history of model sports!

Mission Music

2008-01-22T19:13:00.002+01:00

Granted, we have neglected this blog for 4 long weeks now! After returning from the consecutive WSF trip we realized that being away from home for 3 months means you have to fix both minor and major catastrophes. To mention just one, our snail mail forwarding by the German Postal Service ("Deutsche Post AG") did not work as it should have – consequently a number of important letters never reached their destination and in turn we missed some crucial deadlines. Needless to say that trouble was pre-programmed …

But all those of you reading ROTOR magazine certainly did not get bored! Part 4 of our 5-part WSF series brought us onto the cover!

It is our third cover story after issues 01/2006 and 07/2007, and we can assure you it's as nice and cool as the first time! Walking into a book store, pulling out a magazine and looking into your own face is a very special feeling; it's not that you get ecstatic or something – not at all! But it makes you smile and feel just a little bit different from all the hundreds and thousands of people around you. Especially since you aren't on the title because of your looks – but because you achieved something, and because it is your words that are in this very issue.
It's this point when you mustn't forget how all of this came to be. A large number of cool people contributed their share to the success of a larger-than-life project – the "World Scenic Flights". So after all it is not your cover story – it is theirs! We all are HeliGraphix, we all went through this together, even if you just supported and motivated us by reading this blog. So here we are, all of us, holding in our hands another great issue of ROTOR magazine with the fruits of our efforts on the cover. And again it leaves a smile. :-)

About two weeks ago we met up with Patrick Damiani from TidalWave recording studios. He's a musical whiz kid and the one who made the special heavy metal version of the "Maya the Bee" theme we used for Episodes #7+ (see HeliGraphix/Download/Maya The Bee). The full version is just incredible and will be featured in greater length in the final Episode #10 (now is the all wrong time to ask for a release date!).

There is no doubt the soundtrack for the "World Scenic Flights" will have to be as monumental as the film itself. I had a real neat composition idea but wasn't sure whether it's possible to play the piece or not. Patrick and I discussed the subject for 2 or 3 hours, and he thinks he might be able to record everything in the right way! --- Ah, so it is a secret?! Well, no, it's definitely not a secret, but it may be wise to keep silent until Patrick confirms it actually works! That way everybody will be thrilled when they hear the song rather than being disappointed should it not work. It's also a matter of cost since special equipment will be needed.

One funny incident before we close for today: Patrick was born and raised in Luxembourg – the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, to be more exact. Between two bites of his dinner he mentioned that he felt deeply devoted to his home country. Sooooo ... how come that HeliGraphix travels all over the world but misses Luxembourg?! You hear this one coming …

Target and strategy are already lying on our desk, and the batteries are charging. We'll keep you posted … :-)

Secrets of the WSF – Q&A part 2!

2007-12-21T19:26:00.000+01:00

The interesting news is we have made a first appointment with a sound studio for just after Christmas. We do have quite an idea what the final composition should sound like, but it will be hard to transfer this "vision" to the minds of musicians. It's also a matter of cost and time; but anyway, let's just see how the music question develops as this will be one of the key factors determining the release date of the WSF movie!

Below's part two of our WSF Q&A series:

12) How much time did it take to prepare the WSF?
Frankly speaking, we have lost the overview. But it's certainly beyond description!

13) To how many countries have you been in total?
The current WSF project comprises pretty much exactly 30 countries worldwide. Personally I have been to 40+ countries in my life.

14) Why is there a 35/72 MHz aerial on your heli when you fly robbe/Futaba's 2.4 GHz FASST system?
Before the consecutive WSF trip we flew 35 and 72 MHz, throughout the trip we used 2.4 GHz only. We figured it might look a little silly if within one and the same movie the long aerial keeps coming and going and therefore kept the long aerial just for the looks.

15) Do you fly Kontronik or Schulze equipment?
We fly Kontronik equipment in nearly all of our machines. A detailed answer why and when we use Schulze ESCs can be found in the post about the Grand Canyon flights (use search function on top left to find it quickly).

16) How about the performance of the Three Dee MP-XL?
It's a Henseleit. What else could we say?!

17) How many transmitters did you have?
One only. It's made by robbe/Futaba so why would you want a spare?!

18) How does the FASST system work?
Brilliant under any possible and impossible conditions worldwide. It's safe to use on earth (except for very few exotic types of HeliGraphix stunts, e.g. where the heli loops around a bridge)! We'll talk about it in more detail in an upcoming ROTOR article.

19) How about the batteries?
After we got the replacement FlightPower packs from Rainer Hacker (Hacker Motor GmbH) there were no further issues. It remains a mystery what caused the ballooning of all the other packs; maybe a combination of their "age" (40 cycles isn't really old, is it?!), low air pressure during transport, fast changing climatic conditions, operation in high-altitude areas (Nepal!), transport when in uncharged condition. But like said before, nothing's really sure at this point of time.

20) Have you heard of Matt Harding's dancing video?
The idea of the WSF was born independently of Matt Harding's dancing video (also see HG Q&A #148). In fact, we first heard about him through a comment to our New Zealand Scenic Flights video! It was shot pretty much at the same time that Matt's first dancing video appeared.
To surprise you a little, we tried to contact Matt Harding well in time before the WSF trip for doing a "crossover"; it would have been very cool to have him dance while the heli comes in. The same scene could have been shown with different focus in both his and our movie. Unfortunately, he never responded to our detailed emails – what to make of this is up to you!

21) Have you been fully sponsored?
No. A significant part has been privately funded.

22) Will you continue to travel with the helis and do a WSF II?
Yes and no. The WSF is a project in progress as long as we are into model helicopters. We will continue to shoot footage when visiting new countries and maybe come up with a revised WSF video every now and then.

23) What do you look forward to the most now?
Flying I/C helicopters! :-) Electric models are smooth and nice, but then --- they are nice … ;-)

Another interesting note for those of you who have worried about how to archive this documentation: This blog will most likely be reedited and be available as a "book" in PDF format. Yes, there will be a hardcover version, too, but only for ourselves as the cost for such a high-quality printing with big pictures is high (if you really want one, too, let us know).

We wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2008!

Secrets of the WSF – Q&A part 1!

2007-12-20T11:54:00.000+01:00

We're back in good old Germany and alive and well – apart from an annoying cold we probably caught in Canada already. The "World Scenic Flights" were an incredible success, even better than expected; nobody had really believed that the baggage would never get lost or seriously damaged. Was it luck? Probably yes, but that makes it all just better. :-)

For us there is still a lot to do: Rework the gigabytes of data we've generated, select the best scenes (that's the worst and most time-consuming thing of all!), work on a piece of music together with a sound studio, check all our equipment, discuss the project with our partners, and plan the final trips. Final trips?

The Madness is strong in Great Britain, and there will be no WSF movie without this country! So within the next few weeks we'll be visiting the island and continue the WSF mission there – as you will expect this blog will document also the new adventures!
And finally, there's one very hard target left: Russia. We've worked on it before and we haven't given up on this one either. We'll post more details when the time has come.

During the past trip a number of questions have accumulated. As promised here's detailed answers to the first bunch; should we have forgotten something, feel free to drop a note at any time!

1) When will the WSF movie be out? What will it cost?
Watch this space and the HG website for a release date. The video will be freely available through several channels (download from websites, YouTube, etc.).

2) How many km did you travel for the WSF project?
The continuous trip was 70,000 km, the total project up to now is 150,000 km!

3) How many times did you travel by airplane, and are you tired of sitting in the window seat?
The consecutive trip required 24 long distance flights. In my life I have done about 70 flights by now and as an aviation fan I always try to get a window seat!

4) How did you transport a 90size machine (or several) all that way?
Transporting one or more 90size helicopters is very different from transporting a "handy" 50size model (for the latter a golf case will do)! What's more it is vitally important to keep the box as small and lightweight as possible. We used a specially constructed cardboard box.

5) Heehh? How could a cardboard box possibly survive a trip around the world?!
It's a matter of construction. Let's say the exact way we did it remains a little secret. ;-)

6) How did you get it through the customs all the time?
We had many documents (even from the German interior ministry), loads of pictures showing the heli in front of world-renowned landmarks, a good reputation, backup from ROTOR magazine, profound HeliGraphix experience in dealing with international authorities, and we did lots and lots of talking.

7) Wasn't it always big fun to fly at such exclusive and sometimes exotic places worldwide?
Absolutely; but take a second look! Like explained in ROTOR 01/2008 there's a lot of time pressure which means you rush from one place to the next without any breaks. You have to deal with authorities all the time (that's really a pain and spoils the game!) and fly in places you do not know. You have to assemble/disassemble the equipment again and again; one mistake (also while flying) and the mission may be over or people get hurt. You are not at all free in what you fly where and how you do it – after all you are looking for good images rather than a fun flight like at your local club field! Your data needs to be screened, sorted, processed and backuped. And don't forget you would like to eat and sleep from time to time. Carrying 80 kg of baggage around the globe isn't that much fun either! And then, the self-washing clothes haven't been invented yet, have they?!

8) Did you discuss the maneuvers before flying? How did you choose them?
Yes, in about two thirds of all cases. The maneuvers were chosen in a way that they match the location; e.g. a long pass would be the wrong maneuver to choose when trying to picture the Taj Mahal from a confined area. We kept repeating the maneuver as long as possible.

9) In which countries did you shoot panoramic sceneries for the Ikarus/IPACS AFD flight simulator?
We shot them in every location except Nepal (not worth doing one and pressed for time), Chile (contrast problem), Mexico (no clearance by authorities!) and Senegal (safety issue). But we shot two brilliant panos in India (in Jaipur and in Agra/Taj Mahal), and we did both a day and a night scenery at the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur!

10) When will the "HeliGraphix WSF Add-on" be available?
It will take a while until all of our footage has been processed by Ikarus/IPACS. As of now we do not know when the WSF package will be released. Once again, watch this space and the HG website for latest infos.

11) I already have a computer simulator. Is it worth changing to AFD just because of the WSF panos?
No doubt about that!

There is a number of more technical questions, too; we'll answer them in the next post, so make sure to check back soon!

Portugal – A Legacy of Explorers

2007-12-17T23:06:00.000+01:00

Lisbon is certainly one of the most beautiful cities we have ever seen. We think that everybody should go and visit it at least once in his life! The city is enchanting, modern yet monumental, big, clean, and wonderfully diverse. Last time I was here is more than 10 years ago and it seems many things have changed. Mostly for the better, still I was sad that there seem less of those cool small trolley lines leading through the city. The best way to explore town is to simply buy a ticket, hop on one of those trolleys (the old ones, not the new version!) and look out of the window. We promise you won't regret it!

We're staying in a downtown guesthouse; beautifully restored but with a super-small bathroom and equally small beds. I'm lying diagonally across two beds and keep wondering what Jan Henseleit would do. Rent two rooms?

Some people have asked why Portugal should be one of the most important stops. What makes it so special? Well, think about its place in history and about the monument we chose. So which part of the WSF film do you think we shot here?! B-) Ironically it was the last stop of the consecutive WSF trip.

Talking about history, Portugal has been known by the Phoenicians already and later on by the Romans. Its history is incredibly rich and equally complex. In the 8th century the Moors came and controlled both Spain and Portugal for centuries – an important part of European history because they brought back lots of knowledge which had been lost during the dark age of European migrations.
The 15th and 16th century was the time of the great explorers; Portugal became a world empire and established colonies in Brazil, Africa, India, China and Arabian countries. However, nothing lasts forever, and Portugal later on became dependent on Spain, then Britain, and in 1807 Frenchman Napoleon came along. A couple of years later (the French had left) Portugal became a republic – and not much later a dictatorship!
In 1960 the colonial wars started, and once the military had realized it was impossible to win they overthrew the dictatorial government in order to prevent the country from financial ruin. The colonies became independent in 1974 while Portugal was proclaimed a republic. Against this historic background it is not surprising that the country currently is – apart from the new eastern states – the weakest member of the European Union.

With the Lisbon flights being a big success, is the WSF tour over now?!
The good news is: No, it is not! And the bad news: No, it is not. (Think about it for a minute, it makes sense!) :-)
So what's next? First of all, don't forget there's targets left on our map (see HG website). Another ***BIG*** issue is the composition of a matching piece of music for the final movie! Furthermore, a number of interesting questions regarding some WSF secrets will be answered within the next posts.
And finally, we'll have to find a new work after returning home (that's the downside of the WSF only few people have realized). :-(

We would like to close for today by thanking our partners (see links in menu on left). These are not just any five companies – it is well-established brands on the market with outstanding products! And even more important: The people behind the scenes are devoted to model sports, just like you and us. Their vision and foresight are greatly appreciated as well as their constant belief in HeliGraphix and our larger-than-life projects like the "World Scenic Flights". Thank you very much!

Special thanks go to our Swiss Unit around Nicolas Kaiser – without their non-stop support it wouldn't have been possible to handle the logistics.
Thanks also to Marc Endres – he spent countless hours translating this blog on-the-fly into German and thus making the WSF project available for a wider audience.
There are a whole number of people behind the scenes who have contributed significantly to the success of this WSF trip – many thanks also to you! We will not forget to credit everyone of you in the final video (it's just a little bit long of a list for the moment).

And finally – thanks to you! It was both fun and a pleasure to have you aboard and to interact with you throughout the mission. You may not realize it, but this is a vital part of any of our projects. It motivates us, and together we are a strong community! We hope that you, too, enjoyed being part of this once-in-a-lifetime project!

We'll be landing tomorrow afternoon in Munich/Germany. And once again: Stay tuned for more news! :-)

The Quest for the Red Lake

2007-12-16T07:51:00.000+01:00

I may be the only guy in whole Senegal wearing a scarf. I'm still weak on my feet and every move is a pain. Not good when rumbling through the dusty streets of Dakar in a cab. We have experienced a lot of air pollution in numerous cities around the world but it has never been worse than here. You try to breathe through your shirt but it doesn't help much. After an hour you have a burning throat, a headache and it feels as if your lungs are completely coated with a mixture of soot and dust. Really, it's insane. We have no idea how you could live in this place and grow old. This said, 60% of Senegal's population are under 20 years of age.

The mysterious Red Lake does exist, however the opinions regarding its actual colour were divided. Some swore it was deep red while others thought it was merely a mixture of blue and purple. Hmm …
But anyway, we had decided to go there and see for ourselves. The drive was a nightmare and it reminded us of India and Nepal. Partly the streets were gone and it was steering through a maze of villages. You sometimes felt it had to be the last outpost of civilization before the end of the world. But a few minutes later the real street was back and we could go a little faster. Don't ask how fast – nobody will ever know because the speedometer was broken (just like all the lights, the interior and most of the car body).

The Republic of Senegal counts about 12 million inhabitants and became independent from France in 1960; ever since it seems political chaos rules. Official language is French (yes, at last one other country where people speak French!). Capital and by far biggest city is Dakar with about 2 million citizens; it is one of West Africa's most-frequented seaports and therefore of special importance to Senegal. Most important pillars of the economy are fishing and the production of peanuts; there are natural resources, too, but unfortunately up to now both the infrastructure and the financial means for exploitation are missing.
Where else have you heard the name "Dakar"? Most likely in connection with motor sports because that's where the famous "Rally Paris-Dakar" ends. And guess what – the finish line lies next to "Lac Rosé"!

Before boarding the taxi to mysterious "Lac Rosé" ("Pink Lake", that's its official name) we made sure to leave any luggage that wasn't absolutely necessary at the hotel. Granted, that's not a safe place either – but still better compared to carrying around more stuff than you can overlook! Below's a little trick how to effectively hide important documents like passports. ;-)

The decision was a good one; upon arrival at the Red Lake the first guy jumped into our car to help us. Even though we do speak French it was good that he had a basic understanding of English – so we decided to continue with him to the shores. Again a good decision because after getting out we immediately attracted a crowd of vendors, onlookers and children. The guy kept them as good away from our equipment as he could – especially important while the helicopter is in the air because then the baggage is more or less unattended. To be fair we have to say the people were really nice and we did not feel uncomfortable at all. We especially liked the way they were dressed – very colourful!

We finally went to the edge of the lake and the water was – red! Yes, believe it or not, the whole lake was red! Not pink, not purple, but an appealing red! Insane, it immediately reminds you of the biblical plagues, a sea of blood …
The water is salt water – so much in fact that there is a small industry exploiting the salt; it is sold to regional cities but also exported. The salt content of the lake is said to be almost as high as in the Dead Sea; this means you will float without swimming!
So is it true that in the Dead Sea you can float effortlessly and read a newspaper?! Yes, it is! This inland sea separates Jordan from Israel in the Middle East; in fact, I have been there and tested it myself in early 2007, just days before boarding the plane to Egypt with HeliGraphix. You can lie "on" the water surface on your stomach and stick both your feet and hands out of the water at the same time. Get one single drop of water into your eyes or swallow a bit of it – and prepare to die instantly, it's beyond imagination! And by the way, the Dead Sea is actually about to die … it's drying out very (!) fast, at least until a certain level is reached. But that's just another stunning story. Maybe some later time …

Two interesting questions: Why is the lake red, and why is there a dispute about its colour?
Apparently the lake got cut off from the nearby Atlantic Ocean a long time ago; its area is just 3 square kilometers and it lies near the village of Sangalkam, about 40 km north-east of Dakar. Due to the high salt concentration (allegedly around 380 g/L!) there's no animals living in it – same thing as with the Dead Sea (that's where it actually got its name from). This said, a certain type of cyanobacteria does manage to survive. Cyanobacteria were formerly classified as algae, however it's not true since they do not have a complete cell nucleus and thus do not belong to the eukaryotes. As their name suggests they are normally blue ("cyan"!). But then again, they were one of the first forms of life on our planet some billion years ago; the fact that they're still around tells you that they are obviously masters in adapting to the harshest of all conditions – such as saturated, corrosive salt water! The type living in "Lac Rosé" is by way of exception not blue but produces a nice reddish-pink pigment – thus the lake's fantastic colour!
As for the exact colour, it is said to show best in the dry season (wintertime). What's more it changes with the position of the sun! Sometimes the red comes through nicely while some other times it doesn't.

The people liked the helicopter a lot and applauded every other manoeuvre. Because I was still in rather poor health condition we did three quick flights, paid our mite to all the "helpers" and went back to Dakar. Visiting "Lac Rosé" was actually one of the worthiest trips in recent history, despite all the difficulty.

The ride back to Dakar Airport through heavy traffic once again demonstrated the incredible extent of air pollution – there are simply no words for it, it's worse than worse. Our flight to Lisbon was scheduled for 03 AM, but for reasons of safety we decided to go to the airport in the late afternoon already (once again, do not confuse our trip with some pre-booked club tour; this may be a different matter!). The airport is definitely beyond its capacity, flights are leaving all around the clock. Just like in China they use sort of a "floating system" of queuing up; you queue up more or less where you want and try to end up where you think you should. We waited patiently for about three hours until check-in and safety had been completed.

Baggage is treated beyond your wildest dreams. A small wall separates the check-in from the baggage collection point at the end of a conveyor belt. There were five guys piling up the bags; some of them were thrown over the pile and hit the concrete ground hard, the next one crashed right into the pile and thus everything collapsed. The guys also walked through and over the bags --- you could feel your jaw drop and prayed to God somebody comes around the corner and says "this is the hidden camera, we just nailed you!"
We were sure the heli box would not survive that treatment. So I went to the wall, waved to the guy directly at the end of the belt and told him to watch out for a somewhat bigger yellow box (baggage with 40+ kg is common in both Africa and South America – stacked on top of your box also has the potential to crush it). I slipped our last money over to him and pat him on the shoulder. He got the message and made sure the box was treated well. Certainly a success, but the process of loading and unloading the airplane were still unknown factors. Our flight finally left at 04:30 AM. I have seen far more than 30 airports all over the world, but the one in Dakar beats everything so far (they seem to work on a new one, though).

Well, that's the end of one more fantastic adventure. We've just arrived in Portugal and are already in the middle of our next mission - one of the most important of the whole WSF project! All the details tomorrow!

Senegal/West Africa – Back to the Basics!

2007-12-14T01:07:00.000+01:00

First of all, here's another picture of Canada we wanted to share with you. The Canadians really are great guys!

We didn't have a particularly good start into Dakar/Senegal. We arrived in the early morning hours, and once in the baggage claim area we had a hunch that the trip to the hotel might be a problem; after all, we'd seen more than one baggage claim in our lives ...

Before you board a taxi you need some cash money, best are small bills. So where's the next ATM? I walked out of the arrival hall in order to find one; hundreds of people approach you immediately. "Wanna change, man?! – Good change!" I found a machine and tried to draw some money but unfortunately my credit card seemed not to work. "Hey my friend, wanna change, huh?!" You really had to keep them at a distance. Damn, what was the problem with this ATM? It had swallowed my card and just showed a blank blue screen. "Change?! Good change, da best change for you my friend!" After an eternity the machine returned my card, nothing seemed to have happened. "I will give you special price, man – best price for you my friend!" Yah yah, fine, I will also give you special price, right after sending you to hospital, my friend!
With the help of some "security guy" I found out that choosing English as a language was the problem. Select French and the thing works! Okay, so I got some money; back to the arrival hall. "No change, man?!"

With 8 pieces of baggage, half of them on a trolley, we were on our way to the taxi booth. The "security guy" had come with us as recommended by airport officials. It was still dark outside and if you have as many bags as we do, then in countries like Senegal this is a huge problem. Dozens of people will jump on you and before you can even blink there's ten hands on your luggage. Most of them just want a dollar, some others will want several dollars, and then there's the guys who simply want the baggage and no dollars.
We reached the taxi together with a bunch of people. Saskia and I tried hard to stop them from stuffing our bags into the car. The first guy had the camera, the second guy had our hand luggage, the third was tearing at our backpack while numbers four to eight dropped the big heli box the second time. It's too big for the trunk but nobody cares; everybody wants to help. The "security guy" now tells you that for all of his efforts he would like to get his fair share – or a bit more since we are stupid Europeans and get our money for nothing. Everybody knows that, most of all the small kids.

Once you are in the taxi it is hard to tell whether or not all the baggage is on board. There's still many people behind the trunk and even more at the windows asking for tips; they all helped, didn't they?!
So the four of us went off in direction of our hotel. Uuupss – the four of us?! Just before the driver stepped on the gas another "security guy" hopped onto the passenger seat. So what now, stop the whole journey like in India and get out to the pack of wolves again?
We talked to the guy and he explained he had to help the driver with the location. So let them drive for a minute and see what happens; if they try any nonsense you can still kill them. ;-)

Things seemed to be fine and we were rumbling over half-finished roads when suddenly a second taxi showed up on our right-hand side. Our driver accelerated like wild, and so did the other car. The speed was insane for this kind of street and I shouted to the driver to stop racing the guy. He did not react and instead decided it was time to ram the other car. After the collision both cars slammed on the brakes. Our driver got out, so did the other driver. It was all shouting and pointing; the other guy's wing mirror was broken. Whether or not the cars had any additional dents was hard to tell; they looked like if their technical certificate had run out ten years ago anyway (pretty much all cars there do!).

We finally got to our hotel and paid the fare; we knew we're being screwed, but better not make a fuss about it. Just try to get all your baggage in one piece and into the hotel lobby. We were lucky because early check-in was possible; the time was about 8 AM by now. Next thing we did was to sleep for 10 hours.

In the evening I felt a little worn out. Saskia was still fighting her cold she'd caught in Canada. We strolled a bit through the streets trying to get some food. After all we had not really eaten in almost two days since we'd left Toronto and spent our time in transit in New York (we had to go from Newark to JFK airport) and on planes.

This morning I felt like hit by a bulldozer and was too weak to stand upright. I had no choice but to swallow a number of pills and to stay in bed. Meanwhile Saskia tried to figure out what might be the best landmark to visit with the heli given the current circumstances. We knew there was a former slave island with a big French fort not far away from the coast. There are not many other monuments that Senegal has to offer – virtually none in the Dakar area.
However, we learned about a mysterious red lake which is said to lie in Senegal. We don't know if it's true and if the water is really red. But if the lake does exist, we'll find it and fly there - that's for sure! We'll get back to you tomorrow, stay tuned!

Canada - Cool Country!

2007-12-11T22:15:00.000+01:00

Yes, it definitely is. The people seem to be quite relaxed, and all those we met were exceptionally friendly and helpful. Canada is the second largest country in the world although its population of 33 million is quite modest in comparison.

The state capital is Ottawa, not Toronto. However, with 5 million inhabitants the multicultural city and provincial capital of Ontario is the country's most important and best-known metropolis. It is a clean place, crime rates are reported to be low. World-famous landmark is the CN-Tower; with 553 m it is currently the tallest building on the planet (but will be surpassed soon by a skyscraper in Dubai). This said, also the Canadians are "cheating"; it seems that the competition of which country has got the highest construction is increasingly morphing into who can put the largest TV antenna onto a tower. ;-)

Canada was originally explored by the British and the French starting in the late 15th century. However, France finally ceded nearly all of its colonies in 1763. The process towards total independence from the UK was a long one; the last ties have been cut only recently in the Canada Act of 1982! The country today is a federation of 10 provinces and 3 territories; form of government is a parliamentary democracy and at the same time a constitutional monarchy with Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state. Official languages at federal level are English and French; this means quite some efforts as all documents, signs, etc. have to be bilingual.

It is quite a contrast when coming to Canada from Chile via Mexico – it was sweating whenever you moved, and a day later you walk out of the airport and it's piles of snow wherever you look. A strange and cool experience at the same time, and certainly only possible in today's Global Village.
Anyway, we collected our rental car and drove straight to Niagara Falls about 120 km south of Toronto – the name refers to both the city of "Niagara Falls" and the waterfalls themselves. They are (or let's better say: They used to be!) the most powerful waterfalls in North America. The height is "only" about 50 m, but the Falls are very wide. One distinguishes the Canadian Horseshoe Falls (the name owes to their shape) and the much smaller American Falls. And yes, this means the border between Canada and the USA goes right through the Falls (actually through one of the islands that separates the two parts). About 90% of the total water flow goes through the Horseshoe Falls; their crest is about 800 m long while that of the American Falls is considerably shorter, measuring a little over 300 m.

As you'd expect it is the Niagara River that dives down into the depth. The Falls were formed at the end of the last ice age when glaciers receded and the water from the newly-formed Great Lakes carved a path to the Atlantic.
Today the Falls are an important source for hydroelectric power; an unbelievable 4.4 GW are generated by a number of power plants. It is hard to believe, but up to 75% (!) of the Niagara River's water flow is diverted via a system of huge tunnels to the generators. Such things always have significant consequences for the environment; the one you can directly observe is that at night and especially during wintertime when there aren't that many tourists the Falls are "turned off".
Heeeehhh?! What does that mean?! Turn off a waterfall of the size of the world-renowned Niagara Falls – this cannot be possible, can it? Well, it's possible; the water going over the crest is a mere fraction of what the river brings along, and what you get to see today (it's still impressive!) is mainly there to keep the tourists happy. Consequently, during the nighttime the water flow is usually halved and there are already plans to build another tunnel and power plant!

Talking about tourists, the Falls are visited by over 20 million people a year! This most incredible figure tells you it will be pretty hard to pull off a model helicopter stunt during the summer season. Even in winter there's still busloads of visitors coming in. Because of this ever-growing number of tourists it is no wonder that hotels, casinos, etc. are just mushrooming. Nearly all you can see in the above picture has been constructed in the past few years – and this, too, comes at a price! The buildings changed the airflow around the Falls; the mist shooting up into the sky as high as 100 m is now increasingly blown towards the street and the visitor's platforms on the Canadian side. Especially in winter the street can be like glass.

The mist is the biggest problem for flights over the Niagara Falls. If it is blown towards you, you'll be wet to the pants in no time. Filming is impossible as the lens is covered with water in a split second. And conditions can change fast as we learned … The shot below shows the same spot one day after our flights – no way to fly under these conditions!

We inspected the location the first day and found – as Marc Endres had suggest before – that either you fly from greater distance with the Falls merely in the background or you really fly over the Falls, but then from one of the platforms upstream to avoid the mist. Problem here is that you merely see the water disappear over the crest, and that's it – no Niagara Falls in the picture. So what now?
The second day we were lucky with the weather – and especially with the wind! The mist was blown downstream most of the time so we dared to start right next to the Falls. Impressive view, still part of the Falls was barely visible through a cloud of mist.
The temperature was below freezing point; not good for battery packs, camera equipment and especially not for the pilot. I did not really want to fly with gloves and thus took them off for the flights. The humidity and constant breeze really make your fingers numb within a minute or two. Not so nice, especially when doing some aerobatics over a waterfall of this size!

Canada was definitely worth the visit even though standing in the cold for a prolong time got us a sore throat and Saskia even caught a more severe cold. But we're currently on the way to West Africa – it's a long flight with a quick stopover in New York. Unpleasant, because it means you have to go through U.S. immigration even though you're basically just in transit. But never mind, we look forward to Africa and will report from there. So once again stay tuned for the latest news from the forefront of R/C helicopter flying!

Chile – Rebellious State

2007-12-08T22:20:00.000+01:00

To many people Chile sounds like quite an exotic place – and in a number of ways this is true! It is situated in the very west of South America and unlike any other country in the world it is more or less a mere strip of land; it reaches about 4,300 km from north to south but is less than 200 km wide on average. It is bordered by the Pacific in the west and the Andes in the east. The logical conclusion is that Chile must comprise all types of climate and landscape, from coastal to high mountain regions.

In Northern Chile you will find summits with over 6000 m, many of them of volcanic origin. If you move towards the coast you'll end up in the mighty and quite famous Atacama Desert. It is one of the driest regions of the earth with rainfalls only once every couple of years. For a long time in the past it was famous for its resources of saltpeter ("Chile saltpeter"!), a chemical needed for the production of black powder, explosives and fertilizer. Today it is its vast and easily accessible resources of copper that people are after. And the dryness has another advantage: The air is very clear and clam thus making this area a perfect place for oberservatories – in fact, some of the largest telescopes of the world are to be found in the Chilean mountains.

Okay, let's move further down to the south, what do we have here? The climate is more or less Mediterranean, agriculture works out nicely and therefore it is no surprise most of the 16 million Chilean people live here. Don't forget Chile isn't wide! So all cities and settlements that are not situated directly at the coast are likely to be surrounded by mountains – the capital Santiago with over 5 million inhabitants is no exception.

There aren't many people living in the harsh South – lots of rain, storms, etc. and many islands at the coast. The southernmost point of the continent is the notorious, infamous Cape Horn. Prior to the opening of the Panama Canal all ships had to sail through these Arctic waters. By the way, Chile claims a good portion of Antarctica!

The political history of the country is very diverse; the most recent and hopefully last cruel chapter ended just 1990 with the retirement of long-term dictator Augusto Pinochet. Right now the country's economy grows at fast pace, partly due to the high copper price on the world market. Let's hope things continue this way!
For all those of you who have followed this blog regularly it is clear that Chile, too, must have been one of the many Spanish colonies, although for a number of reasons – like the difficult terrain especially in the country's South – there were countless wars over time. Official language is Spanish, but the pronunciation is so different from regular Spanish that some claim it's an own language.

Interesting! But what's there suitable for the World Scenic Flights? Well, the most obvious and stunning place certainly is the Easter Island (Rapa Nui) – its history is a thriller and features more than one collapse of its civilization. Known around the world are the mighty stone statues called moai. We'd certainly have liked to go there and come back with most incredible reports for you, but unfortunately the flight to this place was definitely not within our budget – it is a real killer.
Okay, then what's the next best solution? Given the short amount of time at our disposal we had to look for a good spot in the vicinity of Santiago. The capital is situated in a bowl of 50 km diameter surrounded by high mountains; this just adds to the usual smog problem of big cities since the wind cannot blow away part of the air pollution. Compared to other cities of the same size Santiago doesn't offer much. The skyline is humble, there are no real sights – most tours would take you to wine-growing or skiing areas in the Andes. No good for us, so what else do we have?

There are two hills in Santiago; the bigger one has been transformed into sort of a recreation area. A cable car of the Francisco/USA type takes you to a platform on top. Like at the Great Wall in China it was a nightmare to queue up with a 90-size helicopter and all our baggage. Even more so because police and our taxi driver had warned us there were many thieves who would just snatch your cameras or other luggage.
Once on top you have a good view over the city – but with lots of trees in the foreground and security guys all over the place. In lack of any better ideas we took a gondola from one part of the hill to the next one; before descending to the station we saw a serpentine road on the back side of the hill – there seemed to be a lot less trees, probably because it was the northern side on which the sun burns down all day long. Was it hot? Yep, something around 30 °C. Certainly better than freezing, but not comfortable either.

After a while we actually found the winding road and walked till we'd discovered a place with a good view over the town. It wasn't as good as downtown with at least a few skyscrapers in the financial district, but certainly there was something to it. Have a look at the picture! Quite cool and it reminds you of the Mojave Desert in California/USA, just much more populated.

The people were really nice. During the flight cars stopped, everybody got out and wanted to have a look at the helicopter. Some guys were so enthusiastic they wanted to have a go with it themselves; well, as everybody knows that'd have ended in a disaster so we just did another flight for them because we hadn't taken any still shots yet anyway.

The AFD panorama didn't work out well this time; too strong contrasts leaving you with a black picture in the shadow areas or with clearly overexposed shots in sunlit spots (remember you must not change any properties while shooting the complete panoramic scene including sky and ground!). We tried the whole range of possible camera settings, but no way; it was worse than at the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

But anyway, Chile was a great stop and the last one in South America. Next is Canada – Niagara Falls, what else!

Back to Mexico - and all problems

2007-12-05T07:57:00.000+01:00

We have just returned to Mexico-City; we are more or less in transit since we'll continue to Canada tomorrow. South American airlines do not belong to the Star Alliance network so we had had to book them separately; from now on it's Star Alliance again.

Anyway, this time it was a NIGHTMARE to get into the country. We spent more than an hour discussing at the customs. Problems here, problems there ... and the funny thing nobody seemed to care about: We already HAVE been to Mexico a few days ago, and we do not intend to fly this time - it's just transit and we have plenty of documents proving this!

We finally made it ... which leaves us with the next problem: Our transport box is significantly damaged and needs to be overhauled (we haven't checked the heli yet)! Really, what is the problem with airlines in South America? Everybody has tons of baggage and it seems to be sort of a fun game between the baggage guys of who can smash things onto the ground the hardest. Or throw them right out of the cargo bay, who knows. The staff was friendly, no complaints - but that's not enough if you want to be a reputable airline offering good service!

We'll talk about the Chile adventure soon - just give us a little time to finish the latest ROTOR article, repair our stuff and maybe sleep for a change. We're looking forward to posting the next stories!

BTW, special thanks go to Marc Endres, not just for his spirited work regarding the German version of this blog, but also for providing us with a wealth of information regarding Canada.
Thanks also for the comment regarding the Panama Canal - we posted an answer right after it.
Then thanks a lot for the many emails - it is too much to handle at the moment; we respond to all incoming mail, but it may take a while! The questions are often similar so it would be really better to leave them as a comment!!
To those of you who have asked about new HeliGraphix releases via SKS Video Productions in the USA - Scott Stauffer is a great guy, and he will get back to you with details! Apart from this, please watch the HeliGraphix website!

That's it for now, hear you soon!

Welcome to Rio de Janeiro/BRAZIL!

2007-12-02T23:15:00.000+01:00

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!

The Panama Canal Challenge

2007-11-30T14:41:00.000+01:00

There is one special place along the Panama Canal where it gets so narrow that only one ship can pass at a time; it's called the Gaillard's Cut. We spent a long time trying to find it, without success. The public road ended in a city called Gamboa; but since the canal was hidden behind rainforest most of the time it was probably easy to miss that part. Darkness had fallen and we had no choice but to give up for the first of our two day's stay in Panama (in fact we had long found the Gaillard's Cut, but it looked too different from all the pictures we had seen!).

Gamboa is only accessible by crossing a one-way bridge; this means there is traffic lights at each end and you have to wait half an eternity until you get a go signal to cross the bridge. Bridges are often built over water, aren't they, and when you cannot kill yourself by jumping off, then there usually aren't any fences! Hmm …
We had a look at the surroundings and discovered a parking lot right next to the canal. Entrance prohibited! There was kind of a shed; the sign over the door read something like Canal Authority Electronics Department. If you crossed the tracks of the Panama Canal's own railway company you stood right next to the water – no fence! We couldn't see much in the dark but decided to return the next day and give it a try. None of us had a good feeling; all of this smelt like big trouble.

The next day it was raining cats and dogs. In the early afternoon we decided to drive to the place we'd found the evening before and to wait for a rain break. So we drove there and waited, and waited, and waited … Despite the camera problem (condensing air humidity, see last post) we had to activate the A/C from time to time in order to not drown inside the car because of the moisture. Really, it was so bad we felt like in a Turkish steam bath! There were times when the rain got lighter, but then it started to pour again.

We don't know how long we had to wait, but in the late afternoon the rain had finally become a drizzle. After a look into grey skies we were convinced it wouldn't get any better; either we pulled off the stunt now or never!
The original idea from months ago had been to find the Gaillard's Cut, position on top of the hill and wait for a cool ship. Today we were happy if it didn't rain, to say nothing of a ship! Like mentioned in the last post every vessel is accompanied by a patrol boat; in other words: If you wait for a ship the mission is over before it starts!

Of course we waited for a ship. :-) However, we let it pass so it wasn't too obvious for the guys on board that an aircraft was flying over the canal. In addition we kept the heli low over the water so it was even harder to spot against the dark backdrop. Very unfortunately we got another problem with the video camera and thus had to do a quick landing. By the time we could take off again a couple of minutes later the big freighter had become a little bit small in the distance.
The automatic mode of the camera did not work well and lead to more or less black silhouettes; we thus chose the image properties manually and took off again. After just three low passes over the canal the first patrol boat was approaching at full steam (you'll see it in the video!); most likely they'd been attracted by the first flights already. We continued to fly and once they were near I did a nice pirouette to greet them. :-)
Less than two minutes after take-off a patrol car rushed onto our parking lot honking like wild (certainly the boat crew had contacted them by radio). Time to land and to take one last deep breath; let's hear what the guys have to say …

A couple of minutes later we were free again. No more flying, but taking pictures obviously was okay. We prayed to God that our short film contained a usable sequence and we didn't have to leave with empty hands.
For the moment we thought it was best to wait for another ship (this takes about half an hour!) and to take at least stationary pictures, i.e. without the heli in the air. Finally, another freighter came, we positioned next to the canal, the camera clicked a couple of times – and hooray! – the patrol car was back!
It was not allowed to even stand next to the canal or the railway tracks. Difficult situation as we wanted to also do an AFD panorama. It hadn't been possible in Mexico (they'd probably have arrested us for trying that) and Panama was the only other country of the "region". So we prepared everything, positioned the tripod near the canal – and 'honk, honk!' our friends were back. To avoid an escalation of the situation we showed the WSF pictures and put all our stuff into the car ostentatiously. You need to be very diplomatic in such situations; causing trouble repeatedly leads to being arrested faster than one thinks!
We finally did manage to shoot an AFD panorama, but the light was not overly good; let's hope that IPACS/Ikarus will make use of it.

Somehow it is funny. In a number of countries they think the heli is a flying bomb and you are a terrorist; that's most dangerous because this way you may end up being shot. Some other times authorities are concerned about the safety of objects and people. Next is the class where they are convinced you are a spy and the heli carries a camera (the heli as a camera carrier is the first thought of nearly everybody, by the way); we had more than once problems with armed forces for exactly this reason. It is mostly in over-regulated Europe that you will need a number of special permissions to operate a remote-controlled aircraft in or near cities, monuments, etc. And finally there is sites like in Mexico where they don't care about the helicopter at all but where it is a matter of image rights. Really, it is strange and funny at the same time how the focus varies across the world!

The Green Hell of Panama

2007-11-28T23:38:00.000+01:00

The Republic of Panama is a rather young country and has a total population of only 3.2 million. The pretty much most important source for foreign exchange is the Panama Canal. It connects the Pacific Ocean with the Caribbean Sea and thus the Atlantic Ocean; length of the passage is merely 80 km. It is the strategically most important canal in the world and is mainly used for trade between the East Coast of the USA, China and Japan since the circumnavigation of South America means an extra 15 - 20,000 km! Cost for the passage depends on the size of the ship and are typically 50 - 150,000 USD; the crossing takes about 10 hours.

The first plans for a canal had been made in the 16th century already, but it wasn't until 1881 that France actually started excavations, approved by Colombia (Panama did not yet exist at that time!). Why France? Well, it was a French company that had successfully built the Suez Canal linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea through Egyptian terrain. Inspired by this success they thought it was as simple to build a channel through a jungle as it had been to build one through a desert.
After many scandals the works ended in fiasco in 1889. An unbelievable number of 22,000 people had lost their lives in the green hell of Panama, mainly because of Malaria and Yellow Fever (at that time little was known about how these diseases spread). Only 1/6th of the canal had been completed by that time.

The remains of the canal were sold to the USA in 1902, but Colombia did not agree to the terms of the USA for continuing work on the project. So the history repeated itself, like so many times before and also till present day – the USA supported a revolution within the country, leading to the foundation and independence of Panama from Colombia in 1903. A few months later in 1904 a corridor around the projected canal became U.S. territory – "forever", so the contract.
The construction continued from 1906 to 1914; another 6,000 workers died. Since its official opening in 1920 the Panama Canal has caused repeated political tension between the USA and Panama; on 31st Dec. 1999 the canal was finally given to Panama.
In 2006 it has been decided to expand the current Panama Canal so it can be used by larger ships, the so-called Post-Panamax class. Works have begun this year and completion is scheduled for 2015.

When checking in for flights to South America you have to show your official vaccination card with proof of vaccination against Yellow Fever. The flight from Mexico to Panama is only four hours; at the Panama customs we ran into serious trouble with the helicopter. We're pretty sure it might have become the same nightmare as in Egypt if it hadn't been for our many, many pictures of the heli in front of monuments worldwide. We explained a lot and were finally allowed to enter the country. No need to say how happy we were when thinking back to the interrogations we had had to endure in Egypt; that really had been hell on earth, there is no other words for it.

The customs officials had told us that radio frequencies were a big issue in the Canal Zone and that for use of any radio equipment permission from the Canal Authority was necessary. We of course nodded but were sure that with robbe/Futaba's 2.4 GHz FASST system and the low output power of R/C transmitters there would be no problems whatsoever. We were right about that (no surprise), but little did we know about the loads of other problems associated with flights over the Panama Canal.

The climate in Panama is tropical which means one good shower a day and extremely high air humidity. Regardless of what you do, your clothes are wet all the time; very good, of course, when changing from air conditioned rooms and cars to the outdoors and back. It's a wonder if you don't catch a cold. Another problem in this context is that when taking your film/photo equipment or the heli and transmitter out of an air conditioned car the lense, display, etc. will immediately steam up. You can't take any pictures for up to half an hour until the equipment has reached ambient temperature! We solved the problem by using the A/C as little as possible; the price you pay is that you sweat like hell and feel eternally worn out after just one or two hours. If we'd closed our eyes we'd have fallen asleep in no time …

Talking about A/C: Our hotel room of course did have such a cooling system. Unfortunately, it was so loud that normal conversations across the room were a problem! Turning it off was no good as humidity (not the heat) would have killed us. So we had to put up with the noise – it felt like sleeping in the generator room of a power plant! The best way to deal with this situation was to use earplugs. Not a comfortable stay at all, but when booking hotels in 20 countries over the internet you cannot spend hours checking every last detail of every place.

Panama-City is the capital and quite a flashy city with a nice skyline – but better not scrape off the shiny surface! Apart from some major roads the infrastructure is not the best and driving is neither relaxing nor fun. Multi-lane roads often don't have any road markings, a number of one-way streets make navigation difficult and signs e.g. on the highway are mostly ONLY at exits; in other words, when you can read the sign it is usually too late to react and you can only continue on the current road. To make it extra hard they use an especially narrow type font so you don't get the chance to read the signs already from a distance (in the unlikely case you see them coming).
Did we talk about the torrential rains? It is so bad that parts of the streets are flooded – it pays to think twice before crossing such fords. Some of the cars are equipped with snorkels for exactly these situations. And the worst: There are some really, really deep potholes! The tricky thing is they are completely filled with water so it looks as if an ordinary puddle was coming. But it isn't! Instead it's a hole which can swallow "half" a car. To us it happened twice; the cars around you drive like wild and keep you busy by using their horns so that the pothole traps catch you by surprise. We tried to turn right when all of a sudden – WHUMPP! – a good portion of our front dived down into such a hole filled with water.

Okay, where is that canal?! In maps and satellite pictures you could see a small road following the course of the canal; we tried hard to find it, but after about five hours we had to realize that it was merely a support road and not open to the public. It may sound as unbelievable to you as it sounded to us, but the Panama Canal is one of the best-secured structures we have ever seen. There are high fences everywhere, usually with barbed wire on the top (and no, we didn't have a ladder at hand this time :-) ). The streets near the canal are patrolled by a number of security cars of the Canal Authority. Every big ship is accompanied by a tug boat plus one patrol boat. Between the ships a wealth of such fast canal patrol boats go back and forth. In other words: There is no reasonable way to get close to the canal! You think this cannot be true, but it is. You stretch your hand out over the water, they will come for you.

The reason for all the fences and stuff may be that the terrain used to be U.S. American property. Remember, the canal didn't belong to Panama until the year 2000! Now, are all the 80 km fenced in?! Good question, and the answer is: Probably not! BUT: That's not necessary anyway because the canal leads through tropical rainforest. This kind of forest is so dense it is totally impenetrable; hard to imagine, but even a huge tank wouldn't make it more than a few feet into the thicket. It's often swampland, too, and the home of a wealth of animals you don't want to meet; we saw the first big silver-grey snake cross the street while driving along some deserted roads. And then, even in the theoretical case you'd make it to the canal banks, how could you possibly lift off?! So 'Game Over' for the Panama Canal?

Mexico – Home of the Beetle

2007-11-26T06:46:00.000+01:00

Greater Mexico-City counts more than 20 million people and is – maybe apart from Tokyo – the largest metropolis in the world. We were surprised that the airport is comparatively small, and after some discussion at the customs because of the helicopter we found it wasn't allowed to take the trolleys out into the arrival hall. Instead you had to pay somebody to take your luggage to the taxi; including our carry-on baggage we have a total of over 80 kg and thus not much of a choice. As pointed out in ROTOR 11/2007 and especially after the attempted express kidnapping in India we made sure to take a pre-paid and registered taxi to the hotel.

The ancient city of Teotihuacan in the state of Mexico is one of the most important archaeological sites of the country. In 1987 it was added to the list of … you know what! These guys … :-)
It is situated within reasonable distance of Mexico-City so we went there on a private tour. Our driver and guide Jose Luis was simply great; he spoke perfect English and had done all of his homework properly. In fact, Mexican tour guides have to study at university for three years and learn at least one foreign language. What's more, they have to attend additional courses every other year to keep themselves up to date; if they do not show up of fail the test they lose their license. That's the reason why these guys do not talk as much nonsense as many freelanced guides in other countries.

Anyway, the city of Teotihuacan was a political and religious center for many centuries. Most notable are its broad central "Avenue of the Dead" flanked by the world-famous Pyramid of the Sun and Pyramid of the Moon. The founders of the city are unknown till present day; fact is that work on the smaller buildings started about 200 BC while the large pyramid was completed around 100 AD.
The Pyramid of the Sun is the third largest pyramid of the world. Its height is 63 m, the base length an impressive 220 x 220 m; this accounts for a total weight of about 3 million tons! Unlike the Egyptian pyramids both the Sun and the Moon Pyramids were no tombs; instead, they were platforms for temples used during ritual ceremonies. They used to have a nice dark red color in former times.

Since the Pyramid of the Sun is not nearly as high as the Gizeh pyramids it made no sense to picture them from a greater distance, e.g. from the hills in the vicinity. Another advantage in Egypt was the missing vegetation; this made those pyramids look even bigger. And finally, the Egyptian buildings were surrounded by hills which allowed a perfect view.
Upon arrival at the archaeological site we bumped into big signs stating that photography was not allowed unless you paid a small fee. Not a problem, but professional photography had to be additionally authorized by the archaeological office. The term "professional" meant using non-miniature cameras or a tripod, not to mention a somewhat bigger video camera. So we obviously fell into the "professional" category and problems were preprogrammed.

We went straight to the boss of the pyramid site and explained the WSF project. We literally drowned him in a sea of pictures, showed our multi-language project description, our travel itinerary and other documents. It seemed he was most impressed with our visit to Gizeh/Egypt; those pictures (all WSF pictures!) are really priceless and maybe the best cover shots ROTOR magazine ever had. It's a pity you can't be on the cover all the time; the World Scenic Flights are without any doubt the largest project in the history of model sports and there is countless new photographs which should be in big print on a front cover rather than a line-up of smaller images somewhere in the middle of a magazine. Having said this, we know that being an editor is not an easy job and there are many different aspects that have to be taken into account when putting together an issue.
We finally got permission to take pictures from the ring road around the archaeological site. Like explained earlier the luxuriant vegetation as well as a high fence with barbed wire on top made it impossible to get a good view. From wherever you looked, it was the big fence, then trees, trees, trees and the tip of the pyramid in the distance. We therefore drove around the whole site and eventually stopped at a restaurant behind the moon pyramid; the owner was a really nice guy and we got access to the roof. Quite a good view … but not good enough as the position of the sun was bad, also there were some overhead power lines plus two big trees, and finally we could only see the rear side of the pyramid.

We continued driving back and forth; there had to be a suitable spot, only we hadn't found it yet. We got out of the car and walked up and down the fence. After a lengthy while we ended up in one spot where the trees almost formed an avenue towards the pyramid. Yes, this place seemed to work; if only the damn fence were out of the way! It was really high – how could you possibly film over it?!
We decided it was best to have lunch as an hour later the sun would be in a much better position. We ate some traditional Mexican food including cactus. Saskia liked it but it was not made for me. We hear Japanese researchers claim eating this kind of cactus raw is very healthy – the only problem being it then tastes several times worse than the cooked version! This is another indication that nature doesn't want us to grow really old; if it did, it wouldn't be that hard to lead a healthy life, would it?! ;-)

After lunch we returned to the designated spot. We had borrowed a ladder and a high chair to be able to look over that disturbing fence. :-) As you would expect the whole construction was quite shaky! Saskia was busy not to get hurt by the barbed wire while I was busy not to fall off the chair while piloting the heli. What made the flying even more interesting were some trees over the take-off/landing area; it wasn't that bad, still I had to be careful to cross the fence at an altitude as low as possible.
Flying at the other side of the fence was not a problem; robbe/Futaba's 2.4 GHz system performed flawlessly also under these conditions. The nasty thing for me was the uppermost wire of the fence which constantly obstructed my view of the helicopter. It was a problem to judge the distance to both the machine and the nearest cactus and tree. Making bigger movements while standing on a chair is not the most brilliant of ideas, so I simply tried to either fly in closer distance or to remain rather stationary between the trees. Because the size of the helicopter has to be in reasonable proportion to the backdrop (in this case the pyramid) you often don't have much of a choice but to fly in a way that it looks good in the picture. Man, the good old days at the flying field where you could just fly what, where and how you liked were really great …

We managed to do two quick flights of five minutes each. Right after the second landing security showed up from all directions – really, it looked like if we were under siege! Our tour guide was a big help negotiating with the people. We explained we did have permission, but unfortunately they couldn't reach the chief of the pyramid site on either of his phones. He had left the office around noon and thus nobody believed we'd really talked to him. All explanations of the WSF project were in vain; we had to leave our contact details and were told we could not use our photographic material unless approved by some central authority in Mexico-City. Most of the guys were quite reasonable but seemed a little bureaucratic; from our point of view things were made much more complicated than they actually were. We better spare you the details of these lengthy negotiations; we are glad our hard work wasn't confiscated right on the spot. At the moment we are still in contact with the guys to make a point of the outstanding nature of the WSF project and to find a good solution to create a win-win situation.

Meanwhile we have continued to Panama in Central America. We have long given up the idea of a day off to relax and just look around. Insanity never sleeps, and we are right in the middle of the next adventure. Stay tuned!

Mystery & myth: The Mayas and Aztecs – a living legend

2007-11-24T07:31:00.001+01:00

Contrary to common belief, Mexico – or the United States of Mexico, to be more exact – is a North American country; only its very southern parts belong to Central America. It consists of 31 states and one Federal District which is more or less identical with Mexico City, the state capital. Total population is 110 million; this makes Mexico by far the largest Spanish-speaking country in the world.
The Spanish conquerors first arrived in 1519, defeated the original inhabitants and set up a colonial rule lasting as long as 300 years. What used to be the Spanish Empire's largest colony finally got back its independence in 1821. And now the interesting question: What was before the Spanish invasion?!

Today as much as in former times people are fascinated with the ancient cultures of the Mayas and the Aztecs. Partly this may be due to the practice of human sacrifice as featured in many Hollywood film productions. The reality is much more complex; fact is that human presence in this area could be proven to exist as long as 40,000 years! At this stage of the Paleolithic Age and for the next 30,000 years to come people were of course hunter-gatherers. Some 9,000 years ago corn was domesticated in this area, leading to an agricultural revolution; the consequence was the same as in other parts of the world: People began to settle and formed civilizations.

A wide variety of civilizations and tribes used to be present in Mesoamerica in the past 3,000 years. Best-known are the Olmecs, Mayas and Aztecs. The Mayas were the first to develop a comprehensive written language, they had a phenomenal understanding of mathematics and astronomy, and also they are known for quite monumental architecture. Their heyday began around 300 AD and continued more or less until the arrival of the Spanish. And now comes the most striking: The Mayas still do exist today! Much of the rural population of the Yucatan peninsula, in Guatemala and in Belize are Maya by descent; a variety of the different Mayan languages are still spoken there as primary language and are at least in Mexico protected by law.

The Aztecs came a lot later than the Mayas. A good definition of who or what actually were Aztecs is quite difficult; commonly the term refers to certain ethnic groups of central Mexico who spoke a language called Nahuatl. They came from the North (maybe even from today's Southwestern USA) and achieved military and thus political dominance over significant parts of Mesoamerica. Like the Mayas they, too, were a very advanced civilization and most active from the 14th throughout the 16th century. Their rule was abruptly ended by the Spanish invasion.

The above shot shows some authentic Aztec dancers – quite cool and they may have been more impressed by the helicopter than vice vesa. :-) BTW, the chief of the troupe (standing to my left) is Nahui-Martin Chavez – that's the exact same guy who with his team represented Mexico during the 2006 FIFA Football World Cup in Germany!
On this occasion they also demonstrated the Aztec version of an ancient ball game (the Mayas had called it "pok-ta-pok"). Two teams played against each other; the aim was to shoot a rubber ball through a small ring fixed to one of the side walls of the field in a certain height. Since in this version of the game it was only allowed to touch the ball with one's elbows and the ring's inner diameter was not much larger than the ball, it took a whole while until one of the teams succeeded. Sounds like a cool game? Not really. The captain of the losing team was beheaded right after the end of the contest (some people considered this a great honour at that time).

At the time of this writing we are still talking to Mexican authorities. We hope to get clearance and come up with a post regarding our flying action at Teotihuacan very soon.

The Grand Canyon Flights

2007-11-21T21:00:00.000+01:00

The Grand Canyon certainly is one of the most impressive natural structures of this planet. It is situated in Northern Arizona and has an unbelievable length of 450 km, its width varying from 6 to 30 km. One distinguishes the higher North Rim, the South Rim and the Inner Canyon; the depth is up to 1.8 km and thus it is no wonder that on the way down through five different climatic zones both flora and fauna change significantly.
Natives already lived here some 3,000 years ago, but it wasn't until 1540 that a Spanish expedition (who else at that time!) first reached the South Rim – they were impressed and realized it was impossible to cross the canyon. So they left, and it took more than 300 years until the first serious explorers and cartographers came back to the area.

How did the Grand Canyon came to be? About 70 million years ago the Rocky Mountains were born and blocked the Colorado River which used to flow in south-eastern direction. So it changed its path in western direction, right across the newly formed Colorado Plateau. The rock there was comparatively loose and melted snow and ice from the Rockies let the Colorado grow into a mighty river; an unstoppable erosion process started, and here we are, 50 million years later, left breathless with such an incredible piece of nature.
Guess what – the UNESCO guys were also here! In 1979 the Grand Canyon was added to the list of world nature heritage. We really wonder when these guys will show up in our backyard at home …

After exchanging the main drive wheel of the Three Dee MP-XL I thought it was a good idea to do a quick test before flying it out over the Grand Canyon. Some guys who know me personally will smile now, but: With age comes wisdom …! ;-)
All kidding aside, the problem was that the whole area is densely covered with trees; except the roads and the parking lots in the Grand Canyon National Park there are no suitable spots for flying. We drove 25 miles through the park and finally found what appeared to be a former road into the woods. It was quite covered with trees, too, but at least reasonably firm soil so the heli wouldn't disappear in a cloud of dust during take-off and landing. I lifted off – nothing unusual. The gears were louder than normal but that's nothing uncommon with new gears. After 10 seconds I got bored and did a couple of precision flips between the trees. Everything seemed fine; very well then, back to the canyon!

It is until the very edge of the canyon that the terrain is completely covered with trees – one more step and the mighty canyon opens up before your eyes. Wow! – There is no words for this. One keeps looking in all possible directions, desperately trying to get this view under control; the sheer size and depth of the structure are just unbelievable. And now comes the problem …
The human eye and brain are a marvel that technology will never be able to hold a candle to. Capturing ultra-wide structures like the Grand Canyon is generally a big problem: The picture of any type of camera is limited! Granted, you could use special wide-angle lenses – but then the only way to create impressive scenes is to project them onto a large cinema screen. And even this leaves you with the danger of picturing just a plain "wallpaper" with not much of a depth perspective. Next issue when going for panoramic or full shots are the shadows. On the one hand they help you to add a third dimension to the scene – that's good! On the other hand this generates a high contrast situation – and that's very bad! Once again, other than the human eye film cameras – and especially digital video/photo cameras – have a very limited contrast range. Or in other words: If you don't want smaller details to break away in brighter spots the camera has to reduce the luminance of the picture. But this comes at a price: In the darker regions of the picture some objects will blend in with the background. So isn't it possible to brighten the picture just in the darker regions while not sacrificing details in overexposed spots? You'll guess the quick answer: No, you can't (you'd loose contrast!). It all boils down to increasing the dynamic range of the recording device, and like said before there is only so and so much that technology is capable of. Also think of videos of 3D aerobatic flying: When the sky is clouded and thus much light is reflected and the heli suddenly goes down and flies below the tree line it just disappears in the dark.

Okay, so we obviously have a problem – how can we fix it? Well, depending on what you actually want to express and to show with your pictures there is a number of things you can do. Even though it is very interesting to discuss such camera related problems, let's just focus on our very situation.
To add depth to still shots you will want to add "layers" to your picture. Find a bush for the foreground, then place the main object (person, heli, etc.) behind it, further in the background could be a distinct mountain, and only then follows the "wallpaper" far behind. Have a look at the shot below, it's quite three-dimensional.

Compared to still photography filming is always more difficult but at the same time greatly increases your possibilities. We wanted the viewer to first focus onto the helicopter and not to reveal the incredible backdrop at once. So at first the camera follows the heli with a close-up or at least a medium long shot while it is travelling towards us more or less along the edge of the canyon. At the point where it is closest the picture is almost fully open (heli still big!); the machine then dives down into the canyon, the camera zooming behind. It glides to the right and starts kind of a nose-in pie dish manoeuvre. The camera does not follow anymore but now opens the picture – wow! The vast size of the canyon becomes obvious while the heli gets smaller and smaller; the picture now slightly pans to follow the motion of the aircraft. When returning to the cameraman and pilot the picture again zooms in. Very impressive!
This simple kind of camera movement solves a couple of problems at the same time. First, the heli is presented to the viewer; his attraction is not torn between what the machine is doing and where it is flying. In addition, limiting the view quite effectively avoids bright and dark spots in the same picture; thus it is easy for the camera's automatic mode to light the scene correctly. Third, there's the "wow!" effect when the picture finally opens and the heli glides over the vast canyon structure.

The above sounds simple – and that's what it is in principle. However, good timing is required to create the "magical" scene we were looking for. It took us 2.5 battery packs to achieve an acceptable result. This means there was not much airtime left for still shots; so unfortunately we had to compromise a little on those.

Flying over the Grand Canyon was different from all other flights before. To get rid of the trees in the foreground and avoid disturbance by other visitors of the national park we had to climb down a couple of meters into the canyon. Not so easy with a helicopter, transmitter, battery packs, cameras and a tripod; one wrong step and you may end up on the rocks a kilometer beneath you! Same problem while flying and filming: You focus so much on the heli and the camera picture that the reference around you for keeping the balance is somehow missing. It feels somewhat like standing on top of a ladder while looking up into the sky; only the drop is a little longer … Now does this mean you have to stand directly at the edge?! Yes of course, how else could you fly and film down?! :-)

Crashing into a river, the sea or also into difficult terrain like at the Great Wall of China means the heli is completely lost – no way to get it back. But it was never more obvious then when flying over the Grand Canyon; the heli flies out and dives down until it is a mere speck in the sky, soundless, somehow lost in an unbelievably wide environment, gliding 1.5 km over the ground. I nearly got a heart attack when all of a sudden the tail swung around!
Emergency landing. Hell, what was that?! I had a very close look at the whole helicopter but couldn't find anything. After watching the situation on the video a couple of times I decided it was an RPM problem. Now how's that possible?

A couple of people have noticed (and asked by email) we sometimes use Kontronik's Power Jazz 63 V as electronic speed controller, and some other times the big Schulze ESC. The governor mode of Kontronik ESCs is legendary, and we use Kontronik equipment in pretty much most of our electric machines. However, when flying with throttle curves rather than flat lines (i.e. governor mode) we often prefer the Schulze controller. At the Grand Canyon site we wanted the heli to dive down into the depth as smoothly as possible. It looks best if you do not force it down in 3D mode or with constant RPM, but if you actually let it autorotate; in other words a throttle curve will work best in this case. Again this comes at a price: You cannot fly fast backward autos and/or do pirouettes forever. There is a point when the tail comes round and the machine "locks" into forward flight. That's what caught me a little by surprise, so … phew!

The 800 km drive back to LA was smoother than expected, and we had half a day left for visiting the Universal Studios; as cool as always. Personally I'm pretty sure that if I started my life again, I'd become a filmmaker. Isn't HeliGraphix moving more and more towards filming anyway? That's true; still there is a significant difference to Hollywood (at least up to now): HeliGraphix is NO special effects! Every second of film footage you see is REAL! Real people, real stunts, real adventures, real helicopters, real challenges, real crashes in a real world! Our life is no different from yours – that's what makes HeliGraphix so exciting, so tangible, so cool. And so insane … ;-)

Hollywood Heights

2007-11-18T11:52:00.000+01:00

Personally, I've been to the USA quite a number of times and visited something between 10 and 15 states. Last time I was in the Los Angeles area is exactly 9 years back; the focus wasn't on R/C helicopters then, but the trip was lots of fun nonetheless. Actually Hellman and I (watch the famous "Tool Time" video on the HeliGraphix website in case you really don't know who this guy is!) had toured quite some part of the west coast and visited Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon. Those were the good old days … :-)

We arrived in L.A./California at 5 AM and had to wait 6 hours until we could collect our rental car; getting it earlier meant returning it earlier on the last day (which was no option for us) or paying an extra day. So we waited patiently at the LAX airport and were positively surprised that after sunrise it got significantly warmer than expected.
We finally got the car and – after a lengthy procedure of another 3 hours! – also got a GPS (that's what they call the sat navigation systems here). The first thing we did was to get us something to eat; right after this we drove to a supermarket parking lot and slept for two or three hours. We had tried to find some better location first, but we were so worn out that we just had to stop and get some rest immediately.

Los Angeles is an amazing city and certainly one of the largest in the world. While still driving to downtown we could already see the famous Hollywood sign in the hills. One of the original ideas was to find the sign and to fly there. Despite 4 to 6 freeway lanes for every direction (!) traffic was bad and by the time we got to the area it was already dark; the sun goes down around 5:30 PM. Unfortunately, the big white letters are not lit in the night, so the only thing left to do was to find a motel and sleep the sleep of the just.

The next morning we drove through Hollywood and some of the famous streets and took in Beverly Hills along the way. This is definitely a nice place to live, at least if you have the necessary pocket money to buy or rent one of the villas there. Many celebrities live here; however, you won't get to see anyone – they all hide behind big walls and the signs leave no doubt you aren't welcome. Quite understandable, though.
Since we are notoriously pressed for time we were quite happy that none of the famous guys came around the corner and spotted us. Imagine a similar scene like in the Australian hobby shop: We drive happily through Beverly Hills, and all of a sudden Bruce Willis jumps out of his driveway, dressed in pants and wearing a bloody shirt. He then limps to our car, rolls over the hood, stares at us through the windshield, frowns and shouts: 'Hey, aren't you those crazy German helicopter guys?!' Thank goodness he stayed at home so we didn't have to sign autographs and lost more time. ;-)

Finding the Hollywood sign was a nightmare. If you get closer you cannot see it anymore because buildings and trees obstruct your view. We went to nearby Griffith park, and while Saskia was busy to pull some thorns out of her hand after falling into a huge cactus I climbed two impressive hills to get an overview. BAD idea – the way up is always one thing, but the way down … Saskia decided to look away to not see me fall down. Anyway, after quite a while I made it without injuries; and the good thing was: We'd gotten a pretty good idea where to find the sign!

Our GPS this time was a lot better than the Australian one; still we've seen better devices. Driving through the hills of Hollywood was the next nightmare. It's all narrow streets, sometimes one way, and it takes you ages to reach a certain point. It reminds you of driving in Oslo (Norway), and there is also a remote similarity to the part of Zurich (Switzerland) situated on the hillside. Driving from there to work every day will cost you lots of time, and the view isn't that good either – quite often you just see the roofs of other houses and the horizon lies in the haze (another serious problem when trying to get good pictures in the Hollywood bowl!). We had no idea why someone would want to pay a million dollars or more for a small home in this area.

In the late afternoon we had finally gotten as close to the Hollywood sign as one could get. It is not allowed to hike up or do anything else except taking a picture. Lots of full-size helicopters are circling over the area all the time. We especially liked the above information sign: If you try to reach the big letters, they will either arrest you or/and you will have to pay $103. Not $102 and not $104, but exactly $103! :-) We could name more such cases where every last dollar matters.

To tell you the truth, the big white letters and the scenery around are nothing to really get you excited. Since there was not much space for flying anyway we decided to only take a couple of cool pictures rather than a video. The result was nice and worth all the trouble, but the film sequence would never have made it into the final WSF movie. We therefore put the machine away right after the flight – a good decision since not much later one of the air patrol helicopters came looking, and another few minutes later a patrol car showed up. This was exactly the time we left, so they just talked to a couple of other tourists which happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. :-) Having said this, we don't think it was us who attracted the air patrol.

Yesterday evening and the whole day today we drove a total of 800 km through the Mojave Desert. Currently we are close to the Grand Canyon national park and hope to get some impressive footage there; fortunately no snow yet!

This evening I finally found the time to replace the Three Dee MP-XL's old main drive wheel; it looked as if bigger load changes would have killed the remains of what used to be its teeth. Let's hope the problem is gone now, at least for the second part of this world tour.

Hawai'i – Outpost of Civilization?

2007-11-15T17:23:00.001+01:00

Hawai'i is a piece of intact world. Hundreds of good-looking people lie on beautiful white beaches as far as the eye can reach, the water is clear and blue, the girls wear colourful bast skirts and sing and dance all day long. Coconuts are for free, the sun shines all the day, cool music plays and the only word you have to know is "Aloha" after they hang one of the many nice flower garlands around your neck. This is Hawai'i – or is it not?!

Nope, it isn't; not at all! Hawaii is situated right in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and is actually a group of islands; the larger ones are scattered over almost 1,000 km, and when also counting the most remote ones then it is over 3,000 km in total! Culturally they belong to Polynesia and to some degree unite Eastern and Western culture. Hawaii joined the United States of America in 1959 as 50th state and today has a respectable population of about 1.3 million people. Doesn't sound too much? Wrong, because the islands are quite different from the pictures that travel agencies spread all over the world. 75% of the population live on the main island Oahu (O'ahu), 400,000 alone in the state capital Honolulu; the rest is spread over smaller cities mainly along the south coast. Taking all of this into account, it is quite densely populated.
About 40% of the residents came from Asia (mainly Japanese, but also from the Philippines and China), further major ethnic groups are people of European (25 %) and Polynesian (< 10%) origin. Main languages are English (sometimes the very local version of it) and the original Hawaiian language.

Okay, so where are the beaches? Well, the most famous one certainly is Waikiki beach, a surfer's paradise where the waves can grow to a size of several meters. Hmm, does this mean it is very windy there?! Yep, you got that point … ;-)
We've only seen Oahu and think it shouldn't be famous for beaches. Instead, the unusual looks of the high mountains and the steep shoreline are most impressive; after all, Hawaii is almost entirely of volcanic origin! They simply grew from the bottom of the sea some million years ago. On the Big Island, called Hawaii (just like the state itself), there are still active volcanoes. They'd have made a perfect backdrop for WSF, but unfortunately we didn't have enough time to go there (about 400 km by sea). Thought Mt. Everest was the biggest mountain of the world? Well, its summit certainly is the highest point above sea level, but when measuring from the foot of the mountain to its top, then Mauna Kea is the world's tallest mountain with almost 9,500 m!

When returning from Ayers Rock to Sydney it was quite late at night, and since our 9.5-hour flight to Honolulu left early the next morning it made not much sense to spend money on another hotel night but to sleep at the airport instead. They close it at night but you could stay in the train station next door. Below's a shot taken at 3 AM showing what sleeping in an airport looks like.

We dozed most of the flight since we were eternally tired – but no worries, we crossed the international date line and that means we won a day (or one night to be more exact). Usually you lose time when travelling eastwards; not so when crossing the date line! In Australia we were 10 hours ahead of CET, in Hawaii we were suddenly 12 hours behind. It's sort of a déjà vu feeling when the date changes from 11th to 12th the second time. Winning a day like in the famous novel by Jules Verne (which was based on a more or less true background, BTW) was one of the main reasons why we chose travelling around the planet in eastern direction.
Hawaii is an expensive place! We found out the very first minutes when taking a taxi to our hotel. The driver was the unconventional type of person – we could not really understand what he said since the bass of his subwoofer was so strong that we got worried it might actually disintegrate the heli in its transport box in the trunk. Anyway, we reached the hotel and got a nice flat in the 23rd floor; we could even see part of the shoreline, so that was pretty cool.

Again, where are the beaches? Since Oahu is a modern island and the life style fairly typically American it was clear we needed a rental car. So we got one and started driving around to find a suitable WSF location. Not an easy task! Like said before, there is no such thing as the typical island paradise beach with a nice lagoon; the island is mostly covered with mountains. Theoretically you could drive around it, but there is a point where you need 4 wheel drive to continue!
How about Pear Harbor?! It is the most important US military base in the Pacific and gained fame in a tragic way when the Japanese killed over 2,000 people and sunk eight war ships during their plane attacks in 1941. It might have looked cool to do a long tail slide over some navy vessels and pull up just a couple of inches off the deck, but then …
After some time we figured that typical of at least this part of the Hawaiian Islands are mountains of volcanic origin (like the famous Diamond Head), plus beaches with waves and some palm trees. This would be a healthy mixture of the real Hawaii and the pictures in travel catalogues. So we just continued driving …

On day 2 we finally found a really good location. The wind was insane, look for the palm trees bending in the final video! One more time that one definitely misses the smoke trail of I/C helis – that'd have been a very cool look! After the flights we continued to Sandy Beach to take some static shots (no more battery packs!). As for that wave: No, I didn't see it coming!!

We went back to the hotel later that night (the sun goes down at 6 PM already), perfectly in time to collect the two FP 4900 mAh battery packs from Rainer Hacker. Nicolas and BBT had also fedexed a new RM cap (yes!) plus a spare main drive wheel and a vertical fin (remember, in Korea some guy stepped on it).
Back in the room we realized the video shots were bad – too shaky. Not good because it meant we'd have to return the next day after noon; earlier didn't make sense since the sun would be in the wrong place. What's more, I had worked on the computer until 6:30 AM and thus was really tired.
Anyway, we decided to drive to the same spot the next day. It was even more windy and the clouds moved fast thus leaving only short time slots for the flights. The scenery is great when lit but looks like nothing when the light is gone.

Despite the time pressure we did an AFD panorama as well. The fixed wing guys will hate this one! However, there was no better alternative and this way you can fly at exactly the same spot that we chose. Personally I love the challenge of landing an airplane here; you'll have to come in close to yourself in order to avoid the 10 m high bush work in just a few meters distance (I guess that's where most people will end up) – but still high enough to fly over a bench and a table nearby! Quite a challenge, but there is some stones in the water which will help you on approach. Like said before, you'll hate it at first but love it later on! :-)
For heli pilots it is no problem anyway; I'm just sad that the strong wind and thus some of the flair will be missing. Maybe Ikarus should ship a ducted fan together with the simulator, and it activates automatically once you choose this very scenery. ;-)

It took us about one hour to disassemble the heli and pack it into the box for the flight to California. We then rushed back to drop the rental car, collected the rest of our baggage, repacked parts of it and then went to the airport. Hmm, we really liked Hawaii – a shame it was over before we got the chance to see more of it. I'm actually typing these lines while on the plane to California – we'll come up with more cool news from there, so check back soon!

Ayers Rock – Spirit of the Aborigines

2007-11-12T15:31:00.000+01:00

The next day we got up at 04:30 AM (don't ask when we went to bed!) in order to drop our rental car before boarding the plane to the Australian Outback. Due to a little confusion at the filling station (the rental company had no signs in the car at all what fuel it uses) we ended up with the wrong fuel in the tank – and broke down a kilometer later, still four kilometers away from the airport. It was clear we'd miss the flight; luckily a nice guy from Peru helped us and took Saskia to the airport. While she arranged that Qantas gave us a later flight I was standing in the rain for 2 hours waiting for a tow truck and dealing with the rental car company. Shit happens!

Ayers Rock is simply amazing! In the language of the local Aborigines it is called Uluru; not too far from it lie The Olgas (Kata Tjuta), another interesting rock formation and significantly larger than Ayers Rock. Both were formed about 800 million years ago in the same geological process; the whole land was flooded several times, and mud, sand, gravel, pebbles, rock, etc. accumulated in depressions. The whole mixture got heavily compacted (we're talking about geological time spans here!) and was finally pushed back to the surface. Erosion formed the structures visible today; and yes, this means we just see the tip of a much larger formation extending a couple of kilometers down into the earth. Please note that unlike Kata Tjuta the Uluru mainly consists of arcose sandstone; its original color is grey, but it contains a significant amount of iron minerals. The weathering process forms iron oxides which account for the nice red color; the whole mountain and desert around are rusting, if you want. :-)
Ayers Rock is about 350 m high (The Olgas over 500 m) and has been declared world natural heritage by the UNESCO (yes, these guys are everywhere! It is a mere matter of time until the whole planet is a UNESCO world something heritage …).

The local resort is called Yulara; it's basically a couple of hotels around a ring road including a supermarket and a filling station. That's it, and you won't find anything else in a radius of several hundred kilometers. The main language there is German! :-)
We inspected our baggage and found that the "fragile" stickers of the airline actually mean "please drop it extra hard!" Repairing the Three Dee MP-XL took about three hours, but it was nothing that couldn't be fixed. On this occasion we discovered that the main drive wheel showed strange signs of wear (see picture). The teeth in four parts of the gear wheel were heavily worn leaving big grooves between what's left of the original teeth. The four areas are the consequence of a slight noncircularity of the drive wheel (that's nothing unsual). As to what causes this strange kind of abrasion effect we're not absolutely sure. We have marked everything and will inspect it after every flight.

BTW, our last FP 4900 mAh pack was significantly ballooned after the air transport from Sydney to Ayers Rock – this is actually the first real indication that the constant transport under low pressure conditions may be (one of) the problem(s). The spare packs from Rainer Hacker (fedexed by Nicolas and BBT) should reach us Tuesday evening in Hawaii.

Both Uluru and Kata Tjuta are sacred in Aborigine belief and they were given back to them by the Australian government in 1985. Today the whole area is a national park; you can visit it for a fair entrance fee but have to follow the rules which means don't leave the marked paths, only stop in special viewing areas, etc. Not so good for flying; but then, there weren't too many people around so you could just jump over the fence or walk a little into the desert. Temperature? We had everything from 10 to 30+ degrees centigrade.
Okay, are the flights a homerun then? Not really, for several reasons. First difficulty is the weather; at least during our short stay it kept changing constantly. The funny thing is that the clouds appear out of nowhere within half an hour, but they do not move. After some time they simply dissolve and rematerialize somewhere else. The very moment it gets cloudy the wind freshens up to a point where your cap gets blown off; this can happen within less than five minutes. The next thing is, clouds cast big shadows onto the Rock – and this makes it look very dull in the picture.
The bottom line of all of this is: Find a good spot to fly where the Rock is not too near (so it'll fit into the picture) but still looks impressive, then wait in the car for as long as it takes, and when the lighting situation seems to get well jump out and fly.

The hotels at Yulara Resort provide (expensive) internet access; you get a fast download connection, but the upload is as slow as 2 KB/sec. which means most programs give up due to timeout when uploading pictures. This was the reason why we couldn't update the blog for three days. But transfer of the digital material to the computer, picture screening and selection, then post production and finally data backups kept us over-busy anyway. It's insane how much time such straight forward computer work takes – one day is nothing at all!

All in all the trip to Ayers Rock was both a success and adventure. To those of you appreciating the silence of a desert, the only sound being caused by the wind flowing over the landscape, combined with a clear vision till the "end of the world", we can only recommend this place.

The very cool image above is a pure HeliGraphix shot outside the WSF. Apropos, don't forget to check out our regular website as well! In our latest video we explore what happens if you fly with your R/C helicopter through a car wash. :-)

Madness Strikes Again!

2007-11-09T18:20:00.000+01:00

Ladies & Gentlemen, this is HeliGraphix Australia; please fasten your seatbelts! All persons and incidents described are real; part of them may not be suitable for all ages. If you are under the age of 16, please read on when you have reached this age or continue with the next post. Thank you. :-)

We were pretty much in a rush to the airport since our navigation device lead us the way to every place BUT the airport. We thought this might be some kind of built-in advertising: You tell the device where to go, and if you just buy the budget version instead of the full upgrade it won't choose the fastest way but drive you to a couple of partner shops first ...
The first thing we did after collecting Andrew Palmer was to find a breakfast place - as you will imagine there were loads of things to talk about; after all, we hadn't met him in person for almost two full years. It's not that you don't exchange messages over the internet or do occasional phone calls; still there is nothing greater than sitting together and talking face to face. Honestly, if I had one wish granted by a fairy godmother, then it would be to bring together all the HeliGraphix people from all over the world for one day.

What distinguishes HeliGraphix videos from pretty much all the rest on the net is that they're never outdated; even after years they're as much fun to watch as on day one. Consequently, the download rates stay pretty constant rather than decreasing over time. With several 10,000 downloads the "dequeering video" (official title is "HeliGraphix Helps!"; www.heligraphix.de/download/HeliGraphix_helps_part1.zip) from 2005 is one of the best examples. It was shot out of a notion and minutes before we had had to leave for Christchurch airport (New Zealand). It went down in history and has inspired a generation of pilots - it's as much CULT as the world-renowned HeliGraphix rule for breaking in new helicopters and engines: They have to go inverted the very first day, else they will become "queer" (www.heligraphix.com/QA/qa_section2.htm#TM41)! We could compile a book full of cool stories that have been submitted to us in this context by people from around the planet. Maybe next time … :-)

When talking about the good old days in New Zealand and the dequeering video we realized that on the occasion of our meeting the world might expect a sequel!?! Andrew hadn't brought along any helicopters, and even though it would have been a cool stunt to throw a Three Dee MP-XL off the Sydney Harbour Bridge and wind up the blades, this was definitely the worst point in time for giving it a try. We had a look at the watch: 4 hours left before Andrew had to fly back another 2,500 km to NZ. Okay, what could you possibly do in such a short time span? Not much!? Think again, this is HeliGraphix!

We drove to the nearest post office and grabbed the Yellow Pages. There seemed to be quite a number of model shops in the greater Sydney area; the closest one was "Wings 'N' Things" (www.wingsnthings.com.au). We don't know why, but somehow we always manage to make the right choices…

Full steam ahead to Wings 'N' Things! Park the car, jump out, walk into the store. Impressive, really big - and a couple of helicopters on display, from small coaxial ones to real 90 size I/C machines. The first guy spots us and looks us up and down. – "We're looking for a small helicopter, a budget version." – "We have these coaxial ones; the small ones here don't fly as well as that bigger one. They're all for indoor use." The guy knows what he's talking about. "What do you need it for?"
That was the all wrong question: "Actually, we are going to throw it off the Harbour Bridge!" – "Hey! Are you the guys from the videos?!?" Heehh?! Is it possible you walk into an R/C store at the other end of the world and people recognize you there? – "You looked familiar to me from the moment you walked through that door!!"
Now THAT's cool, isn't it? Meanwhile the number of people around us had increased a little and the guy walks over to a shelf; a few seconds later he returns with a "Remote Madness" DVD in his hand. Well, what could you possibly add here …?! :-)The owner of the store is Zak Kiternas, and the guys called him down to the shop. I think we could have talked to them for another hour, it was simply great. We even learned they'd contacted Jan Henseleit the other day regarding distribution of Three Dee helicopters! A small world, really.

Anyway, we explained what we'd come for and without making a fuss of anything Zak just handed over the coaxial Bell 47 we wanted to have. Plus a can of our favourite pink spray paint, plus some batteries. "It's all yours. Don't make it survive!" he said. NOW HOW COOL IS THIS?! Below's a good shot by Saskia showing Rob Pirazzi, Zak Kiternas, me & Andrew, Denis Johnstone and Carlo Iarossi (from left) outside the store. The mailman just happened to drop by and thought it looked fun what we're doing and thus wanted to be in the picture, too. Cool world! :-)

3 hours left. We walk back to the car and open the motor hub; there is no second we can afford to lose, so we decide to charge the Bell's lipo while driving back to our "hotel" and fetching the video camera. Some adhesive tape does the job and holds the charger and battery in place in the engine bay.
1.5 hours left. We're back at the Harbour Bridge to inspect the location and find a good point for throwing down the helicopter. The QHT ("Queer Helicopter Theory") states: Queer helicopters float while dequeered ones sink! So if you throw a queer one off the bridge and it happens to fall into the river, then you will be able to tell whether the mission was a success or not. B-)

LOTS of security and surveillance cameras on the bridge! We talked to the guys and there was a chance to get semi-official clearance for the stunt. Never mind, we'd have done it anyway … ;-)
However, there was another problem: If you video a scene where a small heli is dropped from a mighty bridge in quite a distance, then it is only a small dot in the picture. Not good at all, so we had to come up with a new idea fast!

40 min. left. We were prepared to do an ultra-cool introduction interview and test the ultimate dequeering strategy. We figured that if the little bell (it comes pink and plugged out of the box!) made it across the bay (700 meters!), it would be dequeered and could be used safely by any pilot. The "point of transformation" had to be somewhere on the way which left us with the question: What if the Bell didn't make it? We knew this was unlikely, but … ;-))
Well, as mentioned before the "Dequeerer's Guidebook" states that queer helicopters float! The puzzle now was complete, the story brilliant, and the three of us were highly motivated to do the stunt and help to dequeer Zak's Bell so it could lead a happy heli's life ever after.

25 min. left. It was so much fun doing the interview and explaining the story to the viewers, we could have continued for hours. Unfortunately, a strong wind was blowing right towards us; we ran back to the car (i.e. Andrew walked most of the way …) in order to drive over to the other side of the bay. This way the heli would have the wind behind it.

10 min. left. Security also on the other side, but there is nothing we have to lose anyway. While driving we had done dry runs of the scene so we'd be able to start right away – and that's exactly what we did! The outcome is insane, fun and marvellous at the same time! You will LOVE this production! B-)

-5 min. left. We're on the way to the airport and our navigation system – as always – causes more trouble than it is of help. We call Zak and tell him the mission was a great success; he is delighted and can't wait to see the video.
Okay, good question, when's that blockbuster-like thing coming out? Well, there's some post production extras required – we think late in January or early in February 2008 is realistic. Don't miss this film, it is CULT!

Finally, here's a snap shot of one of the planes at Zak's place. Hmm, we may have to return one day … ;-)

The world-famous Sydney Opera House

2007-11-07T13:39:00.000+01:00

Sydney has the strangest weather we've ever seen. First it is stormy (only people from New Zealand would still classify this as a firm breeze) and pours like hell, some 30 minutes later it is moderately windy and only slightly overcast, another 30 minutes later it is the Deluge again. Now what does this tell us? Quite simply put, the long time of the British Commonwealth Empire has left its traces … ;-)

All kidding aside, this kind of weather thwarts all your plans. Partly helped by our sat navi (see last post!) we just drove out to the waterfront opposite the famous Sydney Opera House. It's quite a distance, still the monument is not a speck on the horizon. We arrived perfectly in time for a rain break, and since there was a lonely security guy nearby we thought it was best to start off with an AFD panorama. It may give the fixed wing guys a hard time, but it's simply great for helicopters! :-)

We had just completed the photographs and not even measured all the distances to obstacles and waypoints when the next rain front came in (BTW, in ROTOR 12/2007 we'll explain in detail how the AFD shooting works and what is needed to generate a photorealistic simulator scenery). It was so fast we didn't really know what had hit us …

About 40 minutes later we dared to get out of the car again. The good thing about the situation was that virtually everybody (including the lonely security guy) had run away because of the heavy rainfall. As we learned today there is actually LOTS of security all over the place and especially around the harbour bridge; Sydney is quite afraid of terrorist strikes and the security guys aren't the funny type. So we were pretty lucky we got away with a quick flight!
The result is absolutely cool! Apart from the wind and that flying over water is never truly relaxing there are two more things which spoil the game a little: First, the next rain front was already forming on the horizon, and second we could only fly 4 - 5 min. because of our already slightly ballooned last 4900 mAh battery pack. And finally, it is a matter of time until you have the usual annoying water drops on the lens. But anyway, the shots are good, we couldn't have done them better under these conditions, and this is what counts!

When we came back to our "hotel" it was all dark – power failure! No electricity, no light, no internet, no nothing! It took about 4 hours until at least the lights worked again, and charging the batteries meant I had to sit in the corridor (no sockets in the room!) until 4 AM in the morning. :-(
Not so nice since today we had to get up at 7 AM in order to collect Andrew Palmer at the airport. He's a true friend and came all the way from New Zealand just to meet us for one day. And it was one hell of a day! In fact, we had such a great time that it's worth writing an extra post about it; you will be more than thrilled to hear what's going on in this part of the world! :-)

Another very good news is that Rainer Hacker (did we mention he really is a great guy?!) contacted Nicolas Kaiser: There is three brand new 4900 mAh Flight Power battery packs on the way to our home base in Switzerland! That's perfect timing, thank you very much! Consequently, the two 3700 mAh packs which had been sent via the UK and had not made it to New Zealand in time have been routed back by Nicolas.
BTW, we have learned that the pressure in the passenger section of an airplane is the same as in the cargo bay. Thus it does not make a difference whether you transport the batteries in your carry-on or in your checked in baggage (you cannot have it in the hand luggage anyway). The reason for the observed ballooning must therefore be another one. We checked our chargers, but everything fine here as well. It remains a mystery …

OK, this was the end of a long but successful day. The next post will feature the most incredible story how we managed to shoot a sequel to our most successful "dequeering" video from 2005 (the official title is "HeliGraphix Helps!") even though neither Andrew nor we had brought along a helicopter for doing this! :-))

AUSTRALIA – Take 1

2007-11-05T16:02:00.000+01:00

Right before boarding the plane to Australia I was taken aside and told that there was a security problem with our baggage. But no reason to worry, the lady continued, the officers had just opened and resealed it … You can imagine we had a very nice 9.5-hour flight, constantly wondering what Asia Airlines might have done to our baggage and which one of the two boxes (helicopter box or transmitter, power supplies and chargers) had been opened. These guys had been unfriendly at check-in as well; they are Star Alliance member, we're booked on Star Alliance, but they just wouldn't give us the respective conditions (they have to!) but charge us overweight instead. Annoying.

Sydney really is an expensive place; to reduce cost we had prebooked one of the more budget backpacker hotels (and this still costs a lot!). Well, the room is smaller than ever, we do not have electricity (except one light, but no sockets) and we have to share the showers with 200 other people. This minimalistic size of the room is a new record, the only other places that can keep up with this one were at Mount Cook/New Zealand where each of us had to share the bedroom with 7 more people (separate rooms for male/female!) and in France. Below is a shot of our mobile communication platform. :-)

We arrived in Sydney early this morning, and for the first time since this continuous trip has started we rented a car. The main reason is that on Thursday our old friend Andrew Palmer from New Zealand will fly all the way to Sydney to have fun with us for one day. That's true spirit and we very much look forward to seeing him!
For just a few bucks extra we got a sat navi; it's made by Pioneer and the most user-unfriendly device we've ever seen. If you type in a target and drive according to the instructions, how's it possible that the distance to the destination keeps increasing?! Does it lead you the other way around the globe? Also we set it up so it won't be using toll roads. And boom - 10 minutes later we end up in the first toll tunnel without cash booths. Damn, to avoid a toll infringement notice we now have to call the guys and give them our credit card details.

Regarding battery packs, thanks for all your input! Nicolas Kaiser did a lot of research and called today - it seems we'll be co-sponsored by Kokam. That's good in a way that in the past months quite a number of people had written to us anyway and asked how's Kokam compared to Flight Power. It will be interesting to see whether the ballooning is a FP specific problem or a general one.
Jan Henseleit also left us a message and offered his own packs. Ken Yap wrote in and said he would be able to organize AirThunder packs for us. Marc Endres discussed the problem on RC-Line forum, and they came up with the same suspicion we have: The low air pressure during the long distance flights might be the problem for the ballooning. Andrew Palmer called this evening and reported there's no hobby shops in Sydney carrying 12s battery packs.

BTW, we'd like to seize the chance to explicitly thank the Big Boys' Toys crew (manufacturer of the famous MANIAC blades and carbon accessories) who provide the WSF FedEx logistics. Nobody believed this would become such a crucial part to make the WSF project a success. Thank you very much, this is appreciated!

Next problem is that for some reason FedEx sent the two spare 3700 mAh FP packs via United Kingdom to Andrew Palmer in New Zealand (he was supposed to bring the packs to us on Thursday). The time delay is fatal as they will not arrive in NZ before Andrew boards the plane to Sydney. So we're currently trying to reroute the parcel to the location here and to collect the packs when we come back from Ayers Rock, just prior to departure for Hawaii. (How come that always when it seems we could take a quick break something like this happens?!)

As you see the WSF are as exciting as ever and you can actively influence them by leaving comments. This is the project of a big team rather than a handful of people; like mentioned often before, HeliGraphix is "open source". Be part of the new flying era and join us for writing R/C history!

Korea – more problems ahead!

2007-11-04T11:34:00.000+01:00

As some of you have noticed the last post was written on a Friday, not Thursday! This tells you two things: First, we have TOTALLY lost track of what weekday it is – we do not have any breaks and it is one rush all day long. Second, contrary to what's written in the brochures there's self-guided tours through the Changdeokgung Palace site on other weekdays as well! :-)

Yesterday we walked to Gyeongbokgung Palace, the second best of the five major palace sites in Seoul. We had a look at the buildings and open spaces and finally explained at the tourist information what we'd come for. The woman there was very understanding and guided us to the responsible office; unlike in other countries every palace site has its own office. The people there liked the WSF project as well, but – like a number of times before – next door were some government buildings, and this was special security zone. Thus no flying permit. (The picture below was taken the first day - it is great, but like explained we do not have anything on video.)

However, the tourist office advised us to drive to the culture park right in the city center. There would be houses in typical Korean architecture style, plus we'd have a wonderful view of the Seoul Tower. OK, board a taxi and off it goes through the usual traffic chaos.
The site was nice but too small in a way that you always had not so nice parts of the city in the background - the harmony was somehow missing. As for the tower, not the nicest one we'd ever seen, but quite impressive; the only problem was that the sun spoiled the picture. The staff there were nice, a flying permit no problem. We flew one 3700 mAh pack to have at least something on video; the shots are quite ok but nothing compared to the Great Wall in China or the Taj Mahal.
The shock came right after landing: The 3700 mAh batt pack was ballooned as well! Hell, if the batteries continue dying at this rate then we lose one pack per flight!

What next? Well, there is three kinds of landmarks suitable for WSF. The first category is cultural monuments, in this case one of the famous palaces. The second group would be world-renowned technical structures, e.g. the Petronas Twin Towers in Malaysia. This leaves the third category, characteristic landscape or natural formations.
Okay, if the palace thing absolutely doesn't work, then let's go for the Seoul Tower! But similar problem like in Kuala Lumpur: No space for flying within the city! Most of the ancient settlements and towns were built near rivers: For one, this offered the possibility of agriculture and second, it was the gate to the world and enabled people to trade. Seoul, too, is divided by a mighty river – and that's exactly what we headed for next (don't let's talk about walking on highways with R/C helicopters …)!

It was quite cold and a firm wind blowing, still the flights were successful and left us with some good shots; we think they will look cool in the final film. After landing one of the Korean spectators fell over the helicopter and broke the vertical fin. Annoying, but not a problem – back in our small pension I replaced it by a new one.

Both Saskia and I are reasonably well again. The major problem now is another one: Our Flight Power battery packs. After the river flight our fourth and last pack showed signs of ballooning, too! We did not have any problems with Flight Power packs until the WSF project started; but it is fact that even though they haven't seen more than 40 cycles each, they obviously cannot cope with the fast changing conditions of WSF flights.

Rainer Hacker is one of the greatest guys we've ever met - if you have a problem with motors or battery packs, he'll do his very best to solve them for you. We got pretty much most of our batteries through him (Hacker Motor GmbH) - very unfortunately, we cannot reach him at the moment! They're on a trade fair and do not check their emails or answer the phone.

We talked to Nicolas Kaiser and Steven-V as well as our old friend Andrew Palmer from New Zealand (he'll be flying over to Australia just to meet us there - simply great, isn't it, and we'll talk about that once in Australia). All three of them are currently trying to locate 12s battery packs and checking alternatives. The situation is serious, but we're confident to find a durable solution.

Like mentioned earlier: As of now it is unclear what causes the ballooning of the FP packs and there is a chance it would have happened to ANY brand. BUT: You have to see our situation, too! We have flown half around the world and are fighting our way through a world-unique and very demanding mission. All our battery packs are dying like flies, and the project is at stake! So we have to do something FAST and NOW! Any thoughts/comments from you are welcome, too.

Right now we are minutes from boarding the plane to Australia; the flight is 9.5 hours, and we'll continue from there. Stay tuned!

South Korea - problems ahead!

2007-11-02T15:46:00.000+01:00

South Korea is a modern country, and even though the capital Seoul is situated slightly more South than Beijing, it is quite cold here. Part of the city looks like many of the modern metropolises, which means life at a fast pace and expensive, many lights and heavy traffic. They give you about 15 seconds to cross the major multi-lane roads. After that the pedestrian lights go to red again and it's waiting for another 5 - 10 minutes. This really trains you to RUN!

What's the best-known monuments in Korea? Well, for one there is the city of Gyeongju, but with 400 km distance it's too far away from here. No need to go there anyway since in Seoul you will find the remains of the Joseon dynasty (15th century). It's basically a town-like structure with a collection of many beautiful buildings, temples and pagodas. Due to vandalism in the past you can only walk through it on guided tours. However, self-guided tours are available on Thursdays - lucky us! We found the office in charge, and the Korean guys there called some nice English-speaking representative. We explained the WSF project, and she seemed less worried about the heli but that we'd have to pay quite a sum to get a permission to take pictures. Sounded reasonably good, so we'd be back the next day (= Thursday).

This morning we walked up to the ticket office and paid the fee for taking pictures as well as the money for the regular entrance tickets. Looked good, so far no trace of problems. The nice lady from the office guided us right to the open space in front of the biggest and most famous palace called Changdeokgung. It's UNESCO world cultural heritage again, by the way (we should ask them for a map with the rest of that stuff :-) ).
The open space turned out to be not as wide as it appeared to be from the pictures; there seems to be a pattern behind this, some clever wide angle photography. It's the same all over the world: You go there, and boom - where's the magic from the pictures?!

After 25 minutes of waiting (did we mention that extra time costs extra money?!) we realized that the constant stream of new guided tours just didn't end. The nice lady said she was surprised, too, but we should start after the current tour had left. There's always one idiot who lags behind the group and has to take 10,000 extra pictures of the same object from angles as different as one arc second. We waited patiently until his guide called out to him, then wound up the rotor.
The first minute was reserved for pictures so the lady and other people would get used to the looks of the heli and that it's safe. Next we pulled out the camera and tried to let the heli fall into the picture, morph it into a pie dish, and then exit to the side. Not trivial in this confined area.

After a total of 4 minutes somebody came running and shouting, and we had to land. The guy was so mad he tried to block my vision of the landing heli. Luckily, Koreans aren't that tall. Anyway, the guy was quite upset and it turned out he was the guide of a group from the building next door, and that people had complained about the noise. Hmm …
Electric helis and blade flutter can cause some resonance, but it is highly unlikely this was louder than all the school kids crying around. What probably happened was that for the four minutes nobody cared about the building, but everybody liked the heli; the guide just couldn't cope with that. After this incident we did not get permission to take off again - because of the noise! We tried hard, but no way.

And here comes the worst: Due to a seemingly trivial camera problem we do not have any recordings at all! I was (and still am) so shocked I refused to speak much.
We'd like to seize the chance to thank you for emails and comments as this really motivates us. We do read all of them; you're welcome to feel at home and leave any thoughts on whatever topic you may have.

BTW, the internet is censored here in Korea as well, so we still cannot see the blog (including comments) and have to use the backdoor for updates!

An additional problem is that since we do not have many breaks we're quite exhausted after all the travelling and long walks. I sort of collapsed from exhaustion yesterday night, and Saskia is in poor condition today (vomited several times).
Then we found out that either after the heli flight in China or on the way to Korea our second FP 4900 mAh pack has ballooned. We have no idea what's the problem. The HeliGraphix SwissUnit around Nicolas Kaiser are busy to fix the problem for us. It looks as if we won't get a spare 4900 mAh, only 3700 mAh. That's bad because like here in Korea you sometimes only get the chance to do one single flight - and it's crucial that this one does not last just 4 min.

Keep you fingers crossed that we're back on our feet tomorrow and will be able to come up with a backup plan.

The Badaling Challenge!

2007-11-01T15:18:00.000+01:00

Originally we had planned to drive to the Great Wall at Jinshaling (app. 160 km West of Beijing) rather than Badaling. The latter is much more overrun by tourists, and this is exactly what you would not want for R/C helicopter flights. However, Ken Yap thought it was possible to pull off the stunt at Badaling, and this would save us about 1.5 days of extra time which we really needed for finishing the latest ROTOR article, the blog, data backups, email communication, and for repairing equipment; our heli transport box had gotten a heavy blow on the way from Singapore to China.

Thanks to the help of some nice local guy we got a good taxi flat rate to Badaling; they drive like they queue up - all lanes are in use, and it's an overtaking (doesn't matter which side) and squeezing back in all the time, especially during heavy traffic or jams. 'Congratulations!' one thinks, 'it's now one million less one car in front of you!'

Badaling really is a tourist place. We took the cable car to the top of the hill (quite hard to take a big 90size heli with you!) and went straight onto the Great Wall - and that's definitely what it is! The structure has been built and rebuilt over centuries starting 500 BC and stretches over app. 6,700 km.

We were lucky with the weather - the day we arrived it was fog everywhere, the next two days (including our trip to the wall) were sunny, and after that it got extremely cold plus stormy. So at reasonable temperatures of around 10 °C and light wind blowing up the hill we lugged 15 kg of equipment up and down this huge structure. Quite exhausting as there are almost no horizontal sections; on the contrary, sometimes it gets close to climbing up and down vertically. People often couldn't really believe why somebody would take such bulky equipment to this place and even cheered on us when we got stuck in one of the vertical sections. Funny.

The big problem for heli flying is that you will need a horizontal section to both take off and land. And it does neither help you if this is kilometers away nor when it's down in the "valley" and thus not giving you a good view.
After an hour of walking we nearly dropped dead at some good viewpoint. We were sweating like hell; this means you have to take extra care not to catch a cold when stopping all of a sudden. Of course the heli bag drew the attention of the people around plus a guard. We found some English speaker who helped translate what the WSF project was all about. There was no way around this as the Great Wall is just about 3.5 m wide and we'd have to block it for the flights (We're not sure if anybody has blocked the Great Wall in the past 100 years or so?!).
Quick calculation: 3.5 m - 1.60 m rotor diameter = 1.90 m. Two handrails on each side, app. 25 cm off the wall, that's 1.90 m - 0.5 m = 1.40 m. Divided by two gives you 70 cm clearance to each side. Since the ground is quite uneven, you may have to land a little more to the left or right, depending on how the heli comes in. Add to this a constant breeze plus a tree hanging half over the area, and there you have it: The perfect spot for take-off and landing! Did we mention we had just lugged 15 kg of weight around for an hour? :-)

After some negotiations we actually got clearance for our remote-controlled toy. Someone asked what happens if he put his hand into the rotor disc. Well …
Most of the people visiting the Great Wall were Chinese, not foreign tourists. And it was the same problem with people just squeezing through narrow spots instead of queuing up. One guy even managed to fall over the helicopter in its carrier bag while I still had it over my shoulder (just don't ask …)! Consequently, we got a little worried somebody might actually fall into the rotor disc after the landing. Our translator was a big help, and we had him make extra clear to the guard that the area needed to be entirely clear when the machine came back in.

OK, take-off! There was no way to test the heli after assembly this time, so we just gave it a try. Add pitch, and --- it leaves the ground and sits in the air. Smooth and stable, as always. That's a Henseleit, one thinks, and slowly adds fore cyclic and right aileron to leave the wall and fly out to the countryside. As expected, all the spectators now gather around you and make it hard to walk over to the camera. One wrong step and you will fall about 30 m down the stairs - the descent is nearly vertical (you will see it later in the video)!
The flight was interesting in many ways. Not that we complain about people blocking our vision or jostling against us, but there was quite a breeze coming up the hill. At just over zero degree pitch the heli was still climbing towards us. You had to be careful not to fly into the occasional invisible tree that had already lost its leaves. Once the heli has nearly reached your position, do a combined ail/ele flip and let it dive down the wall inverted backwards, just a little offset so it won't hit any people in case something goes wrong. Finally morph the slide into a large diameter funnel, and that's it for today.

After repeating and modifying the exercise a couple of times we pull out the photo camera and shoot dozens of pictures within just one minute. We know there won't be a chance for a second flight, and you have to allow for 2 - 3 minutes of landing. No surprise the walk back to the landing area took a while and it was a nightmare getting the people out of the way. Then slide in the machine and touch down fast. The moment when it goes below the height of the smaller side walls is critical because it loses lift and you have to stop compensating for the side wind all of a sudden. But no problem this time, it lands as smoothly as ever, and it's just a matter of keeping the people from jumping into the rotor disc now.

Since the Great Wall was pretty crowded everywhere, attempting to shoot an AFD panorama was hopeless. It wouldn't have made much sense anyway since the only spots suitable for at least a heli take-off and landing were bad for flying because the pilot cannot change his position (like we had to) in the simulation. So we walked another 40 min. until we found a reasonably good location. Let's see what Ikarus/IPACS will be able to make of it.

The last shock came when we discovered we had ended up on the other side of the hill where a train goes up to the wall, and not the gondola! We called Ken Yap in Singapore, and he called our Chinese only speaking cab driver; the driver claimed there was no way around the hill. Uuups!?! Should we really have to walk back now for two hours with all that baggage ("queuing" up for the train would have taken the same time plus also walking for 30 min.)? I had a feeling the heli would not survive that trip – and we wouldn't, either.
Saskia volunteered to recheck if there really wasn't a way around the hill by car. 20 eternal minutes of pointing and gesturing later we found someone to drive us (may God decide what will happen to the lost soul of our cab driver …). Phew …

We're on our way to Seoul/South Korea - we originally wanted to slow down a little. But unfortunately, the next problems are already shaping on the horizon … We'll keep you updated!

Welcome to China – Home of the Olympic Games 2008!

2007-10-30T16:31:00.000+01:00

China is one of my old favourites; last time that I came to Beijing was in 2003. The city seems to have changed in some ways, part of this may be due to the upcoming Olympic Games in summer 2008. At least some of the major road signs are now bilingual, and the number of English speakers in bigger facilities has increased at little. But then - just VERY little. :-)

What hasn't changed, unfortunately, is the Chinese's unability to pay attention to people around them. Nobody has ever heard about the concept of queuing up, and in crowded places at least the European mind sometimes feels reminded of ants running all over the place in a confused manner. Add to this the uncommon habit of spitting in public (to name just one; you will find this in a number of other places, too, but less perfected; the coolest is if your taxi driver stops, opens the door, spits, and then drives on), and there you have it - an interesting, fascinating Eastern culture. Don't let's talk about things like human rights and intellectual property, but let's concentrate on the terrific food and happy, friendly and diligent people.

With over 1.3 billion people, the People's Republic of China is the largest people in the world, and the economy grows at a startling pace. Together with India and Vietnam it has the potential to become one of the leading global market players, and it will be interesting to see what the situation will be like 50 years down the road. There isn't one China, by the way - in fact, the seemingly uniform country consists of countless "states" with their own languages, their own traditions, and their own unique way of life. This is what creates a difficult political situation, but it also accounts for one of the richest cultures and a long history.

Our good friends Dong Yu and Shen Dong are currently in Texas/USA where they had been offered a good postdoc position. This leaves us a little more to our own devices; it cannot be denied that communication is a REAL problem. Even in large cities like Beijing (which, after all, happens to be the capital) virtually nobody understands or speaks English, so it is difficult to order food, go to places by taxi, etc. Thought the menu in restaurants is bilingual? Nope.

Funny story: I had been looking forward to one of the famous "Peking ducks", but we simply didn't manage to find a place where they serve it. So we drove to one of the biggest hotels in town (I happened to have the name in Chinese letters on a name card so we could show it to the taxi driver); I knew they have it, and I knew they speak English. We walk into the lobby - very impressive! Turn left where the restaurant used to be four years ago. Hmm, no restaurant there, just a number of smaller rooms with tables, plus posters showing delicious dishes. It is 9:30 PM; a lady spots us and addresses us in Chinese. We try to tell her what we've come here for. Totally blank look, she does not understand a single word. OK, so we point at the food posters and rub our stomach. "Aah!" she makes, puts on a bright smile and points us the way --- to the hotel's business center! Heh?! Why do you think people come to a restaurant and rub their belly? "No no, look, food!" We make gestures and sounds like we're eating and drinking. "Aah!" she makes again and points upwards. Hmm, second floor?
The escalator did not work; we couldn't help but had a hunch there wouldn't be any open restaurant upstairs. Yep, right, this time we found ourselves in a conference room! The people there spoke no English (what a surprise!) and we went downstairs again to talk to the guys at the front desk. Bad English, but they got the point. The restaurant had been moved over to the other side of the stairs, about 50 m away from where the nice lady had sent us to every part of the hotel - except the restaurant! You think this is an exception? Nope again, this happens dozens of times every day (and there is times when it's hard to see the fun side of it).

Before we close this post there's three more things we'd like to pass on to you:

1) In China the internet is censored. We cannot view or access this blog - nobody can do it from within this country! It's equally impossible to address many .com domains. The reason is that blogs had become an important means to share free and unbiased opinions, so the government eventually cut it. We are lucky that through a back door we can at least post these lines - we just cannot see the result!

2) ROTOR 11/2007 should be out be now. We recommend buying the issue! It reveals most interesting details on how exactly this complex trip was planned and prepared; you'll be more than amazed!

3) Tomorrow (31st of Oct.) it's Nicolas Kaiser's birthday - we'd like to extend our best wishes to him! :-) If you get the chance, why not do the same?!

Indonesia Island Flights

2007-10-28T15:29:00.000+01:00

At 10 AM we met up with Ken at the Harbour front and bought the tickets for a fast ferry transfer to Batam/Indonesia. The check-in was a similar procedure to that at the airport; after all, you are entering a different country, even though it somehow doesn't feel that way.
The ride as such was smooth and really fast; about one hour later we disembarked and went to the immigration - you need to purchase a visa to enter Indonesia unless you are a Singapore resident or from a handful of selected countries. There was only one person issuing the documents, and even though there were just four people in the queue, he clearly couldn't cope. One visa required something like a hundred work steps, and the part we liked best was when the guy manually typed our passport numbers into two different computers, printed out dozens of different documents which he stamped, folded and tore off in a complex manner, and finally zipped (!) our passports through an automatic reader!?! What an amazing way to burn time!

Ages later we finally left the terminal, and our friend Lee was already waiting to pick us up with his car. Batam is an island off the coast of Sumatra and the home of many fishing villages. In recent history it is being heavily industrialized plus opened for tourism. Compared to Singapore it is a day and night difference, everything is very basic, from the roads to the housing and lifestyle. It immediately reminds you of countries like Egypt, Nepal and India.

We had lunch at some seafood restaurant which was built on stilts into the river/sea (like most of the houses on the whole island); you first had to choose the stuff you want to eat, then they fished it out of some basin for you and cooked it. Not really something I like, and especially not Saskia; however, the final product was quite good.
Just a couple of meters away from the restaurant was a half-sunken ship; together with some smaller boats, more buildings on stilts and the turquoise water this formed a unique and unusual scenery - perfect for flying! However, Lee and Ken pointed out this might get us into serious trouble as the villagers didn't like aliens. Lee reported about an earlier incident where insane amounts of money had to be paid to the corrupt authorities just to get out of such a situation alive.
Since the villagers were all Muslims and thus filming can be difficult (they sometimes believe that pictures take part of their soul away), we decided it was best to walk away with a bleeding heart rather than ending up in difficulties.

We continued to a kind of hill with a good overview over a wide river cutting through the endless green of tropical forests and a couple of houses in the distance. A good backdrop for a long pass with the heli, and we pulled out the machine and camera for a flight. Everything worked nicely, and a couple of minutes later it was all finished. The shot below was taken later and shows Ken, myself and Lee.

We sometimes regret not to be able to do some real hardcore 3D flying ?but this not what the WSF project is all about, and any kind of fun flying just puts the heli at stake. Damaging or crashing the machine could be the end of this tour; it may be hard to understand from a comfortable chair in front of a computer screen at home. But it becomes very real if you travel half way round the world, have to negotiate with security and authorities in half a dozen languages and feel like you haven't slept in three months.

Next we visited some other places on the island but found nothing that would have beaten the first scenery. So after a nice and all too short day Lee dropped us at the ferry terminal, and we went back to Singapore.

Ken had brought along his Dremel tool to cut a groove into the Three Dee MP's Jesus Bolt so we could use a normal slot screw driver to get the bolt out of the center piece. It turned out tricky so Ken had to go back home in order to fetch some heavy duty tools. In the meanwhile we started packing our stuff for air transportation plus transferring the latest data to our notebook and burn it onto DVDs.
Ken was back just after midnight, and we worked through things until about 2 AM; like mentioned earlier, he's an incredible person and a real man of action. Without him it would have been a serious problem to disassemble the helicopter. We hope to see both him and Derrick at next year's Toy Fair in Nuremberg/Germany - we'll do our best to arrange some hotel rooms right in the middle of Nuremberg's red light district for them. :-)

After just 1.5 hours of sleep we boarded the taxi to the airport ?next destination is China, and we'll be reporting from there!

Singapore Skies - VIDEO!

2007-10-26T21:02:00.000+02:00

Ken Yap and I have an ongoing competition for who can pay for the most cabs and things. He seemed to win, but we caught him off guard a couple of times, so we are about to catch up. :-) In other words, Ken is a very big help in organizing things and making the WSF project a success both here in Singapore and in Indonesia; we're deeply indebted to him.

07:00 AM this morning we showed up at the waterfront again - and were lucky! The weather forecast said it would rain, but the sun had just come up behind the horizon, and the sky was clearing up. Ken and Derrick were there, too, and we discussed once more what the shots should look like, and what would be the best flying sequence. You usually have to fly a scene a number of times until you are familiar with the surroundings and the manoeuvers look smooth; the camera also needs time to get a feeling for when to pan and zoom to where without shakes. Since the city has quite a skyline, we had to use the wide angle converter again to get everything into the picture. The nice image below shows Saskia and me at work.

We still have to go through the material but think there's a couple of good shots. One of the coolest might be where the heli passes under the water jet coming out of the Merlion's mouth; the picture then opens and the machine spirals "up, up and away". We did this scene three times - the last one was pretty close, the blades actually hit the water jet, and I immediately pulled the heli back down. It's quite hard to see when exactly the model is through! What happens if you fly through a water jet is known from "The Water-Cutter" stunt on our "Remote Madness" DVD; you would not want to repeat that one!

Transferring all the image material to the computer and select the best shots always takes HOURS and is an exhausting procedure; most of the time it will cost you one full day. Add to this regular data backups, writing the blog, writing for ROTOR magazine, assembling/disassembling and packing/unpacking the equipment as well as cleaning and maintaining it, and you know how jam-packed our days are.

Derrick (he's the left one in the above picture) recorded a little fun video where we say hello to the great Singaporean nation; somebody already mentioned it in the comments to the last post - you guys are quicker than we are! :-) Derrick really did some incredible editing here, this is a MUST HAVE SEEN!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x_6t_snRX4

Tomorrow we'll be going over to Indonesia by fast ferry. Our friend Lee Aik Heng will collect us at the port. That'll be another cool adventure, but before this we have to come up with a solution for the MP's Jesus Bolt. Like we'd feared before, the screw is now round and we cannot get it back out of the rotor head center piece. That's a problem because this way it will not fit into our box for air transportation. As always, we're under severe time pressure to find a solution.

Singapore – City of Tomorrow?

2007-10-25T20:22:00.000+02:00

"You are the worst guys I've ever met!" That was the bottom line of our friend Ken Yap after rushing through town with us for one full day and realizing he will need to get a Three Dee MP-XL for both himself and his friends. :-)

In fact, coming to Singapore was one of the best ideas in recent history. The city is great, and the people are even greater. We've known Ken for a whole while since he had contacted us regarding "Remote Madness" distribution in this part of the world. He has got his own little R/C mail order business and works almost according to European business hours; in other words, don't call before noon local time, but he provides excellent service until the early morning hours. That's perfect for R/C enthusiasts because you usually crash in the evening hours after work, and not after breakfast, right?! :-)
If you ever need stuff from South-eastern Asia, then check out his website at http://www.radiocontrol-sports.com/

Singapore is one of the few city states in the world; it spreads over several islands and has a diameter of roughly 42 km only, the population being about 4.5 million. The speed limit is 80 km/h, but there is roads where you can go faster: 90 km/h! :-D
Many people of Chinese origin live here, as well as people from India and Malaysia – in other words, it's a true melting pot. Consequently, you will find all languages, but also English (or rather the local version of it, called Singlish) since this country, too, used to be a British crown colony. Singapore is a modern country; having said this, they still have a long way to go reworking their system of draconian punishments and death sentence – there is points where it gets close to a violation of human rights.

Assembling the helicopter was a problem this time; our hotel room is so small that in order to fold back the blades you need to put the helicopter onto the bed. The reason may be that the rooms are quite "functional" in a way that our hotel is situated right in the middle of the local red light district – that's one of the things they don't tell you when booking over the internet. Anyway, there's lots of things going on all day long (especially when the police are coming and all the street are running like the lemmings); quite cool, and no safety problem at all.
What might become a problem, though, is the fact that every second stop I need to use a new Jesus Bolt for assembling the heli. I've almost run out of spares and next will have to use the screws for the skids; those are also M4 and have pretty much the same length and properties. Maybe Nicolas will have to send me a couple more with the next shipment.

The most famous monument in Singapore is the Merlion right at the waterfront – as the name suggests, it is a mixture of a mermaid and a lion. Ken had done a fantastic job preparing the location for us, and so the three of us showed up there yesterday in the wee hours. Unfortunately, so did the security, and all explanations were in vain – no way to lift off!
Ken did a couple of phone calls, and some time later we ended up at the SBT (Singapore Tourism Board). We did a lot of clever talking – and finally got clearance for the flights! So the only thing which could stop us now is the weather (we're real close to the equator, so the climate is hot and very humid, and especially during the monsoon months there's ample rain).

Open space is a problem in Singapore, but we finally found a place big enough to at least take off and see if the heli was ok. After the many cab rides in KL where the heli was just in its carrier bag, it had been necessary to change the tail shaft. Saskia has taken a nice shot of Ken & me testing the machine. As you will expect, it was a lot of fun. :-)

We spent the evening together with Derrick and Mike; both are great guys, and while Derrick is also into the R/C business (http://www.skyhobbies.com.sg/), Mike is the founder of the most prominent internet forum in this part of the world (http://www.daddyhobby.com/).

Hopefully we'll manage to get back to you tomorrow night to report about the flights. Stay tuned!

Kuala Lumpur City Flights

2007-10-23T03:54:00.000+02:00

Finding a suitable location for flying with a good view of the famous Petronas Twin Towers turned out to be a problem. The only accessible places are parks, but security is ultra strong here. We got the phone numbers to do it the highly official way, but since we were pressed for time, we tried hard to find another solution.

To protect our sources and the many people who helped us, we cannot talk about details. But what counts is the result, and it is nothing short of brilliant: :-)

Right now we are on our way to Singapore and are looking forward to seeing our friend Ken Yap. He will collect us at the airport and has the spare battery pack as well as some image material with him. Let's see what this country is like!

Kuala Lumpur/MALAYSIA – City above clouds

2007-10-22T15:12:00.000+02:00

After landing in Malaysia, we took the KLIA Express (Kuala Lumpur Intl. Airport) to the city and tried to get a taxi to our hotel. The question where exactly it is, how to drive there and what it would cost drew the attention of five people, all of them Arabs. Europeans are usually lost in such situations (like in many others) – they have never seen real poverty, they don't know natural disasters except floods, they live in a stable political environment, dangerous animals are only known form the zoo, and everything is labelled with the price it actually costs.
"The ride will be 30 Riggits." – "Hmm, I will pay you 20." (I had no idea what it costs, but negotiating about the price is perfectly normal for this society) – "It's far away, you have to pay at least 25!" – "Come on, it's not really far, 20 is ok!" – "Hrrrgh, ok, you go for 20."
So the driver and I walked out onto the street where Saskia was waiting with all the baggage on an overloaded trolley. I called out to the driver and pointed to her. You could literally see his jaw dropping. "No – no – no! You tricked me!" He couldn't believe it. "Look, you have a big car anyway, it doesn't make a difference." – "You tricked me!" He really couldn't believe it; we obviously were the first Europeans in his life who ever got a better price than he was willing to give. :-)

The other four guys showed up and also started talking to me; the baggage would be extra. "Now it's really 30!" – "Like I said, I will pay you 20, and that's a fair deal, Sir." – "Make it 25." – "22 is fine." – "Ok." :-)
I really hated this kind of negotiating until some time ago; it eats up precious time and is simply a pain, and if you're not used to it, you will always have a bad conscience – and that's their trick here! Unless you are in a public place where there are dozens of other potential customers, simply walk away if you're not satisfied; this usually helps. And the last tip: NEVER give the impression that you really need or want something, because then it's over.

Kuala Lumpur is just incredible! You cannot really compare it to other big cities; the citizens are mainly Malaysians, Chinese and Indians, and quite a number speak basic English; probably one of the results of British, Dutch and Portuguese colonial rule (they left in 1957). Other languages are – as you would expect – Malaysian, Indian and Chinese. There are many Hindus here, only 55% of the population are Moslems – still, the Islam is on the advance, and discrimination against other religions is a reality.

Flying in KL (it is always abbreviated this way) will be a problem! There is almost no spaces where you could take off and fly, because security in town is strong (especially in parks); also, if there's tall buildings all around you, you don't see the wood for the trees! And then, almost every day in the early afternoon as well as in the evening there are heavy rainfalls (you're really worried you could drown in the street) plus some impressive lightning.
There are some hills outside the city, and we drove there (see the "funny" sign we found inside the taxis; pic. below) – but while the view is incredible at night, the vision is totally blurred during the day because of the high air humidity. Hmm, so unfortunately flying against the skyline will not work.

We addressed the security around the world-renowned Petronas Twin Towers. They had been completed in 1997 and were the tallest buildings in the world until 2003 (452 m); the weight is app. 270,000 tons per tower, and they are built on the world's largest foundations. Petronas is the state-owned oil company, BTW, and the towers were a prestige project. The ground plan is an octagonal star – for Islamic cultures this symbolizes order and harmony. The building cost were app. 950 million EUR.

After some discussion we managed to get the chief of security in all KL on the phone. He was nice and understood the WSF project, but pointed out that all activities related to the Twin Towers required clearance by the PR guys sitting in the tower. He said that any attempt to lift off would be immediately stopped by the security forces. About this we have no doubt, because they're really everywhere. Hmm, we'll have to see how to cope with this. It's really a hard nut to crack. We'll keep you posted!

The Magic of Wat Chai Watthanaram

2007-10-21T15:51:00.000+02:00

The next afternoon we arrived with our Tuc-Tuc, cameras, transmitter case and heli in a special carrier bag; the latter one works great, by the way. We walked up to the booth to buy our entry tickets – and it's all big eyes! "Gaa-gaa-waa-aaa-agaahaa?!" – "It's the toy model helicopter, we talked about it yesterday, all is fine!" – "Waa-aagaa-na-aahaag!" You don't have to speak Thai to realize something is just about to go terribly wrong. Our Tuc-Tuc driver happened to at least understand basic English, and after lengthy discussions we found out that the heli was NOT the problem – but the transmitter! In such cases where communication is a pain it's very important to stay extra calm and to be exceptionally friendly; else the discussion will heat up, because the employees only want to do their job, and it's equally hard for them to cope with the situation.

Okay, nobody there had ever seen a somewhat advanced transmitter before, and it looked frightening to them. So we played the mime game to show them how the flying would work. After a while, the ice was broken, and we were allowed to take both the heli and transmitter onto this ancient site.

STOP! STOOOP!!! Stop? What's now again?

This time they were pointing at our tripod and camera equipment. It was not allowed! Heli, yes. Cameras, no. Hell, things had looked so simple this time, and now it was all problems and we had to go through that lengthy discussion again. We understood that next door was the king's summer residence or something, and they were very concerned about paparazzi. To resolve the problem, we were offered to buy a disposable Fujifilm camera (the kind you use once and then give away as a whole for developing the film) – it happened to be available at the booth for two dollars. Hmm, after a quick glance at our several thousand dollar camera and photo equipment, we decided the little single-use camera was not exactly what would help us. :-)

We finally did manage to get clearance and walked to the designated flying area we'd chosen the day before. Before attracting a crowd by flying, we decided to shoot another AFD panorama. The view is simply breathtaking! You will love flying there in your computer simulator! We'd like to describe things in more detail, but this is something you simply have to experience – words are not enough.

After fetching our bags and the heli (you need to hide them behind trees/objects so they're not visible in the AFD shots, but in a way nobody can steal them), it was time for take-off. The shadows of the trees behind had come pretty close to the temple by now; that's something you don't want, because if the heli is first lit and then flies into the dark section, this gives a bad contrast – a general problem of filming, no matter what equipment you use. That's why in film productions artificial lighting is so important! The only way for us to deal with the situation was to move a little closer to the structure and to use a special wide angle lens on the camera.

The flying itself started smoothly – I felt the machine was lacking power, but then, it was really hot, and as we know from Egypt, electric models have some problems with that, too. So we continued and tried to create a scene where the heli first dives down out of the sky, the camera picture following closely. When it comes through the towers, the picture suddenly opens and – woooaah! – the full size of the monument becomes apparent. This leaves you breathless! The heli continues down towards the camera, after a short pause the picture follows and zooms in just a little bit. Then a quarter flip to the left, and up it goes in a cone. The camera follows at first, but stops when the machine has reached the outer left position, and the picture then fully reopens. The viewer is left with a fantastic full shot of the scenery while the heli spirals out of the picture into the sky.

For all the R/C pilots among you it will be clear that flying such a sequence over a terrain with obstacles is not the simplest thing. If, in addition, you have to get a good film shot, then one battery pack is damn short!

Having said this, the Hacker (Flight Power) 12s 4900 mAh pack we were using seemed to be flat after just five minutes of moderate 3D; when really pushing it, 4 - 5 min. is okay, but in this case, 7 - 8 min. should have been no problem. All of a sudden, the heli lost head speed, so quite obviously there was a problem. I switched to throttle hold and brought it down in an autorotation. We took off the canopy to have a look, and – uuhh! – everything was incredibly hot, especially the battery pack. I pulled it out and immediately saw that the six cells in the back were ballooned! Okay, put it in a safe place so it won't damage anything if it goes off! We imagined what would have happened if it had caught fire in flight, and if we had crashed into this world cultural heritage site or the king's summer palace next door …

Anyway, we kept the simile and put in the second pack to take some cool photos. No problems this time, so right after the landing we packed together and left for the hotel. The whole action had taken about two hours; it's insane how much different things there are to do besides the flying as such.

Back in the hotel we informed our home base around Nicolas Kaiser, Lukas Grunauer and Samual Hänger about the battery problem. Next we talked to our friend Ken Yap in Singapore (the next but one stop) if he was willing to accept an international express shipment for us; no problem, and we forwarded the address to Nicolas Kaiser. You sometimes get the impression this man acts faster than his own shadow – less than 30 minutes later he informed us by SMS that the spare pack was already on its way to Ken Yap in Singapore. Thanks a lot – and well done!

Okay, that's it for Thailand.

+++ mission completed. end of transmission. +++

Coming to Ayutthaya/THAILAND

2007-10-20T15:57:00.000+02:00

We had a cool flight with Thai Air – during the take-off in Nepal, some beverage cans came rolling along the aisle, plus the front video screen came down on all of us sitting in the first row. We prayed that the rest of the airplane was in better condition and that we'd make it to Bangkok safely. :-)

The new Bangkok airport is built exactly how you imagine a futuristic architectural building style – almost artificial. The immigration was not much of a problem, and after leaving the arrival hall and getting rid of all the guys offering taxi rides at unrealistic prices, we found a good one to take us to Ayutthaya. Ayutthaya? What's this?!
Ayutthaya has a lot more tradition than Bangkok since it was the capital for over 400 years. So if you are looking for great historical sites, this is the place to go.

The countryside in this area reminds you of Florida/USA in some ways. The climate was hot and humid, and there is lots of swampland. Many of the houses are built on stilts, and there is lots of water and many canals. Unlike Florida, the water level varies from year to year.

The people themselves are friendly, the language is funny and very different from what we'd heard before. It's hard to articulate for speakers of Western languages, there is not much melody in it, and it all sounds like "waa-gaa-goo-chiiaa-gaa-gaack"; one cannot help but it reminds of hens picking corn out of the dirt in the backyard. So it is no wonder that for Thai speakers it is equally hard to articulate the sounds needed for proper English. Just like in China, only very few people speak English at all, and to a) realize that they now communicate in English and b) understand what exactly they are saying, some fantasy is needed.

Incidentally, Saskia was addressed by an elderly woman; quite obviously she really wanted to tell her something. It took several minutes, and it was all pointing and gesturing until the lady had successfully communicated her concern: She was an English teacher in Thailand! :-)

We rented one of the famous Tuc-Tucs (see picture), basically a trike with open trunk and modified for transportation of people; in Europe they'd sue you for driving around with this and lock you away forever. :-) We'd marked the most famous temples in a map and shown it to the driver. The aim was to screen all the locations for WSF appeal and the possibility of R/C flying. The driver was a nice lady, and after a while she somehow accepted that we were probably the strangest tourists she'd ever seen. "Yah, yah, please go to the next temple!" – "Waah-gaa-gaa-wachkaaah!" – "Yes, whatever it is, please go there, thank you!" Then jump out of the car, walk around for five to ten minutes only, hop on again, and off it goes to the next one.
Because of this swampland character, there are lots of mosquitoes in some places – not nice, you never know if and which diseases they communicate. The last site we visited was quite an impressive structure – a white pyramid-like building, but surrounded by lots of trees. We thought it would be nice to climb up the stairs to the top so we had a good view over the city. – BAD idea, since there were some wild dogs, and they made very clear it was their territory, and that it had already been closed for today.

The site we liked best was the so-called "Wat Chai Watthanaram". Some other people also thought it was nice, and that's why it has been declared world cultural heritage by the UNESCO. So no flying here!?
We found the chief security officer, and by chance there also was a German-language guide that day. We explained the WSF project, and after some discussion they all agreed this was the greatest project they'd ever heard of, and that the flights would be ok the next day. Very nice, things usually don't fall into place that easily.

Unfortunately, appearances are deceptive …

NEPAL – Gateway to the Himalaya

2007-10-18T16:09:00.000+02:00

We got up at 04:30, just in time for another power outage, and left for one of the local mountains just after 05:15 AM. The goal was to fly right after sunrise and not to be seen by any locals or the many airplanes carrying tourists for scenic flights through the Himalaya; there's Maoists everywhere, we'd been told, and this might land us in serious difficulties.

NOW WHAT'S THIS?!! Believe it or not, at 05 AM ALL Nepal were on their feet! The streets were crowded just like during daytime. How's this possible? We were told this was kind of a morning sport.
Whatever the reason, it meant problems for us. We continued through army checkpoints and finally made it to some high-up viewpoint. It was still dark, and we could easily smuggle the heli (I had completed it during the short night under candlelight conditions) covered with a blanket to the only suitable place for take-off.

About one hour later around 07 AM, the sun came up behind the mountains, and far down to our feet lay a mountain valley, partly covered with clouds. What a look! The bad thing was, a number of other tourists also showed up, and the Himalaya was still hidden in the clouds. We had chosen Pokhara for two reasons: First, you could go there by car (most of the cities in Nepal are not connected by streets), and second, you have a great view of the glowing Himalaya, first and foremost of the famous Machhapuchre mountain. Very distinct shape, and similar to the beautiful Matterhorn in Switzerland (from the South it's even hard to tell the difference).
The bad news was: The clouds were thick, and we had a clear view only for half a minute every now and then. The problem was that after lift-off the time was ticking, and we would have to leave the spot within minutes for reasons of safety. So we finally decided to not lose more time and reveal what's under our blanket. After all, we still had another 6 hours of going back to Kathmandu before us.

The flight was smooth without problems, and the people were much more civilized (or reserved, if you will) than in India. We had brought sweets for the kids, but that wasn't even necessary. We think we have a few worthwhile shots which will look good in the final WSF film. We shot no AFD panorama this time since the location would have made an unusual place to fly, but the magic of the glowing Himalaya was blurred by overcast skies.

Nepal was quite an experience and there's certainly something to it, but we never really felt safe. When returning to Kathmandu it started to rain, and the next day it was just pouring. After all, we think we got the maximum out of Nepal and we were glad to finally board the plane to Bangkok/Thailand. That's where we are right now – and the adventure continues …

NEPAL – times of upheaval

2007-10-17T15:59:00.000+02:00

The political situation in Nepal is complex, and there have been many changes since 2001. The king has only got representative functions since last year, and the seven major parties have formed an alliance to establish democracy in the country. The only exception is the communist party of the Maoists (rebels) who fight for abolition of both the caste system (actually there is several in Nepal) and the monarchy. In late 2006 the 12-year long civil war has officially been ended, but discrimination and exploitation of minorities, the lower castes, women and children still create a war-like situation at least in some parts of the country. The German foreign ministry as well as many local voices warned us not to leave the capital Kathmandu.

Nepal is one of the world's poorest countries, and except from the tourist quarter Thamel in Kathmandu, this is visible all over the place. The staff at our hotel advised us that attempting to fly a toy model helicopter :-) in Kathmandu was not a good idea; we might get shot easily, or at best have to stay in the country for weeks or months until all formalities had been cleared. Having said this, except for the royal palace and the monkey temple there was nothing suitable for the WSF project anyway. What's more, Nepal is famous for something else, and that's what we came for: The Himalaya!

Several people told us the world-famous mountain range was visible from the capital – well, this is not true at all, and so we were suddenly pressed for time to find a good viewpoint. Very unfortunately, this turned out to be a big, big problem.
We'd initially thought of Mt. Everest which is the highest mountain of the planet (depending on how this is defined), but you'd have to travel up to 2.5 weeks into the Himalaya until you can see it, plus it involves going to places that are controlled by the Maoists. Travelling into a war zone is nothing that would have stopped us, but the time span was totally unrealistic; and second, Mt. Everest looks like any plain mountain – nothing special about it at all. If you look at a panorama, you will not be able to tell which one it is; so this is a WSF knockout criterion.

Instead, we decided to drive to the city of Pokhara, the second largest of the country. It's only 150 - 200 km away, but it takes 6 hours to go there. The ride was bumpy and bad, sometimes the road had been washed away by a landslide, sometimes we had to cross small rivers with our taxi. It was almost an off-road trip, and our transport cases and parts of our equipment got damaged. Our guide spoke almost no English which made things even more complex, and it didn't help either that the engine of the car quit every now and then (we think it was running too lean :-) ). The driving itself was even worse than in India! We'll most likely comment on this in ROTOR 12/2007. The picture below shows a part of the road that had been cleared after a landslide.

We arrived in Pokhara late at night, and while still checking in at the guest house, there was the first power outage. Quite funny, the city was totally dark, like if it didn't exist, and the staff in the lobby were using their mobile phones as torches. Nobody lost a single word about the situation, and this tells you it is nothing uncommon. The picture below shows our lunch + dinner that day.

The Hell of Agra

2007-10-16T06:25:00.000+02:00

Namaste!

When thinking about monuments representing India, the first thought will always be the Taj Mahal in Agra. Since for the past years there has been a constant wave of terrorist attacks shocking the country, the government is (probably justifiably) worried about this national monument. What's more, India faces serious problems with Hindus and Moslems fighting each other – about three months ago there was such an incident in Agra, and the remains of the battlefield are still visible today. It's an issue which will most likely never be resolved; that's one of the real problems when it comes to different religious backgrounds, combined with poverty and little education.

Even before we left for India, we knew it was practically impossible to fly at the Taj Mahal. Still, we drove the 230 km from Jaipur to Agra to have a look at it ourselves; driving in India is something you could write a book about – we'll reveal stunning details in ROTOR 12/2007. Just this much for now: It took one full day to get to Agra; we may add another little video some later time.

Some people think that planning limits spontaneity; that's not true – on the contrary, it shows you the alternatives! However, in situations where the relevant factors are not or insufficiently known, detailed plans are of little value. What you should have then are two things: An aim, and one or more strategies.
Well, once in the country we talked to many people about flying at the Taj Mahal site – and learned, it won't be possible, like one had expected. Having said this, since the media interest in the WSF project was high from the beginning, we came up with one of the most insane ideas ever: To become national celebrities in India within two days and then show up at the government offices responsible for the security in Agra (no, this is not a joke)! :-)

It would lead too far to explain in detail how it worked, but what counts is the result, and this was more than impressive: We were featured in several newspapers nationwide (including Nepal), plus invited to TV studios in Delhi to give an interview for the best-known Indian TV evening news. :-)

The good thing about the Taj Mahal is, it's fully symmetrical; this means you don't have to fly in the "front yard", but you can approach it from the back. Now there are three major problems: First, it's hard to get there since you have to cross the Yamuna river – and traffic around the only bridge is a nightmare; it takes almost one hour to drive over it, and combined with the incredibly heavy smog you sometimes think you won't make it. Second, the thick smog blurs the vision of the monument (no kidding!). And third, there is an 0.5 km no-flying zone around the building; we went there twice, first to take a look, and later for some stationary shots with the heli. No way! The military liked the heli but made clear they will shoot us even if we showed up without transmitter. Okay, clear stand. So it was time for the joker.

With a couple of current newspapers under the arm, plus a confirmation we work for ROTOR magazine, plus a certificate of an international insurance (with insanely high coverage, we could have blown up almost half the building), plus a writing from the German foreign ministry that we have a clean record, plus many documents explaining the WSF, we showed up at the Indian Government Tourism Office. Due to the unbelievable traffic, we had no choice but to walk; funny thing, we guess no-one's ever appeared with an R/C helicopter in the streets of Agra before (did we mention it was really HOT and there is plenty of dust and smog everywhere?!). The officials were friendly and got the point fast – but couldn't help because this no-flying zone thing was issued by the Indian Supreme Court. I suggested we call them and claim it's a matter of national importance; well, you may frown now, but it's all a matter of definition. The WSF do represent the country – and it's the only way to get such VIP persons on the phone. If you succeed, then you usually can say a maximum of three sentences until they realize what's going on; so better choose your words wisely!

Anyway, we couldn't get the phone number fast enough, so we continued to the Department Tourist Office; they're responsible for all the monuments in Agra. A lengthy story … but they couldn't help us either, even though everybody liked the WSF project a lot and tried hard. Next stop was the Tourist State Office – closed on Fridays … (the Sat./Sun. weekend is only common in Western countries, but not in Asia!). Okay, what's left? The Archaeological Office; this had helped us in Egypt, but they have not much to say in India. This was clear to you? So it was to us, but don't forget one thing: Federal offices are often interconnected; we managed to persuade the guys there to call the Ministry of Defense – unfortunately, no-one answered the phone, so we finally called the security forces at the Taj Mahal. They simply said we should show up with the heli, so we jumped back into the car and headed for that famous monument.

Did we mention the Taj Mahal is closed Fridays? This means you cannot go there by car! New plan? Rickshaw! It is worth mentioning that part of our trip was followed by the press. The really striking thing was: We left the guy of "India Today" behind at the Archaeological Office; less than 10 seconds after sitting in the rickshaw he materialized in front of us and took pictures (we had the heli with us). We have NO IDEA how the guy did this!?! He can't have been faster than us, also he didn't know where we were going!

The talk was nice, the weapons impressive, and the result: No flying within 0.5 km radius, but a little further would be tolerated. Okay, better than nothing, and since the light started to fade already, we now had to find a suitable location fast … that's a story of its own, and we'll reveal a few more cool details in ROTOR 12/2007.

It took us several hours to go back to Delhi; on the road we stopped and packed the equipment for air transportation since our flight to Nepal was leaving in the early morning hours (check-in at 05 AM). At 02 AM we collected the Three Dee spare parts, at 03 AM we were at the airport, and at app. 03:20 was the attempted kidnapping (see last but one entry).

Still anyone thinking we're on holiday?

VIDEO flight preparations in Jaipur/INDIA

2007-10-15T23:41:00.000+02:00

The Indian people are extremely friendly and helpful – a wonderful country which we can only recommend. The interest in the WSF project was high, and there was not just press, but also many people showing up at the flying sites. This didn't really make things easier …

Here's the little YouTube video we promised to give you an impression:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec1M4YLIwt0

Attempted Kidnapping!

2007-10-13T19:15:00.000+02:00

The good news is, we are still alive and reasonably well. We have gone through hell the past two days and are now seriously out of sleep. We look like directly out of the jungle, so better no photos here. What's more, very unfortunately there was a terrorist strike near Jaipur the day before, and thus police and army are very alert which means there are road blocks everywhere on the big streets. Not the best time to show up at public monuments with an R/C helicopter!

We'll give you more details once we've sorted our things; it's pretty much a mess at the moment. Right now we have another nightmare behind us. Right after collecting the spare parts that Nicolas Kaiser and Jan Henseleit sent us by FedEx Express to our Delhi connection, we had our driver drop us at the Indira Gandhi Intl. Ariport in Delhi. Just before the flight to Kolkata [Kalkutta] (East Coast, near Bangladesh) we discovered that in our flight data the wrong terminal was listed. No problem? Think again! The other terminal is 20 min. away by taxi. So we went for a pre-paid and registered taxi; this means the transport is safe and you don't have to worry about the driver taking you to the nearest bad neighbourhood and mugging you.
Well, we jumped into our taxi, the ride was listed by an official, and after those two days lying behind us we were just glad we din't have to worry about any more things. Right after the first corner, the cab stops, somebody approaches the passenger side, opens the door and wants to board. --- OK, HIGH STATE OF ALERT! THIS IS A KIDNAPPING!

The same old story that you always hear about – we were prepared to encounter this kind of thing in Latin American states, but not really in India. Now in this situation you have a maximum of a quarter second to think and react, else it is over. Saskia tried to open the sliding door on her side – locked! Mine I had closed myself, so this one was open. Put one foot out of the car and SHOUT at the driver so the sound pressure literally smashes him against the wind shield. This buys you precious time; Saskia now had unlocked her door and also had one foot out of the car. DO NOT GET OUT! If you do, your baggage is gone!

So what's next? Continue shouting violently and make clear you are willing to use force to end this nonsense. If they still decide to drive away with you, strangle the guy so the car will bump into the next street lamp; since nobody wears safety belts in these countries, this will be an effective measure. In our case, the second guy was so shocked that he ran away. The cab driver then attempted to step on the gas but gave up due to our shouting and hitting him.
The story is even longer, but we'll most likely talk about it in one of the next ROTOR issues. Anyway, we're safe, just very exhausted.

Lost my RM cap yesterday and am in bad mood; it seems as if part of the madness will stay in India …

We've just arrived in Kathmandu/Nepal; the political situation is complex here, and we'll do our best to stay out of the line of fire. The next post will feature one of the most incredible stories about our attempts to make the impossible possible: To fly at the Taj Mahal in Agra.

Thanks also to all of you for the good wishes and tips, this helps!

Back in the Air over India!

2007-10-11T07:05:00.000+02:00

After over 55 hours with very little sleep and without food (no time!), we got serious headache attacks and thus swallow pills all the time. Even the last people will have understood by now that this is no holiday but three months of working non-stop.

Last night we found that the tail drive train of the Three Dee MP was a lot more damaged than it had seemed to be at first view, and that repair would take quite some time. So we had no choice but skip all other tasks and start repairing with our poor emergency tools. One part to be replaced was the front bevel gear – a rare sight, but luckily we did have one at hand.
In the early morning hours we sent a pre-warning to our home base in Basel/Switzerland; Nicolas Kaiser was quick to respond, and after it was clear that no further parts except tail blades were needed (in case the same problem would occur again in the future), he and Jan Henseleit prepared our first FedEx Next-Day-Air shipment (see ROTOR 11/2007 for all the details!). In the meanwhile we called an Indian friend to find a suitable address in Delhi/India to which the parts could be sent. After a while he got back to us, but the phone line was bad and the address sounded complex (at least for European ears), so he suggested to send it by email. Good idea – and WHUMP! – power outage in our part of Jaipur. That's normal, we were told, and it would take at least 3 - 4 hours until electricity was back …

A couple of minutes later we were rushing through busy traffic; our driver nearly killed a couple of people and animals. Half an hour later we stopped in another part of town where electricity was still available and went straight into an internet cafe. We chose exactly this one because they had the fastest connection in town. Hmm, blurred screen with 640 x 480 pixels resolution and "lightning fast" network – we think the statement is true in its literal sense if lightning had struck the server and it was now running in a failsafe mode … It took 20 eternal minutes to open a simple text message, and to forward it to Nicolas Kaiser and Jan Henseleit. Really, you have to take a few more of the headache pills to survive this one …

Later on we continued to a small backyard for testing the repaired helicopter. It worked, so we notified Nicolas that no further parts were needed and jumped into the car to drive back to the "Lake Palace". The sun was still high, so it was the best time for a panoramic shot at the designated flying site. Of course, people around recognized us as the heli pilots, and it took less than a minute until we were surrounded by the first 15 guys. Now how on earth could you do a 360° panoramic shot with so many people here?!

Ah, the cat's out of the bag now – we do panoramic shots for Aerofly Deluxe by Ikarus! AFD may be the most advanced flight simulator, at least the graphics is phantastic and in HD resolution so you will be able to use it with large screen display devices and video beamers without compromising quality. The really, really cool news is: YOU will be able to follow our trip and fly where we have flown – maybe with better weather conditions and more than one try :-) but the same obstacles around. OK, you also won't have to duck away under the camera and to worry about dozens of people squeezing you, or about police forces arresting or shooting at you. Still, the "HeliGraphix Worldwide Add-On Package" will take computer simulators to the next level – forget about the odd flying field, it's now having fun at the most beautiful and well-known spots all over the planet! We have no idea about pricing and availability but expect the upgrade package to be available in early 2008. This is a MUST HAVE, and we don't just say this because it was our idea!

Anyway, we convinced the people to move with us around the tripod and keep their shadows out of the pictures – looks funny if a crowd of grown-up people moves around a camera in a circle again and again. :-)

We hadn't really finished the AFD shots (you also have to measure distances to all obstacles and paint them into a sketch) when the first press guys and loads of more people showed up – it was so many you couldn't even count them. "Helicopter, helicopter, helicopter!" Had we refused to fly, I think they would have killed us. So we explained a few basics, patiently answered questions of the press and have an hour later did the first flight.
It is quite hard to please photographers, filmers and the crowd at the same time. But right after take-off – even though we urgently warned them not to approach the landing and pilot's area – there was a big round of applause ending in people jumping over the fence, coming to us, cheering and talking and asking questions. I had to kick one of the press guys off the stairs since he blocked my vision – I could not see the heli anymore! The next post will feature a little video to give you an impression what flying in public is all about.

Okay, is it always this bad? No, not always – but in those cases where it isn't, there is usually a strong presence of police or army. So the choice is yours what you prefer!

Then two more things:

1) Marc Endres from Germany sent us an email and volunteered to translate the blog into good German. Now what a cool offer! That's simply great, and you will find it here: www.helimaniax.de
We'll add a permanent link in the menu later when we have better internet access; also, Marc wants to build a menu structure soon so navigation is as comfortable as here.

2) We receive a lot of emails; since many of the question are of general interest, it would be better to leave them as a comment so we can answer them in the blog. Please always add your comments to the most current blog, not to older ones; it doen't matter if the topic fits or not – it's just that this way we won't miss it.
For those of you reading the German blog, please also leave your comments here in the original version, no matter which language!

We'll be back with more news shortly.

The Stealth Concept - and how we end up on national TV

2007-10-09T19:05:00.000+02:00

After a pleasant 7-hour flight without much sleep we arrived in Delhi just after 07 AM local time. The entry into the coutry wasn't that much a problem for a change. "What's in that box?" - "It's a model airplane." - "??!?" - "But just a very small one ... :-)" After a couple of minutes talking, the guys told us to simply move on and don't cause any work. A second later we had already vanished into thin air - and entered the Incredible India! :)

Our driver Ajay was already waiting and a big help in keeping the hundreds of people trying to get hold of our luggage away; the first ride took us directly to downtown Delhi - some business regarding the next days to talk about. Everything ok, brilliant service, and off we went for the famous city of Jaipur a couple of hours to the South. We saw some cool animals like wild monkeys, also a vast number of holy cows. If you kill one of them with your car (and given the way they drive (left-hand side, by the way) we should be surprised if this doesn't happen occasionally), then first of all you will be beaten up by all the people around, and after this you go to prison for 6 months!

Somewhere on the way we pulled over to assemble and test the helicopter - there was no tranportation damage, so 20 minutes later we were ready to try and lift off from Indian ground! By this time a crowd of 30 people had gathered out of nowhere, and we got the impressian it was the first R/C helicopter in history coming to India - the enthusiasm was just unbelievable!

In the evening hours we arrived in Jaipur - and the only thing we had planned for today was to take a look at the famous Water Palace. Can you fly there at all, how about security, how about tourists, when would be a good time to do this, etc. We usually have a detailed schedule for such missions and try to come, fly and leave before anyone has got the time to react - after all, we're not doing anything bad here, it's just we cannot afford all the time and trouble we went through in Egypt. We call this the "Stealth Concept". Quite cool, although a little dangerous at times.

Anyway, when showing up at the designated flying area, it took a couple of minutes until there was 50 people around us asking questions. And what nearly floored us: Word about the test flights early this day had spread, so there was Indian press, too! And not the local one!!

So we had no choice but to do a demo flight - range check ok, keep the people in reasonably safe distance, have two or three guys make sure they won't come near during the flight (else this always happens), final statement, and off it goes. --- Unfortunately not this time! While revving up, we either had a serious lock out, or there was something wrong with the electronic speed controller. While still on the ground, the heli all of a sudden made a violent 180° pirouette and smashed its tail into a concrete step. We were lucky: It did not tip over and fall into the water ...

The damage seems to be minor - and if it's true what the press guy said, then this story will appear in the national newspaper tomorrow! Plus the hint that we'll give it another try tomorrow. Then there will not just be the paper, but also national TV - the broadcast will be seen by several million people!! --- Did we mention we wanted to be unnoticed?! And now the eyes of the whole nation are on us!

Phew, we haven't really slept in 40 hours, and it will be another short night repairing the heli. The big question now is, should we do a spirited 3D flight and thus risk the whole mission, or is it wiser to fly a more average performance despite so many people watching. Hmm, we'll put this off until tomorrow, maybe the machine won't work and all the people will show up in vain ...

We'll keep you posted!

On the way to Delhi

2007-10-08T19:31:00.000+02:00

First of all, thanks for all your good wishes by email and through comments. Some people even called to express their sympathy. We want you to know that we appreciate this very much!
We will read all comments and mails and do our best to respond.

Right now we're sitting at Munich Airport in Southern Germany; we're checked in to Delhi in India with all baggage – a total of 57 kg, not counting hand luggage. That's a lot to move around all the time, but not that much if you consider that 2/3 of it is heli stuff only, and without the weight of the backpacks and boxes itself, it's just a few kg left for personal belongings. And we're not on holiday in a big hotel, we fly around the world!!

There has just been an announcement that the flight is overbooked and that not all passengers will be able to fly today; a compensation of 600.- EUR per person plus hotel is offered to those flying tomorrow – but certainly no option for us. Our schedule in India is tight, and our driver will be waiting at the airport at 07:20 tomorrow morning.

Why isn't this live blog bilingual? Well, HeliGraphix is German based, and these are our roots. The website statistics say that Germany is still the largest group with 20 - 25%; adding Switzerland and Austria, about 30 - 40 % of all visitors are German speakers. The larger portion of 60 - 70% are spread all over the world, and we assume most of them do not speak German, but the common base is English.
Since on the whole trip we most likely won't have much spare time, we won't be able to write a bilingual blog. So the logical consequence is to keep it English! BUT: The in-depth coverage of this venture in ROTOR is all-German! So for those of you having problems following these lines, the magazine will provide you with a wealth of information. Maybe not the day-to-day stuff, but all the backgrounds plus details regarding the helis, etc. If you want the full load, read both! :-)

Someone commented when are we coming to England? Well, it's not included in this trip, but it's definitely in the planning! We'll post a map of this trip on the HG website with the next update; if you need to get an overview right now, have a look at ROTOR 10/2007, it's all there! ;-)

OK, it's boarding time now, let's hope for enough volunteers who're happy about the cash.

Cheers,

Tobias + Saskia

The Adventure Begins - Final Preparations

2007-10-05T19:19:00.000+02:00

Hello Ladies & Gentlemen,

This is HeliGraphix, and today it will be completely insane! :-)

After weeks and months of planning and organizing and sometimes working more than 20 hours a day without breaks, we are quite exhausted and look forward to finally boarding the plane to India on Monday. This first stop could turn out quite tricky already; there's a number of reasons for that, and we'll discuss details with you once we're there. Right now we're pretty much absorbed by final preparations and try not to think about it too much; this just makes you nervous, and since there's nothing more you can do about it than we already have, you can as well forget about it for the moment.

There have been a couple of questions (many!) already, so let's have a look at the first bunch:

1) Is this a big holiday?
Well, at this point we sometimes just smile and refuse to answer. Nobody with a fair level of intelligence and experience with helicopters, travel and how this world works could reasonably believe this. So the short answer is: No, it isn't. We'll be risking our lives more than once, as we have done it in the past. You may remember we nearly got shot due to a misunderstanding in Egypt.

2) Since there is this live blog and the cool HeliGraphix website – why should I also read ROTOR magazine?
Through this blog you can follow each of our steps around the world live and learn how things are developing and what problems we encounter; you will see through our eyes and even be able to interact with us by leaving comments.
The article series in the magazine (October 2007 – February 2008) provides you with much more in-depth information on how this trip came to be, how exactly it was planned, the technology we use, what problems there are, all the many details one has to pay attention to, and much more. All of this comes close to a thriller, and you will shake your head more than once in disbelief. So don't miss these issues!

3) Is this a commercial venture?
No, it is privately funded and non-commercial.

4) Then who pays for it?
We are fortunate to have five big partners who cover part of the cost; for the "rest" we pay ourselves. Please have a look at their websites (follow the links in the menu on the left); it's great companies with great products!

5) Can I leave comments in this blog?
You're welcome to do this in both English and German language! You're free to express your opinion or ask questions in a constructive way, no matter if it's a single line or a whole paragraph. We'll post answers if time permits. Any nonsense, however, will be removed.

Okay, there is still a hell of a lot of things to do until we board the plane to India; we'll be back with details on Monday.

Take care,

Tobias + Saskia

Attention, please note!

2007-09-06T10:45:00.000+02:00

This blog will start October 5th, 2007!

Read you then.

Cheers,

tuw