RED camera

[cbergen]

I know it sucks without pics but,

THE RED CAMERA FLIES!!! :):):)

This evening the Bergen R/C Industrial Turbine weighing 23 Lbs, with a gyro stabilized Copterworks mount modified by Jody Prather of Helicam Solutions for a 360 degree rotating underslung mount weighing 12.5 lbs, and a RED camera delivered today by Fed EX from the factory weighing 11 Lbs, flew for the first time all together.

We have been test flying the heli of course, and flying it with the underslung mount with my little sony handycam, but the real test was with everything included for a full up weight test.

Pics and footage tommorow and over the weekend as I get it downloaded. I am STOKED!! :) :)

[Whirly-Girl]

:WOW

Now get the footage up man!


:Pics

[robert1]

woohoo cant wait to see the pics

[Hogster]

Goodness this sounds awesome!!!

Can't wait for more details!


David

[AZ ChopperCam]

Sounds too good to be true Chris!!! great news. now.... let's see pics!

[Skiddz]

so 46.5lbs all up or is that dry?? Impressive!!!

[cbergen]

Todd's inverted pics are up in the Bergen Forum, just turn your monitor upside down.....:)) He was playin!!

The 23 Lbs Heli weight is with fuel, 3 liters or 100 oz total. I do not have a flight time fully loaded just yet, The card we have (8GB) for the RED camera only lasts for 4 minutes of filming....

[Yardape]

What kind of lens are you using? Prime, zoom? How about focus/zoom control? I've been dreaming of that set up. Was just working with the red on a tv show. Great lil camera's...footage, how stable?

[franky92]

you could have 500 min. with a 1TB card :rolling

[uh1b1]

heres some pics Chris will post some video later

[cbergen]

First video is posted,

http://bergenrc.com/uploads/Arnaud%20Ind%20Tur%20Test%20flights.wmv

[cbergen]

2nd video WITH RED Camera!

http://bergenrc.com/uploads/Industrial%20Turbine%20with%20RED%20Camera.wmv

[Helisin]

Nice to see a workin heli with that coning angle! :shock: Impressive.

Rob.

[Hogster]

Yeah I noticed the coning too! That's an awful lot of weight to be carried by a heli! I wonder how easily it can be auto'd ;)

Have you done any aerial filming with the RED camera yet? Any chance of seeing some scaled video from it?

It looks pretty compact for a 4K pixel cinema-quality camera! ...... mmm *dribble dribble* ;)


David http://helifreak.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

[cbergen]

We did film with it, but the owner has all of the footage, his camera, his card....I have video from my handy cam that I will post later, just not the same though...:)

You will get ONE chance for an auto, it better be perfect. The disadvantage of an underslung mount is the requirement to have perfect landings. Doing a real emergency auto will probably lead to tipping it over, although Jody did a fantastic job of making the mount as stable as possible with the addition of the "legs".

I was also impressed with the construction of the mount itself from Copterworks, while slightly on the heavy side, it is EXACTLY what was needed for a 10 lb+ camera.

Heavy Camera=Heavy Mount=Heavy Duty Helicopter!

[WillJames]

That RED camera is amazing... and amazingly expensive.

Cool thread thanks for sharing Chris!! :thumbup:

[trackhead]

Fun to watch. But holy crap is that a tall mount. I'd much rather put a Red camera on a front mount.

[cbergen]

That was the initial request, for a front mount. The problem is/was weight. To support that heavy of a camera requires a solid structure, which will also be heavy. All that weight up front would then require counterbalance to the rear, which means more weight!!

Ultimately it would have ended up at more than 60 lbs total, which would require a whole new helicopter, bigger blades, head, etc, etc.

I have seen pics of a heli with a front mount system for the RED Camera, looked pretty good with a 4 blade head, Jetcat 2 stage (looked very small in the airframe!!) motor.

We do have plans for the future for a larger heli that will have that capability, but as busy as we are now with current systems it may take a little more time than this customer wanted to wait for.

[dreslism]

Having built many mounts over the years, and having used several different commercial mounts, I was very surprised that with all the levels of this mount that there is not "shimmy-shake" during spool up or spool down.

[xfc3dcd]

Looked REALLY smooth. To think I was a bit tense the first few times we flew with an $8K camera. I can't imagine flying one that costs $17.5K. Good job! I have to say I wouldn't want to fly something that tall.

Wendell

[cbergen]

I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to take off and land with it that tall as well. I had some practice flying Troy Giles setup with an Intrepid Turbine and HCS Mk IV, and Brent Murrays homemade system with retracts, so I had some familiarity with the procedure of "Fly the helicopter up, then fly the mount up. Land the mount, then land the heli onto the mount."

I was more nervous flying a $50,000 Flir Camera on the front of my E-Observer a couple months ago......:):)

[Tabbytabb]

Awesome Job guys!

At this AUW how aggressive can you fly?

Are you running dual boom supports Chris?

Keep up the good work


Tabb

[cbergen]

It is a cameraship so I try to keep the tic tocs to a minimum.......:):)

It is a big slow bird, only because once you get it moving, it's hard to STOP!!

I put dual boom supports on as a test for the gyro/tail kicking problem. No help, but it did make the tail stiffer!!

Thanks, I keep up with the work you do, as an example of success to emulate.

[trackhead]

It would be interesting to see this big son of a _____ flying in wind. I'm guessing it doesn't get blown around too easy.

[cbergen]

That WAS windy!! We were fighting gusts all week. I had hoped for some calm days to get better footage, but it only calmed down when the sun was down.

You can hear it at the end of the video....