As teased yesterday, this weekend we fly over the ruhr area / Essen with a Gyrocopter. A flight I made back in 2017.
As an introduction: The first two photos show the Gyrocopter. The pilot in the front, me in the back.
A Gyrocopter has a tail rotor that is powered by an engine and a top rotor that is unpowered, it rotates just through the wind.
The Gyrocopter can't take of vertically like a helicopter, it need a normal runway like aircrafts but due to the top rotor it's pretty stable and can fly as slow as around 40 km/h (It can't hover in the air like a Helicopter but can go pretty slow) and at top speed around 100 km/h.
The aircraft is open on both sides with just a windshield in the front, so you have an open view to both sides, which is pretty amazing for making photos or videos.
I made the flight with 3 cameras aiming for video (but still haven't used the videos yet. This was my first flight with filming out of an aircraft so I made some mistakes and my Gear back then wasn't optimal for this. It's always a learning experience!):
- My normal Video camera (a Sony FDR AX100E at the time) in my Hand (secured so it can't fall out)
- A GoPro Hero 3 mounted below the top rotor (see photo 3)
- A GoPro Hero 4 Black mounted below the Gyrocopter (see photo 4)
The flight startet at the Marl Loemühle Airport (EDLM) and went straight to Essen, then we followed the ruhr a bit, visited some other locations nearby and flew back to the airport.
This was really a nice experience and you have a really nice view of the green ruhr area from there.
We also made a surprise meeting in the air!
#photography #nature #naturephotography #aerialphotography #aerialview #aerial #ruhrgebiet #ruhrpott #ruhr #ruhrarea #essen #gyrocopter #flying #edlm