Various scribblings on Aerial Video
This is another in our series of scribblings on Aerial Video. We're talking about UAV's and blimps in this one, but if there are any questions you have, feel free to contact us and we'll try to clarify it for you. If it's something we think everyone should know, we may even dedicate an article to it.

Predator UAV

What's a UAV?
Mention the acronym UAV to anyone and they'll think of an aircraft with a military purpose, as in the case of the Predator pictured above. However, UAV stands for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle and applies to anything that flies or floats in the atmosphere, and doesn't actually have a human onboard.

UAV's can be remotely controlled, but many of them have some sort of flight system and can fly themselves. We are developing a flight system to work with our photographic helicopters. The flight system will use a GPS and can be set to follow a series of waypoints. During the flight, the system will also control the camera, taking pictures either regularly or at set points. At any point the flight can be interrupted and control resumed by a pilot.

HDV Turbine

Visual Air Productions have a number of UAVs, including radio controlled helicopters and blimps. For our radio control helicopters, the smaller size means we can fly lower and closer to the subject of our cameras. We can hug the ground, fly between trees and over bush, with the maneuverability and stability never seen on this type of platform.

Blimps
We, at Visual Air Productions, have a number of blimps, tethered and powered. The powered blimps are perfect for indoor use, as in the case of the MTN Sundome pictured below. The very still air and the low power consumption of the electric motors, allows us to stay airborne for hours at a time. Recording can be done directly onto tape, or streamed by microwave back to the recording/mixing desk. The mixing desk can reroute the feed directly to big screens and projectors for live viewing.

Indoor Blimp

The indoor blimps are fantastic for covering indoor events, such as concerts and shows. A banner can be attached to the sides of the blimp for advertising purposes.

See a video of our blimp in action in our Aerial Video Collection.