POSTING VIDEO: Flying FPV (and inside a balloon!) at the Sequim Balloon Festival

[Lucidity]

Summoned once again by the roar of propane burners, we deployed over the Labor Day weekend to the vibrant, artistic town of Sequim on the tip of Washington State's Olympic Peninsula. Our mission: to fly its inaugural hot air balloon festival.

We've already posted a gallery of still images from the event on our website. Now, having spent nearly every spare hour betwix that moment and this frantically editing the video, it is finally ready for its public debut:

We owe much to all of the folks who helped make this happen, beginning with the festival organizers and all of the great pilots who we worked with during the event – most especially Captain Crystal Stout of the Morning Star Balloon Company, our relentless supporter and advocate, and a good friend.

Also in line for a pail full of praise is Andy and everyone at the Sequim Valley Airport, who welcomed us and our odd-looking aircraft like we actually belonged there. You're a class act, Andy!

As I noted previously on our website, the festival also gave us the opportunity to meet Bill – “WildWill” over on FPVLab – a fellow FPVer who turned out with us bright and early Monday morning and contributed some footage to this project, as well. Thank you, Bill!

With this project, I hope that we not only captured the spectacle of the event, but gave you some insights about how hot air balloons function as aircraft.

Whether it was using a FLIR thermal imaging camera to show you how heat moves inside the envelope, or capturing the view from above as the top is pulled off a balloon to bring it back to Earth, we tried to show you some things that you might not have ever seen before.

We hope you enjoyed it!

 

[Efliernz]

Awesome stuff. A very well made video and proof that the video doesn't have to be perfectly smooth when the content is really good

Pete

 

[Lucidity]

Hey, Pete!

Glad you enjoyed the video! Interesting observation about the video... This is all how it looked right out of the camera, with the exception of the three little bees lighting up during the night glow -- which had the benefit of a little post processing. In our earliest videos, we just beat the heck out of them in post to make them as smooth as we could, but a friend of mine who doesn't do FPV, multirotors, or even video for that matter, suggested we should some of the bounces and bumps in because it contributes to a sense of "authenticity." He works professionally on the Internet, and I really think there was something to what he said. And besides, it makes a great joke. Whenever the bird is getting tossed around by the wind, Techinstein and I turn to each other and say, "Don't worry, the video will be very authentic."

I think it's a question of correctly calibrating the viewer's expectations. "The Blair Witch Project" wasn't very stable, but it was a commercial and artistic success because it played by a consistent set of rules -- that's what we try to do in our videos.

 

[Efliernz]

I think many videos are over-processed. I loved yours! keep it up.

I like the balloon angle to by the way...

 

[ChrisViperM]

Cool vid, I like it

Chris