have you been Buzzed by this??

[myth337]

One more... a week or three ago, on a Monday morning about 8 AM, I was working in my home office, when everything on my desk started to vibrate. I grabbed my camera, which had my 500mm Tamron still on it, ran to the balcony, and this guy buzzed my house...
(just a snapshot...)

.. Lee

[tmunson]

The old CH-53A/D Sea Stallion...NICE!!!!!

[myth337]

As for Old.. I think the German military (HEER) still has plans for them...

A nice 100-400 autofocus would have helped a lot here... and maybe a few more hours of sleep the night before. wasn't sure if it was my eyes or the lens that was not focusing fast enough... ;)

I made it to the balcony just as he buzzed past my house, and it took a few seconds for the 300D to wake up.. then trying to focus that beast of a mirror lens also took a few seconds...

The pilot was not taking his time, either.

Anyway... here is the sequence that I managed to get... (these are full frames) only the 3rd, 4th, and 5th were really sharp.

.. Lee

[embdude]

Anyway... here is the sequence that I managed to get... (these are full frames) only the 3rd, 4th, and 5th were really sharp.

.. Lee

Really cool sequence....

How did you make it?
I have several similar sequences, that would look great like that!

Please tell me!

[Rob612]

Were they chasing you ? ;)

[CyberDyneSystems]

Nice... the design is "old" but the models keep coming.. and the "E" for instance remains "state of the art" with three engines it is pretty much the ballsiest helo the US has.

Although that is clearly a CH53.. I don't think it's an "E"...
I'm not sure what variant the Germans are using... looks like the twin engine "D" ... but as it is German it may be a totally different bunch of variants.

[myth337]

Ok guys.. did some wiki research and scared up a little background info on the Sikorsky S-65, aka. CH-53G (=Germany).

<detailedHistoricalBlurb
Some German aviation companies were licenced to build / modify / maintain this beast, such as MBB, Dornier, and the company Fokker, who was responsible for the final assembly. There were 110 machines delivered between 1972 - 1975, of which only the first two were built in the USA.

The German Army (HEER) uses the CH-53G as a medium transport helicopter.
/detailedHistoricalBlurb>

(for those of you who can read German.. here's a link.. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_S-65)

Rob... as for being chased, it kind of reminded me of a scene in the movie "The Jackal", with bad-guy Bruce Willis being chased by bad good-guy Richard Gere, where this really cool looking beast of a helicopter buzzes thru the city and drops off the sniper team on the rooftop. Yes.. it kind of made me nervous as he did his little pop-up-return-to-target maneuver right over me. BUT.. I didn't run.. I didn't falter.. under danger of death.. I stood my ground.. and got the shot!! ;)

Chris... the sequence image was just a pasted row of pics from photoshop. (that was the question, right?) It looks good small.. but the first two shots are too blurry, and the last one is borderline.

As I took the pictures.. I didn't have the button pressed all the time... but the last shot was a second or two delayed as the buffer from the 300D was still working. (need at least a 20D to go with the 100-400 for stuff like this...)

Glad you people like the picture.. :D

ciao..
.. Lee

[embdude]

Chris... the sequence image was just a pasted row of pics from photoshop. (that was the question, right?) It looks good small.. but the first two shots are too blurry, and the last one is borderline.


Glad you people like the picture.. :D

ciao..
.. Lee

Ok, how do you do that?

[myth337]

Chris.. you have some form of PhotoShop, right? (any photo editing program should do.. but the menus discussed here are from PS Elements 2)

Make sure you do the same levels / color balancing on all of the images. I usually do it before, but depending on your source files, it may be better to do it when all the images are together.

Take the first image in the sequence, select all (or the area you want), then Copy.

menu> File: New from Clipboard.

menu> Image: Resize: Canvas Size, and look at the value for the image width.
Take the number of pixels and multiply it (roughly) by the number in the sequence.. for example, a 200 pix single image x 5 in the sequence = 1000 pixels as new canvas width.

Go to the next image in the sequence, select all (or the area you wish), Copy, and then Paste it into the new document. It will go into it's own New Layer, and you can move it to the right edge of the first image.

Repeat this for the rest of the images in the sequence, lining them up as you wish. You can adjust the canvas width / height of the image sequence as you require.

When you have the layout you want, save the file, (you have been saving it all along, right?) and then you can Save For Web with the size you want.

I pasted the sequence image here together in about 5 minutes.. because I just wanted to give an impression of what the flight path was like. If all the pics were sharp and useable, I would have done it in higher resolution.

Let me know if this is what you wanted to know.

ciao..
.. Lee

[viczig]

As a retired Sikorsky engineer it's nice to see pics of a 53. The last version of this aircraft that was the "E" which has a longer fueslage and a seven blade main rotor.

[tmunson]

As a retired Sikorsky engineer it's nice to see pics of a 53. The last version of this aircraft that was the "E" which has a longer fueslage and a seven blade main rotor.

To put into perspective, the max gross weight of the CH-53D is 42,000 pounds (I am sure this is the case for the G model also) where the CH-53E jumps up to a max gross weight of 72,000 pounds. The UH-60 rolls in at a max gross weight of 22,000 pounds, and the UH-1 huey 9600 pounds. The 53E is the true beast of a utility helicopter. It has beefier transmisions, engines, driveshafts, and a canted tail rotor (which produces 2.5% of the lift). An engineering marvel!!!

[myth337]

One of my good friends, by the name of Wiki, confirms that the G model also has max gross of 42,000 pounds.

I remember a bunch of blades, the third engine taped on the side, and the slanted tail rotor (didn't know it assisted in the lift department though!!) from the above mentioned movie... and yes, that was a beast!!

Did some time in the Air Force and worked with some large (Sea King), some not so large (Kiwoa) helicopters. Biggest one I ever flew with was the twin rotor CH-47 Chinook. (have to dig thru my photo archives to find pics of all these...)

[Ballen Photo]

have you been Buzzed by this??No, But I wouldn't mind it if I was. That's a COOL looking Bird. :D
-Bruce

[myth337]

Bruce... you just digging thru the old posts?? ;)

now that I have my new lens.. I can probably get more 'in focus' shots of the next aircraft that buzz me...

[Ballen Photo]

Bruce... you just digging thru the old posts?? ;)
YUP! I like to do that on occasion to make sure I didn't miss any goodies. ;) I've found a few that were very nice, and I almost missed them.
-Bruce

[myth337]

most of the time when i burn thru the older posts, the images are no longer there... so I don't do it very often anymore.
.. Lee

[Ballen Photo]

most of the time when i burn thru the older posts, the images are no longer there... so I don't do it very often anymore.
.. LeeWell, As an example, I found that post about the B25 heading home by Marauder, that was a real GEM of a photo, and I almost missed it. :shock:
-Bruce

[insomnia]

I would have missed this one too if he didn't bring it back :lol: