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RCAF Showbirds at Rockford AirFest

June 6, 2014 by Leave a Comment

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Okay: Spectacular day here at the Rockford AirFest.  I mean really great.

We spent most of yesterday getting cameo interviews for Acro Camp and shooting B-roll.  Today was all about capturing footage that will  back the cameo that we shot of the Snowbirds yesterday.

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Captain Thomas Edelson, the Snowbirds’ public affairs officer, flew Airspeed’s camera during the practice demo this afternoon.  He rode with Snowbird 8, Lead Solo Captain Guillaume Paquet.  Clear skies, a box full of aircraft (the Snowbirds fly a nine-ship CT-114 demo), and the red flight suits and helmets made for really great images and captured a lot of the excitement of formation aerobatic flight.

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Tonight, we’re going to consolidate the video shot thus far and make up a shot list for the show tomorrow.  Mostly crowd B-roll and anything else that captures the airshow environment generally. Lindsay Shipps is shooting stills again tomorrow.  Rod Rakic came for the day today to shoot stills and video and we’ll be going over his material tonight as well.

If you’re at Rockford AirFest tomorrow, please look us up.  You can usually reach me through Twitter (@StephenForce).  I’ll respond if I can.  We’d love to meet you and say hello.

 

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Rockford AirFest 2014

June 5, 2014 by Leave a Comment

KRFD SB

I’m here at the Rockford AirFest shooting the last round of performer interviews for the film. We got Canadian Forces Snowbird 2 (Inner Right Wing) Captain Brett Parker from Edmonton, Alberta. Great interview. And he allowed as how he knew of The Ballad of Thunderbird 2 (although Snowbird 2 is lookin’ left, not right).

KRFD Jack

We also got a great interview with US Unlimited Aerobatics Champion and Screamin’ Sasquatch Jet Waco pilot Jeff Boerboon.  The Waco was pretty cool in an exhibit hall at ICAS, but that’s nothing compared to how it looks out in the sun on the ramp.

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And it wouldn’t be a complete set of performer cameos without a USAF Thunderbird. Maj Caroline Jensen flies 3 for the USAFADS. She has 200 hours of combat experience in the F-16 and was a T-38 IP before joining the team.

I think that Maj Jensen was our favorite interview. She wasn’t afraid to go technical about control inputs, formation technique, and inside-baseball discussion of what it takes to fly the Viper. The only issue might be resisting the urge to put too much of this interview into the film.

 

 

 

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Kim Crow, the Original Bitching Betty – Audio Episode Show Notes

February 16, 2014 by 3 Comments

Kim Crow

These are the show notes to an audio episode. You can listen to the show audio by clicking here:  http://traffic.libsyn.com/airspeed/AirspeedBettyWithPreRoll2.mp3.  Better yet, subscribe to Airspeed through iTunes or your other favorite podcatcher. It’s all free!

In the early days of the Fighter Mafia and the first generation of new E-M fighter development, systems designers realized that lights, bells, and whistles simply weren’t immediate enough to give pilots urgent information that they needed while aloft in the battlespace.  Engineers realized that spoken annunciations were necessary, especially for urgent or dangerous conditions like terrain proximity.

The very first voice digitized for use in fighter cockpits was that of actress Kim Crow and the voice soon became known, loved, and hated as “Bitching Betty.”

Kim spent an hour talking with Airspeed about being Betty, from the very first Betty sessions in a conference room and later in a studio in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.  Betty evolved with different platforms and conflicts and Kim was there at the mic and breathed life into this icon of aviation throughout Betty’s early history.  Betty has been a constant companion to pilots in many airframes in many conflicts and has even likely been the last voice that some pilots have ever heard.

There have since been other Bitching Bettys and Betty has even been joined by Nagging Norah (UK), Hank the Yank (Australia), and others.  But, for many pilots, Kim will always be the one and only Bitching Betty.

This is a very special episode and we still can’t quite believe that we get to bring it to you.

More information about Kim:

More information about Bitching Betty:

This episode’s Audible.com selection:

Steven Weinberg, The First Three Minutes: A Modern View Of The Origin Of The Universe

 

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