On Monday (Mar 14th) was the day of the Red Bull BO 105 show. We started early and went to the airport where the helicopter was to do an interview with the Flying Bulls pilot Reiner Wilke. We needed to go through security check to go in the restricted area.
Alouette III was kindly lend to us by Albanian Ministry of Health and piloted by Albert Xhafaj, Chief of the Medical Transport unit. Helicopter was manufactured by Aérospatiale of France. It is recognised for its mountain rescue capabilities and adaptability.
Knowing that I would be the one shooting from the helicopter I mage a special vibration dampening rig from Manfrotto Hi Hat and a loosely inflated football. It also helped that I had a image stabilized Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS lens.
The whole flight only lasted 30 minutes. The time sure flies when you are having fun (no pun intended). The experience was indescribable. It will be hard to top it. It certainly is my favorite spot for recording until now. But not only that. People were fantastic, kind, helpful. I made some photos from the ground when we were returning from the airport to the hotel, but I will put them in another post. I will also do a post for the clip when it will be on albanian Red Bull site.
For now I just need to tell another story. When Samo and me were escorted from the airport premises, our taxi driver in the follow me vehicle asked us if we can stay with him for five minutes longer because he has to do some work before he takes us to the exit. He kindly asked me, if I can take some pictures of him during his work, because they don’t have any time to take them during work hours. Here are a couple of him posing in front of the plane.
Enough for now!