Treasure Island / San Francisco Harbor

[PureSQNut]

Last Tuesday I had the pleasure to team up with somebody for a dual operator flight in the San Francisco Harbor / Treasure Island Area and it was nothing short of great results.

I have to say the I1 handled the conditions of winds ranging from 20-25mph like a champ and with ZERO issues.

I have to say thank you to Jim Hare for this team flight. Jim, your version of the edit looks very good.

Glad we had a chance to meet up and fly together. Thank you for the comments on the flight. I have to say I was VERY impressed with how well the I1 did in those winds we were getting hit by.

I will say this was the first time I was comfortable doing a dual operator shoot and felt comfortable enough to focus on the flying to take some shoots.

Guys I will say this. Communication is KEY when flying dual operator. Honestly having a pilot that understands the camera guy’s job and a camera guy who understands the pilots job is probably the MOST important tool to have successful results.

Jim, anytime we can work together...... please let me know. It was a pleasure and a lot of fun.

So I didn't have the noise reduction software to eliminate some of the noise in the background but here is a slightly different take and feel of a video on the gathered material. Mainly all night shots with a different editing style, but thank you Jim for all the tips for editing. It’s helping a LOT.

Here is my video (Mainly Night Shots) and also with MUCH better editing Jim's edit (Day and Night).

 

[Outta Control]

Looks great team.

 

[Simon Mallin]

Some fantastic footage and great editing. Did you guys need to obtain any permissions from the city to do this or are you free to fly where you like (within reason and commonsense)? You seem to have flown over (or very close to) roads, bridges, etc. and ships / buildings in the harbour area.

Under CAA rules here in the UK it isn't generally permitted to fly within 150m of a congested area (ie city buildings, roads, etc.) and the landowner's permission is always required wherever we fly. I believe it's possible to do something like this for a commercial shoot but only after submitting a detailed safety case (fair enough) with detailed risk assessments, approvals, etc. which seems to involve a lot of bureaucracy.

I'd be interested to know the view of other UK based flyers on filming in areas like this and if anybody has experience of the CAA 'Congested Areas Operating Safety Case' process. I'm also unclear whether a public road is always deemed to be a congested area even if it's a remote country lane with little traffic, so if somebody has the definitive answer I'd be grateful.

 

[PureSQNut]

the only area that was a grey area was the one bridge we flew over. Otherwise we always stayed over water, never went near ships and the port buildings we fly over in the harbor were after hours.

all footage was filmed at 4k so we had some extra resolution to allow some zoom in post edit.

as far a SFO goes you can fly in downtown by getting a permit from the city.they give you a time slot (typically on Sundays) and you just have to take out a temporary liability insurance policy (about 4mil if I recall) (cost about $400) and you can fly as a "recreational photographic documentary" and you don't need to have a 333 commercial license for it.

the permits are based on a documentary base and cost $253 per use. I know on Sundays its very early. Otherwise its typically on the week schedule.

in our case stay over open water, shoot in high res and shoot after the ferries are down to 1 boat per every 30 minutes so it makes a great window of opportunity without creating concerns.