While the rider starts off sitting calmly on his cart, you will learn pretty quickly there is a reason for all his padding and leather. This fellow intends to go at high speeds, just inches from the ground, traveling on small wheels on a small cart you are supposed to lay down on in order to ride it.
As he starts moving, you can see the other riders in front of him, pushing their way to a good start, with the road undulating downhill in front of them. These carts’ look like great big skate boards, including the truck type wheel system. As the road curves and curls and extends downward away beyond them, the carts continue moving faster and faster, you can almost feel the road beneath them as if you are on the cart as well. The camera stands up well and keeps focus under bumpy, fast moving conditions, giving you a real feel for what it might be like riding this course yourself.
Viewing the other riders all around, you can really see them leaning into the turns, you can see the lines of the road slipping beneath the carts as they quickly speed over them, racing down the hill at a breakneck speed. At one point you can even see an individual on rollerblades joining them on the downhill ride. At the end of the ride we roll quickly off into a golden field and come to an easy stop. An exhilarating ride to be sure!
This is a great view as the camera appears to be mounted at the front of the tail of the miniature plane. You can see the landscape slipping below the plane as it passes, small bodies of water can be seen below the right wing as the plane swoops into a turn. The landing strip passes beneath the plane quickly like a ribbon in the wind, the plane moves over it before swooping back into the air with a graceful sweep to the right.
The plane then performs a loop maneuver as you watch the ground appear above the airplane’s top side. A nose dive sends you soaring towards the ground at incredible speed before pulling up at the runway. The plane performs all sorts of maneuvers as the sun plays across its shiny skin. A turn to the left makes the plane look almost like it is standing on its left wingtip as the ground appears beneath it. The plane soars down to the runway, touches down, rolls for a moment and then lifts its nose to the sky once more. Again and again, the little plane touches down and then takes off again.
We switch to a different plane, with the camera mounted on a wing and take off once more, a ribbon of roadway busy with cars appears and disappears from view as the little plane plays in the air, looping, rolling dipping towards the ground. The touchdown of this plane was much rougher than the light touchdowns of the former plane. This one came to an immediate stop and from the looks of the video, it appears to have not stayed totally in one piece.
Being super light and self contained does have it’s advantages. One of which is the ability to mount to RC planes and get cool videos like this one from VholdR.com member TheFlyboy. It’s arial footage over Sausalito, California. The view is spectacular but what really got my attention was the “catch” landing. Check out the full post here.
