ditto, ditto . . . . I've learnt loads by people asking questions that :

1) Didn't know of features I didn't know they exsisted

2 ) Allowed me to have clarified things that had been bothering me too - but didn't know why - Ha!

3) Made me think about how and WHEN I should/could use this software

. . . . .. . thanks! Had to be said . .

Grazie

grazie, I read one of our posts the other other day where you said you 'just learnt about F11'. now ive just discovered F11 ;-)

Im very grateful for the people who post answers.

cheers
Jc

Hey, now I've discovered F11 too. And don't forget Ctrl-F11 and Shift-F11! Perfect for those times when a 22" monitor just isn't big enough...

22"monitor !! Man im struggling on a 15" Monitor !

and hey now Ive just learnt about CONTRL F11 and SHIFT F11

JC

F11?
We bought some F111s from you damn Yanks and they kept falling out of the sky :)

They're OK now though, a bit of Aussie ingenuity with fencing wire means they should keep flying for another 20 years.

But it is great to know that we are able to help others, it's even more rewarding when you don't even really know who they are, where they are or how old they are. Pity the web gets used for so much garbage, nice to find a place where it's used the way it was intended.

While we're on planes, its amazing how long they've kept the B52's flying. Didn't they build the original shortly after the Wright Brothers?

hey farss, im from sydney too. have you managed to get the waving aussie flag yet ?

jamcas:
Sorry no waving Aussie flag, don't need one myself!

I've got some nice waving US ones, think we need to get Dick Smith to champion this issue. Got some nice aerials of Sydney shot before the Oilimpic games. If you need a copy try Tourism NSW, royalty free.


BillyBoy:

The B52, U2 and SR 71 were all built by real engineers who had a passion for what they did. That was a time when 'Made in USA' meant something, sadly that has become very diluted these days. There is still plenty of good US companies who employ people who have a passion for what they do. Unfortunately they are getting harder to find although there does seem to be a groundswell back to the kind of thinking that drove those guys.

Okay, I've gotta step in here, since you've mentioned my favorite aircraft, the SR-71.

Did you know it was originally called the "RS-71?"

That was its designation, but in the mid-1960's LBJ (American president after Kennedy was shot) prematurely announced the existence of the super-secret aircraft. He accidently called it the "SR-71" and the Lockheed folks quickly changed the name in order to prevent any embarassment to the President.

It was designed and built by Lockheed's famous "Skunk Works" under its legendary leader, Kelley Johnson. Saw one fly over the Lockheed plant when the line was retired back in 1989.

Okay. Back to video stuff.

Riredale,

The SR-71 ... isn't that the Blackhawk? There is an actual Blackhawk at a planetarium in Hutchinson, Kansas, near my home town of Wichita. Its hung from the ceiling and the front end is at eye level, so you can really check it out. It is an amazing, intimidating looking piece of hardware.

G

There's also an SR-71 parked on the flight deck of the Intrepid Air & Space Museum in Manhattan, New York (45th Street and 12th Ave). How many aircraft carriers have a street address....

I also have learned a tremendous amount from the contributors to the Vegas forum. Too bad no one has the time to collate all the valid advice into a book. It would demonstrate how the Internet should be used--and probably be required reading at every major film school.

The contributors should also take pride in the fact that, not only have we learned so much, but we are obtaining information we would be hard pressed to find anywhere else if at all. Perhaps the COW forum would have sufficed if there were no Vegas forum, but if there were no Vegas forum there would be no Vegas---aaagghhh!

P.S. What I've learned about video/film editing on the Net has saved me thousands on what would have been night courses at NYU film school and the like. Keep up the good work! We'll need a distinguished committee like this when Vegas 5 comes out.

One of my favorite aerospace stories is Joe Kittinger's skydive. It was intended to test what would happen if a pilot had to bailout at high altitudes. In an high-altitude,open-gondola balloon, he jumped from 102,800 ft above the earth. That's over 19 miles above the earth, at the edge of space. He broke the speed of sound during free fall. He was in freefall for over 4 minutes. He said he had to resist the urge to pull his parachute too early when the cloud layer came rushing up at him. He had to keep telling himself that the clouds were not solid.

http://home.att.net/~1.elliott/JOEKITTINGER.HTML
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/escape/skydive.html

Actually, it's the Blackbird. Here's a neat web site that you can download videos from: http://www.wvi.com/~lelandh/sr-71~1.htm.
By the way, our contractors build the best aircraft in the world and there is no shortage of passion, brilliance, and work ethic here in the good old USA. The military equipment (air and space) being produced today and on the drawing boards for the future is nothing short of "unbelievable". Star wars is here.

Sorry, I work for the US Air Force and just had to speak up. Back to video.

Randy

Sorry, no information on planes here. :-)

But back to the original topic: yes, this forum is a wonderful place to find answers to those problems that are nagging you beyond imagination. Vegas is great software, but what makes it better is the great user forum and people to work with to solve problems so that we all can be more creative with our projects.

Now I guess I'd better go figure out what Shift+F11 means. ;-)

Cheers to all !!

Rogue One

I've seen that vid too. Makes the typical skydiving daredevil shots of today tame looking at some of the original daredevls doing stunts, actually some very crazy things in early planes in the 20's-30's. Sometimes they were standing up with just their feet strapped in as the plane did loops and dives and they flew through a open barn, walked from one wing tip to the other and other stuffy like you see now on Fear Factor, but for real with the plane actually flying. Yikes!

There are quite a few films of the older days where test pilots did some very amazing things. Don't recall if was part of the same movie or not, but there are films of the first guy rocketing down some railroad track on a sled with some jet engine, and the first flights in attempts to break the sound barrier with some expertimental plane under the belly of a bomber and they just unhook and hope the darn thing's engine fires up.

The rocket sled testers were part of the same crazy group. Kittinger worked with them. They had to determine how many g-forces the human body could withstand. A rocket sled is exactly what it sounds like, they would take off like a bat out of hell, when they came to their faces swelled up like they had gone ten rounds with a Joe Louis.

Marquat, I agree with your assessment, another thing to think about it, that balloon was never designed to come down. If he didn't jump he would have drifted off possibly into space. The other crazy thing, was he had done an earlier test from about 80,000 feet, where his pressurized flight suit failed. His hand swelled up like a football and he briefly passed out. He wanted to do

Hi,

I heard about Kittinger amazing jump. There is another guy (Michel Fournier, he is French like me) who is trying to beat this record of 100000 feet by jumping from 130000 feet (40 km or 25 miles) from a balloon. He has not succeded yet, he is planning to try again I think next may above Canada. Here is his web site in french and English:

http://www.legrandsaut.org/site_en/#

I hope he will succed without killing himself.
Thierry.

P.S. I also thanks everybody in this forum for their great commitment to help amateurs like me with Vegas.

Actually, as I was googling and replying to this thread I found a few others who are attempting to break the record as well.

Lunatics!!

One's an Australian, Rodd Millner, and one an American woman, Cheryl Stearn. There was a lot links to news stories with a date in 2001 when Millner was suppossed to have tried his jump, but there's no stories about whether or not it actually happened. On Stearn's site, there is a tribute to another skydiver, who attempted a 123,000 foot jump in the 60's, but did not survive. It was probably a government project, like Kittinger's jump.
EDIT
This last attempt was actually a private venture. It was attempted three times. He did not jump at 123,000. There was a problem and his ground team cut the gondola of balloon loose, he stayed in the gondola which had its own parachute. On another attempt, the gondola was again cut loose and there was a problem with his oxygen supply and he died four months later in the hospital

another edit
Here's a Sports Illustrated article and those attempting to break the record.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/features/siadventure/14/pie_in_the_sky/

Ok, were getting way off topic...

So I was wondering if the real air force one like in the Harrison Ford movie of the same name (I liked it by the way) where they had some escape pod and loads of parachutes on board and all that if they in real life:

a. have some kind of a escape system on AF1?

b. at least parachutes?

c. somewhere they really did try that kind of stunt having a pilot bail on one plane and ride a cable to get to another in some rescue attempt?

I still think the "Arnold" in Eraser did the best stunt jumping out a plane. First he throws something out to disable the engine so he don't get sucked in, then he drops his parachute, then dives after at it in freefall and catches up with it only to crash on the roof of a car in a junk yard and just gets up to drive away and continue after the bad guys.

to kinda clarify the speed of sound thing and the nose bleed .The acount by Kittinger himself was 614 mph or 274m/s .9 the speed of sound.
other reports of 714mph that would be about 314 meters per sec were beleived to be a typo that just got carried on. The nose bleed thing was was probably an issue with the partial pressure suit he was wearing.

Although I think I came close to the 714mph speed last night... going from my computer to the john....(ate some Wicked chile)

epirb,

I believe the speed of sound is affected by pressure and temperature. So the speed of sound on land would not be the same speed of sound at 80, 000 feet. So it would be less than 714mph, but I doubt 100 miles less.

Anyhow this recent interview with Kittenger credits him with 714mph
http://www.af.mil/news/airman/1299/ballon2.htm

While this site, http://www.aerofiles.com/chrono.html, claims both 614mph and Mach1?:
"He also set three other records at the same time: (1) the highest man had ever gone in unpowered flight, (2) the longest free-fall in history — 16 miles, (3) the first man to exceed the speed of sound without an aircraft — 614mph at that altitude."

Funny postscript. Way back in the middle to late 1800's when trains were first starting to get speeds of 40 miles per hour and faster there was concern that the human body couldn't handle such "excessive" speed.

Another one that raised my eyebrows was when they first tested the first full blown version of the A-bomb there was considerable debate among the various people involved in the project as to what would really happen ranging from it being a total dud to God help us.

According to some accounts at least a couple scientists feared they would set the sky on fire. How exactly I don't recall, still scary.