Last week, I had the chance to get some air to air images of San Jose Police Department’s Air Support Units’ EC-120. What made this a special shoot was that over the past few years, I’ve gotten to know the men and women of the Air Support Unit and consider them friends. If they are not patrolling the skies over San Jose, CA, they are selflessly supporting the community through programs helping kids with cancer or their fellow police officers. But today the camera was pointed at them.

I arrived at San Jose Airport to meet with the pilots who were doing today’s photoshoot. With Northern California battered by storm after storm, we were very lucky to get a break inbetween them to get airborne. And as with any photoshoot, safety was the number one priority. What would make this shoot a bit more interesting was that it was a mixed formation of a Cessna 182S and a Eurocopter EC-120.

In an airplane, the pilot sits in the left seat and photographer in the right. But in a helicopter, the pilot sits in the right seat. So when we are airborne, both pilots have to look through their passengers to maintain a visual on the other aircraft. But “POLICE1″, the SJPD helicopter, had a safety observer in the left seat to help maintain safety. Just as if they were on patrol, the safety observer and pilot are in constant communication as they fly.

We briefed safety issues, airspace requirements, squak codes, air to air frequencies, and a plan for the shoot. The Cessna would take off from SJC and POLICE1 would depart Moffett Field, where they are based, and we would rendezvous over the San Jose Flea Market and form up.  Then head over to the foothills for some ‘clean’ shots, followed by a few race tracks over downtown San Jose to get the new City Hall in the background, and finish up over Moffett Field where the formation would break up and head back to their respective airports.

Then it was time for us to head back to SJC. It was quite surreal landing a Cessna on an 11,000 ft runway with large commercial aircraft landing and taking of next to us. And to make it that much special, we got to land in the “wrong” direction. Normally aircraft land from the south due to the Bay Area’s consistent winds, but with yet another storm approaching, planes were cleared to land from the north.

After getting the Cessna back into the hangar, I packed up my gear and headed to Moffett Field to do some ground to air shots. We really lucked out due to a small break in the storm.

Here was our flight track over San Jose to get the air to air shots:

View SJPD Air 2 Air in a larger map

And the one shot that I really wanted to get was with an SJPD police car in the foreground and AIR2 hovering in the back.

Then the photography gods smiled upon me and gave me a stunning dark background with some amazing golden lighting and a full rainbow.

Here are a couple of videos taken on the ramp at Moffett with my new Contour HD 1080p bullet camera from VHoldR. With at 135 degree wide angle lens, it really give you an ‘in your face’ angle.  Click on the video’s to view them in High Definition. First a low flyby and then as the shoot ended, AIR2 taxied past me back to it’s hanger at Moffett Field.

And for the photographers out there, the shot below was taken at 12mm while laying on the ground and nearly under the helicopter. The water drops were caused by the massive rotorwash blowing the water on the ground onto the front of the lens. So cool!

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 24th, 2010 at 4:38 pm and is filed under Adventures, Aviation, Life, Moffett Field, Photography, Video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.