Cross-Country Helicopter Flight from Malaga to McMinnville, Part 1

Join me for the first 20 or so minutes of my cross-country flight from my summer base in Malaga, WA to McMinnville, OR. In this flight, I take off, climb alongside Jumpoff Ridge, cross the ridge toward the Colockum and Mission Ridge, then continue on to the Kittitas Valley west of Ellensburg. Along the way, you'll see basalt columns, high desert grasslands, forests, farmland, wind turbines, and even Mount Rainier, off in the distance. I had three cameras rigged up for this video and I switch from cockpit cam to nose cam with occasional inset views of me looking at the camera. Audio is from direct connection to the intercom so you can hear me talk and make radio calls plus dialed down volume of the helicopter's engine/rotor noise.

You can see all of the videos for this flight here:
Part 1:    • Cross-Country Helicopter Flight from Malag...   (this video)
Part 2:    • Cross-Country Helicopter Flight from Malag...  
Part 3:    • Cross-Country Helicopter Flight from Malag...  
Pups in a Helicopter:    • Pups in a Helicopter  

I should mention here that "cross-country" in the world of aviation is any long flight. For airplanes, it's 50 miles or more; for helicopters, it's 25 miles or more. This is only part of a 178 nautical mile trip.

--

 Want to support the FlyingMAir YouTube channel? Here are five suggestions:
• Become a FlyingMAir Patreon Patron:   / flyingmair  
• Become a YouTube Channel member:    / @flyingmair  
• Make a one-time donation via Square: https://bit.ly/DonateToFlyingMAir
• Buy something for yourself, your family, or your friends in the FlyingMAir Etsy store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/FlyingMAir
• Subscribe and turn on notifications! Then tell your friends about the FlyingMAir channel and encourage them to subscribe.

--

About Me and the Helicopter
I have been flying for about 20 years. My nearly 4,000 hours of flight time is in Robinson R44, Robinson R22, and Bell 206L (Long Ranger) helicopters.
The helicopter is a 2005 Robinson R44 Raven II -- the same one that appears in the photo at the beginning of the video. You can learn more about them here: https://robinsonheli.com/r44-specific... I own this helicopter. It is the third helicopter I've owned since 2000.
My helicopter has ADS-B Out and is picked up by radar facilities. You can see my track for recent flights on Flightradar24: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/ai... This is a great site for tracking any almost any flight, including the airlines.

About the Video
The video was recorded with a pair of GoPro Hero 7 cameras (https://amzn.to/2Lxyzwl) and one GoPro Hero 3 camera. One of the Hero 7s is connected to the helicopter's intercom system with an NFlightCam audio cable (https://amzn.to/31syLTm). All cameras record audio, but I dialed down the helicopter sound to about 25% of normal volume so it wouldn't be annoying.
The "cockpit cam" front-facing camera was mounted with my current Instrument Cam set up, which you can learn about in this Behind-the-Scenes video:    • Behind the Scenes: Cockpit Cam Instrument ...  . It's based upon a MyPilotPro Helicopter Mount (https://mypilotpro.com/product/helico...) modified to get the height I need. The rear facing camera was mounted on the cockpit bubble with a MyPilotPro Spider Swivel GoPro Windshield Mount (https://www.mypilotpro.com/product/my.... The "nosecam" has a proprietary mount.
The video was edited on a iMac using Screenflow software. Learn more about it here: https://www.telestream.net/screenflow...
The intro music is by Bob Levitus, famed "Dr. Mac." You can find him here: http://www.boblevitus.com/

I TRY (really!) to drop cockpit POV videos on Sunday mornings and "extras" with more info about owning and operating a helicopter midweek. (Some channel members get early access to some of these videos.) I also host occasional livestreams with Q&A chats. SUBSCRIBE and turn on the notification bell so you don't miss anything new! And tell your friends. I'm trying hard to deliver good videos and grow my subscriber base.

Some links on my channel are affiliate links, including all links to Amazon (https://amzn.to/32PLHTD) and MyPilotPro (https://mypilotpro.com/shop/?wpam_id=13). If you click one of them and buy something, I get a small referral reward. It doesn't cost you anything so I hope you'll shop with one of those links. Thanks.