Baltia Air Lines Inc. (fka BLTA)

[deepspringer]

Here is more info about how the aerial video of N706BL, "Baltia Takeoff" was shot.

The aerial photographer: Sam Lafoca of Los Angeles, phone [phone]

You can see Sam with Igor in this 747 cockpit photo...

http://www.leadersoft.com/baltia/Baltia747cockpitLafoca2.jpg

Here is a photo of the video helicopter at Victorville just prior to the takeoff of N706BL last September...

http://www.leadersoft.com/baltia/BaltiaHelicopter1.jpg

Notice the gyro-stabilized aerial video rig fastened to the outside of the chopper.

The chopper was provided by Aerial Indies / Group 3 Aviation from Van Nuys Airport, CA.

The gyro-Stabilization and HD-Camera video equipment used for this shoot: Cineflex V-14HD integrated with the Sony HDC-1500 HD-Camera

Here is a still shot taken by Sam from the chopper as it took off just prior to the 747's departure...

http://www.leadersoft.com/baltia/Baltia_Plane_Vict2.jpg

Behind the plane is one of the two hangars used by the aircraft painting company. This photo establishes the fact that a helicopter was used for photography the day of the takeoff.

There are a number of defects in the video, due to it being shot for real as the plane took off (no retakes!), that simply would not have occurred if this had been a fake CGI video. I was able to minimize the effect of the defects by careful editing. Though the video may appear to have been shot by 3 cameras during the takeoff from the same point of view, it was actually shot as one continuous 5 minute shot by the one helicopter-mounted video camera. Here are the defects that I eliminated in my editing of the footage:

1. A dust storm a few days earlier had left a coat of reddish desert dust on the runway. As the plane started its takeoff run, the jet blast kicked up the reddish dust into a huge cloud behind the plane that was very unattractive. At one point, the plane itself (before it had picked up enough speed) had its rear end almost enveloped in the dust cloud so that it nearly looked like it was on fire. Note that in the aerial still shot of the parked plane at the link above, you can see the plane's wheel tracks in the coating of dust on the parking apron behind the plane leading from the hangar.

2. During the takeoff, just as the plane was lifting off, Sam fell slightly behind in his tracking of it, so that for a moment the nose of the plane actually went out of frame to the right. Then Sam caught up with it and the nose came back into view.

3. As the chopper followed the 747, as the plane started turning to the left, the chopper tilted forward to pick speed. The tilt forward was a little greater than Sam's equipment could compensate for by tilting in the opposite direction, so the camera was no longer level. This tilt forward made the plane climbing past the clouds appear to be climbing at a steeper angle than was actual. This real-world error probably would not have occurred in a CGI video.

4. As the 747 flew away faster than the chopper could follow, Sam zoomed back revealing the full expanse of the Mojave desert, with the plane disappearing in the distance somewhat jerkily (the extreme telephoto magnified vibration more than the gyro could compensate).

Here's how my editing dealt with these problems...

To fix #1, I quickly cut from the beginning of the takeoff roll to a point about 30 seconds later where the camera zoom and the chopper's flight had pulled back to a slightly different perspective. At that point, the plane had picked up enough speed so that the dust cloud was receding well behind the plane.

To fix #2, at the instant that the 747 nose touches the right frame line, I cut to a point in the shot about 5 seconds later after the plane had completely lifted off and Sam's panning had caught up with the plane so that the nose was back in view.

Problem #3 - I didn't attempt to fix this, except that my next cut (used to shorten the length of the climbout for better pacing) was careful to match camera levels at a point just before the chopper tilted forward in order to speed up its chase.

To fix #4, I dissolved from the plane video during the beginning of Sam's zoom-back to a still shot looking up at the "Baltia" on the front of the plane taken by Sam earlier while it was parked at Victorville. This seemed to be a nice way to end the sequence gracefully.

If this had been done with CGI, it never would have occurred to anyone to create a cloud of dust rising up behind the plane as it started to takeoff, because that was so unusual. Also, it would be very difficult to do realistically in CGI. Nor would the minor camera-following error that occurred right at liftoff been part of the shot. A CGI artist would have followed the plane perfectly on takeoff. Etc., etc.

I hope this puts to bed once and for all the claims by "experts" that this video is a fake. It is not.