Videos

Automobiles, Germany, Project BMW, Travel

BMW Driving Course

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I HAD THE chance to attend an eight-hour BMW driving course. I got to spin out in the most expensive car I’ve ever driven – several times. OK, “got to” is not quite correct since I didn’t really intend to…

A few months ago I discovered the BMW Driving Academy and decided to attend a class. I am very glad I did. I did it for fun, but there is really a lot of good safety and better driving information. Although I did the class in German, they offer training in English as well. I asked if they would take a VAT Form, which they had not yet heard of. It took a few weeks, but they agreed to do so, saving me 16 percent on the cost of the day.

You will see in the pictures and video that it wasn’t a beautiful day, but the weather cooperated enough that we never got rained on. But, just in case, they do the training in the rain as well.

The training was great. It included learning about how to position yourself properly in the seat, a tiny bit of “car physics” and why you can/will have understeer/oversteer problems and lose control, emergency braking, emergency lane changes, steering with maximum braking, and a timed slalom run at the end.

I’ll let the photos and video speak for themselves.

Aerobatics, Gliders, Soaring, Technology, Video

Soaring Videos I have Made

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BLOG POSTS are most interesting when there’s visual content to go with the text. Interesting photographs make a difference. Adding video to the page can be even better as long as it’s something people might actually want to watch! I’ve made a number of videos that I’ve shared to YouTube. Some of the soaring ones are embedded below. Next time I do video I’ll try to get pictures of how I do it. That may be an interesting mini-tutorial for some readers.

Graham Saw survived doing some aerobatic training with me at Booker Gliding Club in High Wycombe, England, UK. This video is the product of multiple flights and multiple camera locations. At the time, it was perhaps the most complicated video I had done.

Aerobatic video number two was a learning event. I wish I had left the volume of the voices a bit higher and had lower volume on the music. I tried adding a title image to the beginning in an effort at “branding.” Notice the point where instructor Colin Short says “fantastic” in his Australian accent. I’d like to hear that more often! Lasham is the largest glider club in the world. (Oddly, this one is blocked in Germany.)


No aerobatics here, but this is one of my favorite videos to date. It consists of video from four different camera locations on four different flights. I like the Henry Mancini blues music. Occasionally you can see the shadow of the camera mount on the left with where the camera is looking towards the fuselage. This location disturbed the air enough that in a bank to the right I could feel the burbling air hit the tail/rudder. Hydration is important for the safety of flight. So is avoiding the other gliders. I really enjoyed flying the LS-4 with the Aeroclub Stuttgart where I was a member 2011-2013. The last 30 seconds of the video is just before landing; you can see my right foot on the rudder pedal, and it looks to me like I’m tapping with the music. 🙂

If I can tell a story, then I am a “real film maker,” nest-ce pas? This video was fun to make, and it is an effort to capture the flavor of launching and recovering a glider. Shot at Hahnweide, Germany glider field.

I hope you enjoyed watching a few of these. I had fun making them and sharing them with others.