Adizero Fly Guy Project

Tuesday, January 23, 2013, Torrey Pines, CA.

We were given the mission to fly the three RC scale professional golfers in to the Torrey Pines Farmer's Insurance Golf Tournament in San Diego.  We were to land them behind a semi truck that is used for the Adidas crew.  The same (real and walking) three professional golfers, with matching outfits to the flying men would come out from behind the stage after they flew in to create the illusion that they had flown in with their lighter than air shoes.  It was perfect.  The weather was perfect, the wind was non-existent, and all the stars aligned.

You can see from the video, it was like a perfect intersection of RC talent, weather and media.  The golfers were given a chance to fly themselves using wireless Futaba buddy box links.  A pilot stood next to each golfer, and took over as necessary.  A coach was over the other shoulder gently commanding the golfers in what to do with the sticks.  We wanted to make them look good.

My involvement was documentation of the lead up work, and executing the ground team.  I thought this was a great scratch build project that needed to be shared with the Flite Test community.  I think, as a team, we represented our sport with the utmost professionalism (both as RC Pilots, FPV pilots, and scratch builders).  The flying man plans have been published to death on RCGROUPS, this is more about the experience, lead up and preparation that it took to pull off a safe, entertaining RC event for a corporate client. 

The actual planes can be purchased from Balsa Buddies who sells versions of Otto's design, pre cut by laser so you don't have to spend forever cutting out all those pieces.  Last time I checked, they were around $60.00.  Assembly is not too bad for the kit, but I have learned from Otto that the devil is in the detail with this kit.  He puts almost imperceptible (to me) changes into the geometry of the legs and it can drastically change how well / poor it flies.  I would call it a more advanced model to build.  The larger versions also take a lot of damage on landing, so field repairs are very important.  Like all good pilots I will try to refer to everyone by a call sign for fun.

This project was headed up by Otto "Hollywood" Dieffenbach and Gary "Anytime" Graf for the Taylor Made / Adidas product release of a new shoe, the Adizero.  The shoe is super light it seriously weighs nothing.  It must be born on a planet of Helium. Hollywood and Anytime should be called Oil and Vinegar, because they are exactly the opposite people.  Hollywood is all practice, polish test pilot.  Anytime is off the cuff, getting it done, anytime, anywhere no matter what.

The team that executed the entire production was called Global Aerial Media, based on the East coast.  They have been responsible for other viral videos of fly guys in New York and Trinidad.  Hollywood and I (Treggon "Iceplant" Owens) recently went pretty viral launching Superman off of a cliff near our house.  A passerby took some video of that.  This sent our West coast team onto the radar.  A ton of my footage was used and CNN, among others, credited my Youtube account.  It was all pretty exciting, but something we were not expecting.  Anytime right-coast contacted Hollywood left-coast.  A team was assembled.  I was lucky enough to make the cut. We also brought on Steve "Kloner" Blizzard, a multi-rotor, and FPV genius.  Gary "Gsizzle" Sykes was brought on for humor and ground crew.  Anytime's right-coast friend, Mark "IronJaw" Carros, a supremely confident RC pilot, apparent carpenter, and Star Wars junkie rounded out our band of brothers.

Hollywood and Anytime asked me to document their efforts while in San Diego, and this article is to share that experience.  I was in charge of launching, prepping, communicating and video taping the production.  I take pride in shooting, editing, posting and blogging in one day.  I generally do this by myself with as many cameras as I can pull off on tripods all around.  The gopro3 was mounted between the golfer's shoulders. 

Anytime first assembled the fly-guys in New York.  IronJaw created the most beautiful shipping crates, and the fly-guys were shipped from New York to San Diego.  Anytime and Hollywood picked up a UHaul, and then the crates.  All the gear, Futaba radios, batteries, and models were first brought together in New York. 

It all arrived safely, and Hollywood and Anytime test flew them out at a local fly spot.  All was good.  Team assembly was first thing on a Saturday morning before the Tuesday event.  We all worked out hand signals, launch timing, probable layout of the event, and of course, safety, safety, safety.  We met Sunday too, practiced our launches with three fly-guys (IronJaw flew in from New York Sunday morning).   After a quick pilon racing session Hollywood and Anytime met us at the field for a much needed final Sunday practice.  We all worked to cross-train each other's jobs.  We had redundant pilots, redundant launch crew, and back up fly-guys tested and ready.  Monday was set aside for any model repair, and rest-up for the event.

We planned out how every single battery would be tested.  We planned out how, and when, we would arm the model.  We planned out how we would communicate that the arming had been completed, then communicated if a model test had passed our muster.  We were placed 100+ feet apart, and didn't want to rely on any more electronics, so we used big giant, over the head arm gestures, like some sort of YMCA karaoke contest.  We had protocols for everything we could think of, and then Hollywood would go over them before we practiced them.  There were times where people were irritated, egos were bouncing, and we were drilled Hollywood style. 

All of this turned out for the best.  The day of the event, everyone arrived early, and the stage was being set up.  We checked the flying golfers out to make sure all control surfaces were working, and that no hangar, or transport damage had occurred.  We tested out the buddy boxes, then started doing press interviews.  The next thing we know we were flying with the golf pros.  They were amazing.  They took on the challenge, and I haven't seen so many grins across the board in quite a while.

This was on an AMA field, and we all worked out how we could fly such that we would not be directly over the crowd.  We talked over the low passes and tried to create a situation where the flight path was always clear.  Getting the flyguys low enough so that they were between the photographers, and the actual golfers was not an easy piece of flying, especially with the entire sports media world watching over our shoulders.  

I hope you enjoy this great January day in San Diego.  I know I did.  We followed up the wonderful flying with a stop for a couple Hollywood style Long Island Iced Teas, and Chicken Nachos at TGI Fridays.  We laughed, played, and all decompressed.  Good times were had by all, and it is one of those days I will tell my grand-kids about.