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The Home of The Sky Surfer
A Beginner's Guide to
Powered Parachutes
A Beginner’s Guide to Powered Parachutes is 2 hours and 34 minutes long. It is FitzGerald's fourth independent video regarding the sport of Ultralight Flying and was originally produced on DVD and VHS.
Like his other movies, "PPC" comprises in-depth interviews, this time, with professionals in the sport of Powered Parachutes.
Ben Morrow of Liberty, Missouri; Randy Jackson of Fort Collins, Colorado; and Ken Kelly of Topeka, Kansas share some of the knowledge they have gained from many years of involvement in general and sport aviation. Scores of topics involving all aspects of the growing sport of Powered Parachutes are covered.
All three of these men are leaders in the field of sport aviation and are gifted with an ability to transmit their knowledge and insight about aviation.
In keeping with his dedication to a "free skies" philosophy, A Beginner’s Guide to Powered Parachutes was produced in continuing support of self regulation of the sport of ultralight flying. It is FitzGerald’s belief that members of the ultralight community are obligated to learn from more experienced aviators. That is why his previous productions and this release provide novices an opportunity to learn from top, experienced aviators in a casual "discussion" video format.
"PPC" was shot and edited over a 2.5 year span at locations in Kansas, Missouri, Colorado and Texas.
In addition to the talks with the instructors, there are numerous music video segments featuring Powered Parachutes flying to the accompaniment of music written and performed by FitzGerald.
To see the entire movie on YouTube, click the above links or right HERE
Click on any scene below to go directly to that segment.Tech Notes
For those who might be interested in some of the editing equipment used to produce "Begin Guide", here is what FitzGerald wrote at the time it was produced (1994)...
Prior to editing, FitzGerald accumulated 18+ hours of videotape over the course of 3 years of shooting. The camera used was a Canon L-1 which is Hi-8. For editing, a Sony 9700 editor was employed. Camera footage was run through a Hotronic AP-41 Time Base Corrector. Graphics, annimation and titling were all produced on a Macintosh ci running at 50MHz. Other hardware items included RasterOps 24STV and RasterOps ProVideo32 Nubus boards. The software used included InfiniD, PhotoShop, Morph, and MacroMind Director. For final dubbing to distibution on VHS, the program was mastered on 1" videotape.
Brian wrote and performed all of the music used in Beginner's Guide drawing on his background as a musician playing in Northern California in the 1970's.
His trusty Gibson SG is the guitar used on all tracks. A Yamaha DX-21 keyboard synthesizer and a Sequencial Tom drum synth were used for bass and drum tracks. The audio editing software used was Opcode Vision. Some of the music was "pre-mixed" on a Yamaha 4 track MT-100 recorder and then dropped onto the PCM track of the Hi-8 editor in stereo. Other tracks were recorded directly to Hi-8 using the MT-100 as a mixer.
All of the music was written, performed and copyrighted by FitzGerald.