Cross-Country Helicopter Flight from Malaga to McMinnville, Part 3

Join me for the third part of my cross-country flight from my summer base in Malaga, WA to McMinnville, OR. In this video, I cruise from near White Pass in the Cascade Mountains southwest past Mt. St. Helens toward the Columbia River, dodging low clouds that force me to wander off my desired course and even getting into a tiny bit of scud running. Along the way, you'll see remote forest with lots of logging activity, mountain lakes and rivers, rocky cliffs, snow-covered ridges, and even Mt. St. Helens. Along the way, I tell you about other flights, flying at the Grand Canyon, and what's going through my mind as I try to get through the weather in front of me. I also bitch about my radar altimeter. Eventually, weather conditions get so bad in the direction I want to fly that I make a precautionary landing at a tiny airport I almost couldn't find. 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 narrate the flight 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: https://youtu.be/pgKDciGP4eA
Part 2: https://youtu.be/CmupuFDXa4Q
Part 3: https://youtu.be/vyveMEm_MhQ (this video)
Pups in a Helicopter: https://youtu.be/eEVq9sRlJK8

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.

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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-specifications/ 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/aircraft/n7534D 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 by 10 decibels from 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: https://youtu.be/nff_QBDbPxc. It's based upon a MyPilotPro Helicopter Mount (https://mypilotpro.com/product/helicopter-gopro-mount/?wpam_id=13) 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/mypilotpro-spider-swivel-gopro-windshield-mount/?wpam_id=13). The "nosecam" has a proprietary mount.
- The video was edited on a iMac using Davinci Resolve 16 software. Learn more about it here: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/
- 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.