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I Wonder How This Worked Out?
Below, we see an RCA TK30 owned by CBS being mounted in a Bell helicopter. I don’t know what they are shooting, but if the helicopter goes up more than a couple of hundred feet, there will be big problems for all. Notice this is a cabled camera and not a microwave wireless unit. Hopefully this was after 1956 when video tape became available. Can you imagine doing this for a live shot?
Note the cable laid out beneath the chopper. This was going to be live.
I think this was golf coverage. It looks like they just went up whenever they wanted a wide live shot of the course. Go up a certain altitude with the cable dangling, get the shot, and then come down. Simple.
I would love to see video or kinescope footage of this chopper cam in action!
Looks like a pretty heavy payload.
Somewhere I have seen footage of these tests with a cabled camera. Image satbilization of course didn’t exist yet. describing the image as “jerky” is an understatement. We used a ’47 like this one for traffic reports at my last station group (radio) between the camera, operator and pilot that craft was just about at limit.
Man that just screams, “this will not end well.”
KTLA did this in the summer of 1953 Santa Monica pier. Source: News at Ten by Stan Chambers.
Quick release: I’d guess they either left off the threaded rings on the multi-wire connector (so it’d pull apart), or they had a guy with an axe.
That’s extraordinary. Hopefully there was a quick-release connector at the other end:)
They need a microwave unit…. 😉
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