Propeller Heads Lite

8 April 2021 | Propeller Heads Newsletter

PROP-HEADS SPRING BREAK ’21, BABY!!

SUN POISONING HERE WE COME!

Image Courtesy: Skyfire’s Art Department

This week’s edition of PropellerHeads is going to be a little on the light side, because the writers are on spring break!

Now you might be thinking, “there’s still a global pandemic going on and a crowded beach is not the place people should be right now”. We agree. Spring break for the writers is driving around in a Subaru with a Golden Retriever named Tucker to see some state parks! SUPER granola! So no worries. We’re staying safe here at Skyfire!

We didn’t want to leave you hanging though, so there’s a typical article below and something new we might be trying out moving forward!

DRONE VS. VOLCANO II

THE VOLCANO ALWAYS WINS… OR?

Image Courtesy: Skyfire’s Art Department

Recently, some drone footage gained fame for the sheer ridiculousness of it. Every now and then you see something that just stops you in your tracks and makes you wonder, “How did someone do that?”. For us here at Skyfire it’s when we see someone flying drones directly at themselves, but manage to stop just before they get a haircut.

Photographer Garðar Ólafs (Gesundheit) has the opposite of a normal reaction when someone says your house is 15 minutes away from an active volcano. He and his brother own a stock photo company that sells footage to most of the large video companies. This footage will probably be too well known now to end up in an episode of The Walking Dead. Is that show still on the air? Has it been cancelled yet? How long can zombies stay around?

Anyway! Ólafs said he wondered what a shot would look like directly over the top of the volcano (wouldn’t we all?) and started lowering his drone down until he realized that he could no longer see the drone! Panicked, he flew his drone back and landed to see the damage that had been done by 2,200° F. While the drone still flies, the sensors and landing light are toast! He said he gets constant error messages while flying.

So, let this be a lesson. Don’t fly your drones into the mouth of a volcano. Unless you send us the footage…

READER SUBMISSION

PRESCRIBED BURN IN MORAGA

Footage Courtesy: Moraga-Orinda Fire Department

The video above is from our good friend Michael Marquardt, who is with Moraga-Orinda Fire. Back in 2020 they captured some pretty amazing footage of a prescribed burn they were doing with some amazing scenery of Mt. Diablo to top it all off!

Michael said, “We’ve been using drones in conjunction with fire prevention projects. We use fuel breaks throughout the district to slow spread in case of fires. Those fuel breaks can be made by utilizing manpower in removing fuels by hand (weedwackers, hand tools, etc.), dozer or disked lines, or prescribed fire like this.
We use the drones to monitor air quality from drift smoke, watch for spot fires, and use the IR to find hotspots before leaving the scene as seen here in Moraga with Mt. Diablo in the background.”

We wanted to say thank you to Michael for the footage and the other firefighters at Moraga-Orinda Fire for their service! Awesome stuff!