PBY-6A Catalina & Hawker Hunter – Shoot
Task: Photogrammetry & Modeling
Purpose of creation: Data capture for flight simulator
In 2024 I received the news, that the client plans to model Hawker Hunter. I took the initiative to look if there are any Hunters in European museums.
I’ve sent a couple of emails, and the Danish museum replied. The approach was similar to the A-7E Corsair II. I established a connection with the museum and negotiated, then there was a realization that the museum had PBY-6A Catalina in its arsenal as well. Then I had more negotiations, and the trip to Denmark was set and organized.
This time I was better prepared for the shoot, than for the A-7E Corsair II shoot. After deep research, I’ve invested in new high-end gear, that made capturing and aligning data much easier, at the same time improving the quality of captured material.
Please note: The Shoot happened recently, and I am still processing data. The results you see – are quick tests.
It took me two days of travel, to reach my destination. Upon my arrival I went to see the museum, it was beautiful! At the same time, I realized how densely all these planes are packed, and that there is not much light and space for an ideal photogrammetry shoot.
I knew that it would be a great test for my new gear. I immediately began to test out all kinds of settings on my gear and plan out the shoot. I planned to shoot both cockpits first, and then move over to exteriors.
Before the shoot, I planned to balance the shoot – in terms of intensity and schedule. I did it by scheduling some rest days between shoot stages.
At first, I had 8 days in total to shoot both planes. After seeing Catalina’s interior, I’ve realized that it will be a much more intense shoot than anticipated, it would easily overtake the A-7E Corsair II shoot by complexity and schedule.
I agreed with museum staff to make it 10 days, and all my reserved days between shoot stages were off the table…
On the first day, I shot Hunters’ cockpit and recorded all the necessary material for animation and sound. After that, I moved on to Catalina’s interior. Catalina is a flying yacht/home. I lived inside her for four days.
She was ginormous, with a lot of difficult-to-reach places. It was very dark inside, and I did crawl & climb with my heavy camera rig to each of these spots, while at the same time wiping out all dust, and hydraulic / oil leaks with my body.
At a certain point, all this darkness, bumping of my head into everything, and cramped spaces – it all felt like I was locked up in prison. Usually, it felt like that, when I had to sit for 10 minutes in silence and wait for my flashlight to cool down.
I was very happy after completing Catalina’s interior shoot. While climbing out of Catalina – I felt joy and overwhelming feeling that felt like I was set free.
Yet, the shoot was only halfway complete. It was time to shoot exteriors. Firstly I’ve returned to Hawker Hunter, and after completing it, I’ve moved to Catalina.
The museum staff was incredibly helpful and they gave me a ladder so that I could get to a higher vantage point. The rest of the days I mostly climbed up the ladder, shot a couple of frames, climbed down, and dragged the ladder to its new position. Rinse, repeat.
The shoot was very intense. I was crawling and climbing to the most difficult locations and taking crazy acrobatic poses to capture that one specific shot. I’ve worked on average twelve hours a day, First the shoot, then upon return triple-backup, then recharge of the gear and its clean up, followed by post-processing of images that had to be sent to the client for tests, to determine the areas that need more shots. Only after that, I had time to go out and have a decent meal. It was rinsed and repeated every other day, during the whole trip.
However, at the end of the day, I am incredibly happy with what I’ve achieved and made possible. My camera gear performed magnificently! I truly captured material worth gold! I am grateful to god, for his guidance and help.
Below you can see the video tour of Catalina’s interior.
