WW I Airplane

Models

 

Aero Telemetry also provided 7 of the static models used for The Aviator Visual Effects. The most notable were a 6 foot wingspan Sikorsky S-38 Flying Boat model, a 14 foot wingspan Hell's Angel's Movie Camera Plane, (the real airplane that crashed during filming was actually Roscoe Turner's Sikorsky S-29A disguised as a Gotha G.IV) and a 1/5 scale 1916 DeHavilland IV DH-4 British bomber. In addition, we provided two 1/5 scale Fokker D.VII's and two R.A.F. SE.5A's  that were used for both digital green screen compositing and for actual flying as background airplanes during first unit filming of the Hells Angels scene) by Aero Telemetry. 

 

These VFX motion control models were filmed against a "green screen" for chroma key compositing or color separation overlay and then digitally rendered to make the model appear to be flying. All of the World War One static models we provided were used to help digitally recreate the flying scenes for the Hells Angels movie sequence.

 

The Aero Telemetry visual effects team built the Sikorsky S-38 that was used to digitally recreate the flying sequences in The Aviator that depicted Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes flying with Cate Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn. There are several scenes in the movie which include our S-38 model airplane. 

 

Joe Bok's flyable 1/4 scale H-1 Racer was also used as a motion control model to demonstrate the ability to use "forced perspective" camera settings to allow the scale models to appear larger than they were on film.