Eagle's Lair
Members Roster

April10, 2006

Ladies and Gentleman

Team North American Eagle™ is pleased to announce a brand new sponsor to the project. Olympus Industrial will be letting us use one of their High Speed Video (HSV) cameras to record the parachute deployment sequence.

Olympus Industrial is not new to the team. We were first introduced to their product over three years ago. Back then the team saw a real need to have the ability to record high speed events, then analyze them in ultra slow motion.

Olympus Industrial is a major international company operating in the industrial, medical and consumer markets, specializing in optics, electronics and precision engineering, with group sales of over $8 billion in 2003/2004.

The North American Eagle™ will be making use of their High Speed Camera technology to analyze the deployment of our parachutes. This one second event can be captured using Olympus High Speed Video (HSV) mounted on the back of the Eagle. HSV is a field of technology used to analyze motion by providing a slow motion view of high-speed events.

The i-SPEED 2 cameras will allow capture of up to 33,000 frames per second (FPS) with its on-board memory, digitally storing the captured images on either a compact flash card or directly to a PC through its Ethernet connection. Combined with Olympus Software, this will give Ed Drumheller II a quick and easy access of images and provide critically needed analysis in a timely manner.

The system is simple to use and does not require a PC to operate. The controller display unit shown above provides full camera control to the 8.4”  LCD screen with measurement and editing capabilities. Ed Drumheller II can use this immediately following a run and analyze the parachute deployment, and make corrections to ensure a safe testing program.

HSV allows the user to analyze motion by providing a slowed down view of high-speed events. Traditionally, this has been accomplished by using a film camera, which is run at very high speed, the film is then passed through a projector a frame at a time. This is a costly procedure as the film and its processing are expensive. The use of film is also slow, because loading the camera is time consuming and the processing can require several days. With the advent of digital electronics, it has been possible to produce video cameras, which provide this functionality in one unit.

With the Olympus i-SPEED High Speed Video Camera (HSVC) it is possible to record, play back and re-record with no intervening delay and no incurred expense. To put the term “high speed” in perspective, it may be remembered that a conventional video camcorder takes 25 or 30 complete images per second and plays them back at the same speed. The Olympus i-SPEED, however, can take 1,000 full frame images per second and can play them back one frame at a time. Further to this, i-SPEED is capable of faster speeds by using a subsection of the image sensor and this will permit operation up to 33,000 frames per second!

Another advantage of high speed video, is recorded segments can now be used in television documentaries.

Olympus HSV is not the only product used by the NAE™.    On many occasions we have used the IPLEX Videoscope System to inspect the interior of the main fuel cell and internal components of our S&S Turbine Services jet engine.

If you want to see real case studies and examples of high speed photography visit the Olympus Industrial website.

Team North American Eagle™ is proud to have Olympus Industrial part of our dream to break the world land speed record.

We invite you to add a comment, or remark, about our program or the site.

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