Bird of Prey

Award winning production company Blue Source had won the contract to produce the music video of Fat Boy Slim's "Bird of Prey" track. The 2 Directors had come up with a concept loosely based on the sequence in "The Right Stuff" where USAF test pilot, Chuck Yeager attempts to gain the absolute altitude record.

In the movie and on the real attempt an F104 Starfighter was used. This video had to be shot in England and there are no flying Starfighters in the UK. There is a beautiful Hawker Hunter just repainted in an all silver scheme which is not dissimilar to the F104, which in many cases were operated with unpainted polished aluminium.

Flight Logistics brought in the specially modified Corvette from France as there was a great deal of air to air filming. The lens on this system can be rotated so that it appeared that the Hunter was climbing much more steeply than it actually was.

Shot at the Imperial War Museums airfield at Duxford Cambridgeshire. Camera Operator Dave McKay en route to shoot aircraft interior footage using a Super 16  Aaton A-Minima. Dave is a qualified commercial pilot and an experienced Sky Diver. The pictures below show definite before and after shots as he had completed over 30 max rate rolls. Even viewed from the camera aircraft, they looked painful.

Coming home from work

Going to Work.