The Drone Dish: PilotViking

Ryan Hoag catches up with PilotViking, AKA Espen Hatleskog, from Norway. They discuss his amazing footage from Heliboogie 2016 as well as his ultra cute Alaskan Malamute puppy, who is famous on Instagram! If you haven't been to Norway you've got to check out PilotViking's work and then start making reservations!
#norway #pilotviking #basejumping

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And for more amazing aerial views, check out AirVūz.com READ FULL VIDEO TRANSCRIPT HERE: Ryan: Welcome to The Drone Dish. Today we have Espen Hatleskog, also known as Pilot Viking. Espen, thanks for joining us. Espen: Thanks for having me. Ryan: All the way from Norway. Now, what makes Norway particularly amazing to capture from that drone perspective? Espen: It's got to be the mountains, landscape. I'm mostly into nature. [00:00:30] I don't film much else. Anything else is just spontaneous really. If I stumble across anything else. Ryan: And you've uploaded some amazing videos on our sites. Welcome to [inaudible 00:00:43] in particular is an amazing journey that probably single-handedly has every person associated with AirVuz wanting to travel to Norway. Take us through that journey. Espen: There's a valley up here, not too far from I live. It's pretty much just a chill hike that you can do. [00:01:00] I brought my drone and me and my friends just found this amazing rock we would stand on in the middle of the valley. So, we went up there and put the drone on the smart feature where it just circles around you and stuff. That was pretty cool. It's beautiful up here. Ryan: And the most recent video you've uploaded, Base Jumping in Norway- Espen: Yeah. Ryan: Has some amazing footage and it actually makes me, inspires me to want to do a Ryan's Ridiculous in Norway. How did you come up with that concept and [00:01:30] take us through who those people are and how you got associated with them. Espen: It all started a month ago, a little over a month ago, I went to Kjerag just to hike and film the landscape, really. And then we got back down and we sat at a bar down in Lysefjorden where you can stay at and we met five base jumpers. They asked will we join them next morning and film them. So, I went up early that morning and filmed those guys. That was [00:02:00] the first video I made. A month later, they told me about, there's this event called Heliboogie. They have it annually where there's like 250 base jumpers just coming and jumping off those crazy ass cliffs. So, I figured that would be awesome to film. I applied for permission to fly in there and I just went, took the chopper up, skipped the two-hour hike, and just started filming. I went up there two days and just got the best footage ever. So, [00:02:30] it was pretty awesome. Ryan: And you had guys in wing suits- Espen: Awesome cool guys. Ryan: You had guys in wing suits. You had the fire flame blowing up as they go. Is that an annual event? Espen: Yeah. Every year they have up here, they have this Heliboogie. That guy from ... I think it's from Belgium or Holland, I don't know ... that fire guy. He's standing there with blowing flames everywhere. Pretty cool. We got some pretty sick shots. Ryan: Has it ever been captured by drone before? Espen: [00:03:00] I don't think so. I've never seen anything before. And if I search it up, I can't find any drone footage of it. I just find regular GoPro footage. So, hopefully, I'm the first one. Ryan: How do you feel your drone perspective provides a unique experience for an event such as that? Espen: You get a whole other perspective, of course. All the base jumpers love it because they're just used to seeing it like a POV view. Now we get a third person [00:03:30] view from the skies. It creates a whole other feeling of it. It seems like we actually know what we're doing, they told me. Yeah, I hope so. Ryan: One of my favorite videos you've uploaded is A Day on the Raft. It looks like you were out were some friends and just kind of out, having a good time and decided to capture it from above. Am I speaking to that the right way? Espen: Yeah, a day on a raft or something? Yeah. That's actually an [00:04:00] old video, one of the first ones I ever made with my old Phantom 2 drone. It got lost. Now, I'm watching that video and I'm now like, "Oh why did I do that?" Or "Why did I fly like that or edit like that?" But it's still a cool chill video. The lake is so chill in the summer, if we get a summer in Norway. It's always cold and stuff. Ryan: And that's the one thing about the videos you've uploaded. When I think of Norway, I think cold. I think of ice. I think of long either days or long nights. And you provide this unique perspective [00:04:30] from above that shows me they have fjords, amazing mountains, amazing water opportunities that I don't think I'd be able to understand if you didn't capture it from above. Espen: Yeah. I remember when I lived in the States, people actually thought we have polar bears walking around in the streets. Where did you get that idea? So, hopefully I can show another perspective of this country. Ryan: And you have a pretty popular dog, if I'm correct? Espen: Yeah. Ryan: Your social media, a lot of people [00:05:00] follow your dog. Tell us about your dog. Espen: My dog, yeah Fenris he's sleeping now. He's an Alaskan Malamute I picked up a month ago now and I figured of course I have to start a following, like an Instagram account, that's mandatory now after Loki. So I'm going to catch up to him now. I'm at thousands now, so I should be good. Ryan: Espen, we really [00:05:30] appreciate you taking the time to be on The Drone Dish and we really look forward to more uploads. Espen: Thank you so much for having me. It was awesome.