Emergency Services in America - A series special edition

While I was on primarily on holiday in the US, I used my idle travelling time as a passenger to record some footage and take some pictures of the emergency and security services of the USA. So I bundled it all into one for an Emergency Series in Scotland special edition!

Emergency Services In Scotland - Missed videos

I've made two more episodes of my Emergency Services in Scotland series, one before my holiday and one after. Here they are:

Orion EFT-1 Launch

In our second week in the US, we moved North from Miami to Orlando with the express purpose of getting down to the Kennedy Space Centre for the historic launch of the Orion Experimental Flight Test 1 (EFT-1) atop a Delta IV heavy rocket. We were there from 3am, right the way through to 9:44 am when the launch was wonderfully scrubbed..... Shattered but not defeated, we were back the very next day and got to watch the successful launch during the very first try! Hurrah!

Sadly, the stage commentator only noticed that the TV screens were well over a minute out, not the 10 seconds out they had believed, and so we missed out on doing a countdown. In fact, I was one of the few people where we were standing that actually managed to get a video of the launch - everyone else missed it! So my video of the launch is posted below.

The viewing site was built for the space shuttle launching 3 miles away, so the launch of the Orion was over 8 miles away! This means that the footage is not great. Also, at that distance, the rocket was out of sight into the clouds by the time you could hear it, over a minute after lift-off! Note that I included a panorama of the morning, just before the launch; lift-off is at ~25 seconds in.

Driving a Ferrari F430 at Homestead-Miami Speedway

While on holiday, I had the pleasure of driving a Ferrari F430 around the road course layout of the Homestead-Miami Speedway. I was originally supposed to be driving a Ferrari Challenge GT, but it blew it's clutch about 15 minutes before I got in it. So they gave me the Ferrari F430 instead, with an extra lap added on - and just as well!!! The whole experience was all over very quickly, but what an experience it was! I got to fend off a Porsche for a few corners too! (We'll just ignore my little incursion onto the grass on the outlap)

The video of my experience is below. If you're near Miami and interested in a racing experience of your own, you can check out the Miami Exotic Autos Racing website.

Aviation Videos

Although there are only a few aviation-related videos on my channel, I am a massive fan of flying and simaviation. On my way to and from the US, I was able to record all but one (wasn't at the window) of my flights. So for those who love aviation, here's my videos:

Chrismas Holidays

So I'm not long back from a winter holiday to the US and I finally have some time to catch up on blog articles. I'll be posting several posts catching up on various (and many) YouTube posts from before, during and the few posts I've made after my holiday. This will be a brief switch from game related stuff!

I'll keep this post rather short, but I will be once again switching focus of the blog and the YouTube channel to doing reviews. I quite enjoy doing them and I expect to get more free time to make them after the new year, so you have that to look forward to!