The amazing team at Skydive Abel Tasman had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be the first skydive in the world to be added to Google Street View. Here, they share their behind-the-scenes story of how it all came together…
Skydive Abel Tasman received a call from a London-based Google Street View photographer who was on holiday in New Zealand. His proposal? Create the world’s first Skydive Experience on Google Street View! What better way to show the world our little slice of paradise? A quick phone call to Skydive Abel Tasman CEO Stuart Bean on holiday in NYC and we were good to go. We bought the photographer a plane ticket and it was game on.
Upon arrival we went through the motions of a standard business Google Street View shoot, taking you all the way through the check-in and on-ground experience before getting to the REAL fun. (You can take a look inside our drop zone here.)
Next came the fun part, mounting a 1.5kg- 6 GoPro pano ball to the top of our Operations and Safety Manager Kevin’s camera helmet. Our Front of House Manager Natacha even popped in for the day while on maternity leave to help us fit the camera and model for this sweet picture.
Then it was go time! Kevin put on the special helmet and climbed in the plane for the scenic flight up to 16,500ft above the Abel Tasman National Park.
We jumped with the rig on a head mount and the results are amazing!
We also decided to try for a different angle by bolting two GoPro chest mounts together, with one upside down, and attached the rig like a full safety harness.
We think the photos and videos speak for themselves. If you want to see what it’s like to look and jump out of the door of our plane, make sure you check out the finished Skydive Street View experience here. You can double-tap out the door of the plane and actually experience the EPIC views we get every day at Skydive Abel Tasman!
After the fun week of filming ended, a week of editing began, with a launch date of January 1st – what better way to kick off a new year? Some long nights in the edit room and it was a wrap. If you want to see more of this world first skydive experience, check out the video below about the project.
Skydive Abel Tasman would like to thank Alex Mather, Bare Kiwi, GoPro and of course Google Street View!
Now that you’ve had the Google Street View experience, are you ready to try the real thing? Book with your Stray driver guide to get the real life Skydive Abel Tasman experience! #GetUpHere
