Martin MACS Flying High in the Sky

This unique story came in from Martin’s Australian distributor ShowTechnology.

We may be a bit late in bringing you this story but it´s a really good one! The event was Australia Day 2001 in Perth where Concert & Corporate Productions were asked to supply some very special lighting.

The plan was to light a 40´ x 30´ Australian flag which was being flown beneath a helicopter. What was unusual was the idea of placing light fixtures in another helicopter so the flag could be lit up in the night sky. The powerful Martin MAC was the obvious choice of light and so two MAC 600s were mounted in the helicopter. The MAC´s and the control desk ran off 2 x 50 Amp Hour 12 volt Dry Cell batteries linked in series to a 3500W Power Invertor that gave the whole system a running time of 32 minutes total.

"This meant we couldn´t power the units up until just before takeoff," explained Sean McKernan, CCP´s Production Manager. "Upon powering up the desk crashed and due to time restraints we had to take off before I could get it back online, so I had to reboot en route to the rendezvous point. With 10 seconds to spare before our run began I got the desk back and fired the MAC´s up. We completed the run without further problems."

The flags run was cued with the playing of the National Anthem with 250,000 people lining the banks of the river. Both helicopters flew around Perth´s Swan River at the start of a fireworks display with the whole flight lasting six minutes. The helicopters flew 20 meters apart the whole way round in high crosswinds.

"It was one of the most exhilarating moments of my career," said Sean. "We did two test runs before the event, one on the ground to test battery life and one out over the Indian Ocean 2 km off shore so no one would see it."

At the same event Sean also designed an installation to light one of Perth´s newest landmarks the Swan Bell Tower. The rig included 12 MAC 500s, 12  MAC 600s and 3 Exterior 600s.

The show was synchronised with a fireworks display and soundtrack. The whole rig and show was preprogrammed in CCP´s warehouse before load in and there was one night of tests before the event.