A380 video analysis

[sar104]

I couldn't resist playing around some more with the recent video purporting to be a recording of an Emirates A380 departing MRU in Mauritius. There has been much debate online, including an earlier thread on this forum about whether this was real or fake. It turns out that quite a lot of information can be extracted from the video.

Firstly, and rather trivially, as I posted in the other thread, the motion of the aircraft past fixed locations in the distant background can be used to determine speed given the known length of the aircraft (73 m) and the frame rate/timestamp of the video. The video reports as 24 fps and the aircraft travels its own length past the viewing location in approximately 24.5 frames. The images below are 25 frames apart.





That gives a ground speed of 71.5 m/s, or 140 kn. While that's slower than V2 (the climb out airspeed) for the A380, which is 150 - 160 kn, it was almost certainly taking off into a headwind, and so that's a very credible ground speed.

Looking at the earlier part of the video, and plotting sights lines as the viewpoint rotates, one can triangulate on the position of the view point. It turns out that appears to move towards the runway centerline as the video progresses, which is consistent with the visible drift in the video.



That indicates that the viewpoint was 1880 m from the end of the runway, and 2630 m from the V2 point. Timing the aircraft from the V2 point to the viewing location gives an average speed of 71 m/s - in very close agreement with the previous estimate.

In terms of altitude, the A380 would likely be climbing at around 10 - 12°, which is consistent with its measured attitude. That would put it at around 470 m MSL passing the view point. The view is looking down slightly at the aircraft, putting the viewpoint at around 490 MSL - just under the hard FW ceiling for a DJI drone.

We can play a couple of other tricks with the video images. In the image below, the apparent lengths of the near wingtip is almost exactly twice that of the far one. That implies that the far one is twice the distance from the lens as the near one. Given that the wing span of the A380 is 80 m, that puts the viewpoint 120 m from the center line of the fuselage, or 80 m from the near wing tip. By comparing the apparent length of the aircraft with the full width of the image and with the 120 m value for distance, we can calculate the horizontal field of view of the lens, which comes to approximately 57°. Interestingly, that is exactly the horizontal FOV of the Mavic camera.



Putting this together allows the construction of a 3-D representation of the depicted event in Google Earth:

Overview (load first): Dropbox - Overview2.kml

Viewpoint perspective: Dropbox - Aircraft_view05.kml

Other notable points:

• It's hard to see without running the frames slowly, but the image distortion due to exhaust gases is actually visible. As the aircraft passes against the background of the shore line it's particularly noticeable.
• This flight has to be EK702, with a scheduled departure time or 1635. The flight that appears to have just landed appears to be another Emirates A380, which would make it EK703, with a schedule arrival time of 1630. That's consistent too, although both are rarely on time. However, looking at historical data for July, there are two possible dates: on 7/16 EK703 landed at 1632 and EK702 took off at 1637, while on 7/17 EK703 landed at 1633 and EK 702 took off at 1637.
• The reflection of sunlight on the fuselage raised a number of questions given the apparent cloudiness. However, it's apparent that the aircraft produces a clear shadow on the runway, and so there is at least weak sunlight. On the dates and times mentioned above, the sun azimuth was 299° with an elevation of 14°. That puts it almost directly back down the runway as seen from the viewpoint, and so the observed reflection is geometrically consistent with the sun location.

While I was somewhat skeptical before that the aircraft was real (even though the background scenery clearly is real), I'm now fairly convinced that the entire video is a genuine recording, most likely from a Mavic Pro, on either 7/16 or 7/17.

 

[StefanG]

Impressive! After reading through your text I tend to agree with you...sadly enough it seems to be genuine. Thanks for the report!

 

[Lake_Flyer]

I couldn't resist playing around some more with the recent video purporting to be a recording of an Emirates A380 departing MRU in Mauritius. There has been much debate online, including an earlier thread on this forum about whether this was real or fake. It turns out that quite a lot of information can be extracted from the video.

Firstly, and rather trivially, as I posted in the other thread, the motion of the aircraft past fixed locations in the distant background can be used to determine speed given the known length of the aircraft (73 m) and the frame rate/timestamp of the video. The video reports as 24 fps and the aircraft travels its own length past the viewing location in approximately 24.5 frames. The images below are 25 frames apart.

View attachment 42706

View attachment 42707

That gives a ground speed of 71.5 m/s, or 140 kn. While that's slower than V2 (the climb out airspeed) for the A380, which is 150 - 160 kn, it was almost certainly taking off into a headwind, and so that's a very credible ground speed.

Looking at the earlier part of the video, and plotting sights lines as the viewpoint rotates, one can triangulate on the position of the view point. It turns out that appears to move towards the runway centerline as the video progresses, which is consistent with the visible drift in the video.

View attachment 42708

That indicates that the viewpoint was 1880 m from the end of the runway, and 2630 m from the V2 point. Timing the aircraft from the V2 point to the viewing location gives an average speed of 71 m/s - in very close agreement with the previous estimate.

In terms of altitude, the A380 would likely be climbing at around 10 - 12°, which is consistent with its measured attitude. That would put it at around 470 m MSL passing the view point. The view is looking down slightly at the aircraft, putting the viewpoint at around 490 MSL - just under the hard FW ceiling for a DJI drone.

We can play a couple of other tricks with the video images. In the image below, the apparent lengths of the near wingtip is almost exactly twice that of the far one. That implies that the far one is twice the distance from the lens as the near one. Given that the wing span of the A380 is 80 m, that puts the viewpoint 120 m from the center line of the fuselage, or 80 m from the near wing tip. By comparing the apparent length of the aircraft with the full width of the image and with the 120 m value for distance, we can calculate the horizontal field of view of the lens, which comes to approximately 57°. Interestingly, that is exactly the horizontal FOV of the Mavic camera.

View attachment 42709

Putting this together allows the construction of a 3-D representation of the depicted event in Google Earth:

Overview (load first): Dropbox - Overview2.kml

Viewpoint perspective: Dropbox - Aircraft_view05.kml

Other notable points:

• It's hard to see without running the frames slowly, but the image distortion due to exhaust gases is actually visible. As the aircraft passes against the background of the shore line it's particularly noticeable.
• This flight has to be EK702, with a scheduled departure time or 1635. The flight that appears to have just landed appears to be another Emirates A380, which would make it EK703, with a schedule arrival time of 1630. That's consistent too, although both are rarely on time. However, looking at historical data for July, there are two possible dates: on 7/16 EK703 landed at 1632 and EK702 took off at 1637, while on 7/17 EK703 landed at 1633 and EK 702 took off at 1637.
• The reflection of sunlight on the fuselage raised a number of questions given the apparent cloudiness. However, it's apparent that the aircraft produces a clear shadow on the runway, and so there is at least weak sunlight. On the dates and times mentioned above, the sun azimuth was 299° with an elevation of 14°. That puts it almost directly back down the runway as seen from the viewpoint, and so the observed reflection is geometrically consistent with the sun location.

While I was somewhat skeptical before that the aircraft was real (even though the background scenery clearly is real), I'm now fairly convinced that the entire video is a genuine recording, most likely from a Mavic Pro, on either 7/16 or 7/17.

Incredible Sar! You have my respect as always.

 

[Irish-apple]

I couldn't resist playing around some more with the recent video purporting to be a recording of an Emirates A380 departing MRU in Mauritius. There has been much debate online, including an earlier thread on this forum about whether this was real or fake. It turns out that quite a lot of information can be extracted from the video.

Firstly, and rather trivially, as I posted in the other thread, the motion of the aircraft past fixed locations in the distant background can be used to determine speed given the known length of the aircraft (73 m) and the frame rate/timestamp of the video. The video reports as 24 fps and the aircraft travels its own length past the viewing location in approximately 24.5 frames. The images below are 25 frames apart.

View attachment 42706

View attachment 42707

That gives a ground speed of 71.5 m/s, or 140 kn. While that's slower than V2 (the climb out airspeed) for the A380, which is 150 - 160 kn, it was almost certainly taking off into a headwind, and so that's a very credible ground speed.

Looking at the earlier part of the video, and plotting sights lines as the viewpoint rotates, one can triangulate on the position of the view point. It turns out that appears to move towards the runway centerline as the video progresses, which is consistent with the visible drift in the video.

View attachment 42708

That indicates that the viewpoint was 1880 m from the end of the runway, and 2630 m from the V2 point. Timing the aircraft from the V2 point to the viewing location gives an average speed of 71 m/s - in very close agreement with the previous estimate.

In terms of altitude, the A380 would likely be climbing at around 10 - 12°, which is consistent with its measured attitude. That would put it at around 470 m MSL passing the view point. The view is looking down slightly at the aircraft, putting the viewpoint at around 490 MSL - just under the hard FW ceiling for a DJI drone.

We can play a couple of other tricks with the video images. In the image below, the apparent lengths of the near wingtip is almost exactly twice that of the far one. That implies that the far one is twice the distance from the lens as the near one. Given that the wing span of the A380 is 80 m, that puts the viewpoint 120 m from the center line of the fuselage, or 80 m from the near wing tip. By comparing the apparent length of the aircraft with the full width of the image and with the 120 m value for distance, we can calculate the horizontal field of view of the lens, which comes to approximately 57°. Interestingly, that is exactly the horizontal FOV of the Mavic camera.

View attachment 42709

Putting this together allows the construction of a 3-D representation of the depicted event in Google Earth:

Overview (load first): Dropbox - Overview2.kml

Viewpoint perspective: Dropbox - Aircraft_view05.kml

Other notable points:

• It's hard to see without running the frames slowly, but the image distortion due to exhaust gases is actually visible. As the aircraft passes against the background of the shore line it's particularly noticeable.
• This flight has to be EK702, with a scheduled departure time or 1635. The flight that appears to have just landed appears to be another Emirates A380, which would make it EK703, with a schedule arrival time of 1630. That's consistent too, although both are rarely on time. However, looking at historical data for July, there are two possible dates: on 7/16 EK703 landed at 1632 and EK702 took off at 1637, while on 7/17 EK703 landed at 1633 and EK 702 took off at 1637.
• The reflection of sunlight on the fuselage raised a number of questions given the apparent cloudiness. However, it's apparent that the aircraft produces a clear shadow on the runway, and so there is at least weak sunlight. On the dates and times mentioned above, the sun azimuth was 299° with an elevation of 14°. That puts it almost directly back down the runway as seen from the viewpoint, and so the observed reflection is geometrically consistent with the sun location.

While I was somewhat skeptical before that the aircraft was real (even though the background scenery clearly is real), I'm now fairly convinced that the entire video is a genuine recording, most likely from a Mavic Pro, on either 7/16 or 7/17.

If I ever meet you im running in the other direction man as your definitely not from earth.. fair play to you for the time spent checking over this

 

[Lake_Flyer]

Time for a new conspiracy:

1. Is Sar104 an undercover alien spy from a far galaxy Sar104, hence his username?
2. And is his mission to keep us from destroying our planet, hence the fact he's living in Los Alamos and has a atomic mushroom as avatar.
3. Is drone technology in fact alien technology (coincidently leaked by Sar104 and that's why he knows so much about it)?
4. Is Sar104 a living being or a hybrid supercomputer operated from a parallel universe?

Yep, he must be not from earth. All the evidence is clearly there, at least by nowadays standards, the above questions can and should be answered with 'probably yes'. So this is proof enough.

Only making fun, please please nobody take anything serious.
However.......


But no kidding Sar, you're a great source of unbiased applied logic. You never impose an opinion.

 

[gnirtS]

Good analysis. It does fall in line with what i'd worked out from the airport itself (takeoff roll length, average rate of climb from rotation and distance from runway).

I'd say one thing is certain, someone WAS flying a drone close to and dead in line with the extended centreline of the major international airport (which is bad enough!).
It also looks highly likely as well that it was deliberately flown very close to a real aircraft departing that aircraft (which is even worse).

It reminds me of the lunatic Israeli who was filming landing aircraft that eventually got caught via youtube a few years ago.

 

[timinator]

I've watched the video a few times now and a few things jump out at me.
1. Aside from near the very end of the video where I think I see an anti collision strobe off the apu exhaust area, I am unable to see any anti-collision beacons, wingtip strobes, or landing lights.
2. The horizontal stabilizer appears to be configured for a landing and not takeoff.
@sar104 your investigative and analysis skills continously impress me!

 

[sar104]

I've watched the video a few times now and a few things jump out at me.
1. Aside from near the very end of the video where I think I see an anti collision strobe off the apu exhaust area, I am unable to see any anti-collision beacons, wingtip strobes, or landing lights.
2. The horizontal stabilizer appears to be configured for a landing and not takeoff.
@sar104 your investigative and analysis skills continously impress me!

Another strobe flash is visible at 1:52:



The landing lights are clearly visible as the aircraft approaches:



Other than that I don't see much either, but I suspect that it is simply too bright to see the other lights.

Can you elaborate on what you are seeing with the stabilizer?

 

[gnirtS]

I think a lot is due to the crappy dynamic range of the camera. You can see lights and beacons if you free and look in but not overly clear in the video as highlights tend to be burnt. The reflection is causing a lot of burning out at that point on the video (another reason maybe to believe it, camera limitations)

I cant see anything overly odd about the flight surfaces for a big heavy A388 on takeoff probably at or just over initial climb speed.

 

[Qoncussion]

I couldn't resist playing around some more with the recent video purporting to be a recording of an Emirates A380 departing MRU in Mauritius. There has been much debate online, including an earlier thread on this forum about whether this was real or fake. It turns out that quite a lot of information can be extracted from the video.

Firstly, and rather trivially, as I posted in the other thread, the motion of the aircraft past fixed locations in the distant background can be used to determine speed given the known length of the aircraft (73 m) and the frame rate/timestamp of the video. The video reports as 24 fps and the aircraft travels its own length past the viewing location in approximately 24.5 frames. The images below are 25 frames apart.

View attachment 42706

View attachment 42707

That gives a ground speed of 71.5 m/s, or 140 kn. While that's slower than V2 (the climb out airspeed) for the A380, which is 150 - 160 kn, it was almost certainly taking off into a headwind, and so that's a very credible ground speed.

Looking at the earlier part of the video, and plotting sights lines as the viewpoint rotates, one can triangulate on the position of the view point. It turns out that appears to move towards the runway centerline as the video progresses, which is consistent with the visible drift in the video.

View attachment 42708

That indicates that the viewpoint was 1880 m from the end of the runway, and 2630 m from the V2 point. Timing the aircraft from the V2 point to the viewing location gives an average speed of 71 m/s - in very close agreement with the previous estimate.

In terms of altitude, the A380 would likely be climbing at around 10 - 12°, which is consistent with its measured attitude. That would put it at around 470 m MSL passing the view point. The view is looking down slightly at the aircraft, putting the viewpoint at around 490 MSL - just under the hard FW ceiling for a DJI drone.

We can play a couple of other tricks with the video images. In the image below, the apparent lengths of the near wingtip is almost exactly twice that of the far one. That implies that the far one is twice the distance from the lens as the near one. Given that the wing span of the A380 is 80 m, that puts the viewpoint 120 m from the center line of the fuselage, or 80 m from the near wing tip. By comparing the apparent length of the aircraft with the full width of the image and with the 120 m value for distance, we can calculate the horizontal field of view of the lens, which comes to approximately 57°. Interestingly, that is exactly the horizontal FOV of the Mavic camera.

View attachment 42709

Putting this together allows the construction of a 3-D representation of the depicted event in Google Earth:

Overview (load first): Dropbox - Overview2.kml

Viewpoint perspective: Dropbox - Aircraft_view05.kml

Other notable points:

• It's hard to see without running the frames slowly, but the image distortion due to exhaust gases is actually visible. As the aircraft passes against the background of the shore line it's particularly noticeable.
• This flight has to be EK702, with a scheduled departure time or 1635. The flight that appears to have just landed appears to be another Emirates A380, which would make it EK703, with a schedule arrival time of 1630. That's consistent too, although both are rarely on time. However, looking at historical data for July, there are two possible dates: on 7/16 EK703 landed at 1632 and EK702 took off at 1637, while on 7/17 EK703 landed at 1633 and EK 702 took off at 1637.
• The reflection of sunlight on the fuselage raised a number of questions given the apparent cloudiness. However, it's apparent that the aircraft produces a clear shadow on the runway, and so there is at least weak sunlight. On the dates and times mentioned above, the sun azimuth was 299° with an elevation of 14°. That puts it almost directly back down the runway as seen from the viewpoint, and so the observed reflection is geometrically consistent with the sun location.

While I was somewhat skeptical before that the aircraft was real (even though the background scenery clearly is real), I'm now fairly convinced that the entire video is a genuine recording, most likely from a Mavic Pro, on either 7/16 or 7/17.

Once again ~ mind blown!

 

[timinator]

Nice catch, @sar104 with the beacons. In terms of the stabilizer, I would have expected it to be trimmed slightly lower. It appears that the A380 horizontal stab doesn't indicate degrees of trim making it more difficult to truly tell the state (Nose up, Nose down, neutral trim) After looking at other A380 departures it appears to be within limits for this aircraft. So, yeah, to me this video appears genuine. I didn't think it was at first.
I don't suppose you can enhance the stills to determine the registration (begins with A6- at the back of the fuselage) of the aircraft? That way we could trace its movements on the dates in question.

 

[timinator]

I'm wondering if it was A6-EUS which indeed operated on the 17th of July.

 

[timinator]

Not that I condone the flight but the person who flew the mavic certainly knew exactly where to be to get the best perspective. That took some planning!

 

[gnirtS]

Not that I condone the flight but the person who flew the mavic certainly knew exactly where to be to get the best perspective. That took some planning!

Or repeated flights until he got the height and position dialled in...Which is worse!

I'm wondering if it was A6-EUS which indeed operated on the 17th of July.

The video was taken before 17th July. F-Stoppers and Petapixel picked it up on that date. The original video was apparently posted by an Air France pilot before that and deleted. As far as im aware, theres no original source video or date to go from.
A6-EUS usually does Dubai <> Paris but that could change and i cant see a clear registration any on that video to confirm that is indeed the aircraft clearly.

FWIW flight aware amongst others report the following aircraft have used that route and flight (ek702) in the last few weeks:-

A6-EUS
A6-EDN
A6-EUR
A6-EDK
A6-EDV

So yes, that aircraft HAS been used on that route. But as we dont know the actual date of the video we cant say any more than that.
Its another "coincidence" though...

EDIT:- Just looked into FR24 premium.
A6-EUS was indeed used on the 17th July 2018 on that route:

17 Jul 2018 Port Louis (MRU) Dubai (DXB) A388 (A6-EUS) 6:11 16:35 16:36 23:10

But unless someone knows better i cant find the date confirmed anywhere?

 

[ac0j]

Holy cow Sar...... I’m speechless!
We need to get you to work on a cure for cancer or anything else NORMAL brains can’t figure out.

 

[gnirtS]

OK im fairly sure this video ISNT from the 17th.

Theres a news article in french on it here on the 17th:-

Stupido : un A380 Emirates filmé au décollage de l’île Maurice

The main thing is the timing of the comments. The first comment is 13:58 local time. Assuming France is currently UTC+2 at the moment, thats 11:58 zulu.
The flight took off at 16:36 UTC+4

So the first comment appeared at 1158z on the 17th July and the flight in question took off at 1236z the same time. So the article went live AND had comments before the flight left that day.....
Thats assuming that site has times in local france of course.

FWIW A6-EUS is used roughly once a week on that route.

 

[sar104]

Nice catch, @sar104 with the beacons. In terms of the stabilizer, I would have expected it to be trimmed slightly lower. It appears that the A380 horizontal stab doesn't indicate degrees of trim making it more difficult to truly tell the state (Nose up, Nose down, neutral trim) After looking at other A380 departures it appears to be within limits for this aircraft. So, yeah, to me this video appears genuine. I didn't think it was at first.
I don't suppose you can enhance the stills to determine the registration (begins with A6- at the back of the fuselage) of the aircraft? That way we could trace its movements on the dates in question.

I can't pull out the registration definitively. I even tried stacking multiple frames, but too few pixels on the registration. Running it slowly frame by frame it looks most to me like A6-EUT, which was the equipment used on 7/16. I can't be at all certain though.



That zoomed view does show the exhaust gases clearly though.

 

[Underdog1964]

Much respect sir!

 

[sar104]

It turns out that this video is older than suggested. The sugarcane harvest near the airport is a pretty good time fiducial, especially when combined with Google Earth's historical data.

Looking at a frame from early in the video, note the uncut cane lower left, and also the square of mostly uncut cane center right, with a characteristic shape cut from it.



Comparing to GE imagery from August 2017 shows a very similar pattern, but with the center bottom field of can still uncut:



The same view in December 2017 shows all those fields cut and starting to regrow.



I think that puts the video likely in late August or early September 2017.

 

[Chip]

Much respect sir!

+1 for SAR. Great work.