In two weeks, when the Ryder Cup players walk from the clubhouse to the first tee, they will be followed by a custom-designed cablecam system from Bradley Engineering.
The new Skytrac HD has been built for Remote Solutions, whose owner, Stuart Bush (pictured left, with David Bradley), had been searching for a suitable cablecam system for years, and owned one, but “couldn’t buy anything that was fit for purpose.” So, he went to Bradley with the problem – and then won the contract for Sky Sport’s Ryder Cup coverage, which meant development had to happen faster.
Bush is having three of the £235,000 systems built, and intends to sell one on (he has had several people wanting to buy it at IBC).
The ‘racing car’ design will look good in shot. “All the others just look functional. This looks nice. It’s also waterproof as all the electronics are inside. It’s designed for its purpose. It’s incredibly strong,” Bush said.
“It is a dual-cable system, which makes it inherently safe for flying over crowds,” added its maker, David Bradley. The wheels are bonded to the body and can’t come off the cables. The coated Kevlar cables are incredibly smooth and silent, said Bush and, even if both did break, the 4mm drive cable is even stronger (with a breaking strain of several tonnes). The system weighs only 30kg.
It is fitted with Bradley’s new Gyro 350 five-axis stabilised gimbal, fitted with a Panasonic AS-HE870 HD camera with Canon 20x lens.
