Aerial Assault!

AJ Acevedo, founder of Flightlutions, takes to the skies armed with an RC helicopter and a camera to fulfill a dream deferred.
By Christian Ghigliotty

“I found the perfect spot,” AJ says into receiver which is pushed into Josh’s ear. Click. Corner of Old Fulton Street and Water Street , the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. On a blustery afternoon, against the New York City skyline, AJ wants to showcase his RC Copter.

On the corner there is a nondescript white van, the two rear doors open like a book rested on its spine. Inside AJ and his partner Wyatt are crouched near what looks like a very expensive Erector set. The inside of the van is carpeted in burgundy with boxes of tools, soda bottles, sheet rock, wires and hard metal cases strewn about haphazardly. It looks like they’re getting ready to rob a bank instead of fly a fifteen-thousand dollar helicopter.

I close in on the van, and ask no one in particular, “What happens if the cops show up? Can we still do this?” Wyatt is off to the side of the van talking with someone, and the someone is wearing a trucker cap and a smirk. Wyatt hears my question and says, “Hey kid, here’s a quarter, call someone who cares…Do you know where that’s from?” I smile and say no I don’t. Wyatt shakes his head and returns to the van where AJ is trying to steady a camera into a mount. When I turn around to take in the Promenade, a patrol car pulls up across the street from the van.

AJ Acevedo Video Interview

AJ Acevedo is the founder of Flightlutions , an aerial video and photography solution company based out of Brooklyn. The name Flightlutions is a hybrid between the words flight and solutions, which he thinks helps to set himself apart from others in this industry who provide just the two types of services. AJ stresses solutions when talking about his company. “We offer more than just aerial video and photography services, we offer aerial video and photography solutions. So if you can think of it we’ll put our heads together and figure out a solution for ya.” The name also has gotten him ribbed a bit from people when they first hear it. “Yeah, I get beef about the name all the time.”

As a young boy it was apparent to AJ that his love for flight would take him to places that people on terra firma dream about. In his adolescence he had recurring dreams of flying for years. No, not a helicopter or plane, just little AJ soaring over the verdure of a pastoral backdrop. As an adult he entered flight school, logging over one-hundred hours of flying time in a helicopter. When the money ran out AJ left without completing his certification, but the itch for flying never fizzled out. In preparation for Flightlutions AJ first logged over one-thousand hours using a virtual flight simulator to recreate the flying environment he would eventually inherit when using a RC helicopter. His intent after learning how to fly a RC helicopter was to mount a camera to it, merging another love, photography, with his first one.

AJ and Wyatt each take an end of the RC helicopter and lug it back through Empire-Fulton Ferry park , which is connected to Brooklyn Bridge Park. While the helicopter was being readied under increased winds in front of the Promenade, Wyatt sauntered over to the patrol. Wyatt, with his tattooed forearms and handle bar mustache tries to sweet talk the officers into letting us fly the helicopter over the Promenade. After a ten minute conversation we clear out and make our way to the park. AJ looks concerned, like this isn’t going to happen. When we enter Empire-Fulton Ferry park we are stopped by three park officers who squint at us suspiciously. Wyatt steps to speak with one of them and they tell us that we can’t fly without a permit technically. They say we need to go to the Brooklyn Bridge Park and fly near the water and try not to kill anyone. As we pull away from the three park officers, Wyatt mumbles “I think that guy busted me for drinking in this park like ten years ago.”

“You guys gotta back up,” AJ says, donning sunglasses and a smile. The helicopter is assembled, gassed up and ready to fly. Wyatt sticks what looks like dynamite taped to a drill and jams it into the top of the helicopter and starts the propeller. AJ holds the remote control and the knobs glisten as he flicks them when the helicopter is in flight. Wyatt pivots the camera at the control station just behind us. AJ is calm as he is zipping the helicopter through the air, and just like in his dreams as a kid, little AJ is flying.

Photo Shoot

The World Coming In

Dante Russo finds inspiration all around for his writing/acting/singing.
By Joshua C. Harris

As the needle on the throwback record player rides the vinyl groove, Dante quietly sings along. He adjusts his pressed collared shirt downward over his slim frame and thumbs through his eclectic record collection at the same time, label by label, finding various oddities to laugh about. “Oh..this one..” he chuckles “…Persuasive Percussion!”, Dante switches the sweet sound of the Joni Mitchell album to what sounds like 1970’s elevator music. Oddly enough, the smooth bossa nova like sounds of “Persuasive Percussion” are relaxing and set the mood for our talk with Dante Russo.

Dante is an actor and playwright living in Washington Heights . His resume is impressive, having acted in Disney’s national High School Musical tour, countless regional theater productions, and having written many of his own full length theater productions. While his resume is enviable, it’s Dante’s methodology that’s truly striking. “…When I write, I have to travel, I find so much more inspiration when I travel”. Dante finds his writing inspiration through focused interpretation of the world around him. It’s a seemingly simple concept but rarely followed through in lieu of the cyclical habits that modern life demands of us. Pay the bills, go to work, take out the garbage, respond to our e-mails, those tasks that limit our field of view are the things that , Dante indirectly expresses, inhibit our ability to become inspired. While Dante alludes to the sense of being affected by the world around him in order to find something to capture for his writing, he juxtaposes this with the solitary closed off method of preparing for his acting, “…When I prepare to perform, I have to sort of shut all that out, because it becomes overwhelming”.

Dante Video Interview

As he explains these theories, my eyes wander to Dante’s living room walls, particularly on the art and pictures he’s collected on his journeys and those that connect him to his family. “Yeah, that one is my sister Theresa and I when we where kids. She passed away when I was young…” Dante explains as I admire the two children in the picture combined together in a waltz-like dancing stance. Dante tells us of his new play “Extraordinary“; a production inspired by his late sister and empowered by his family’s foundation for her. The Theresa Alessandra Russo Foundation , as it was named, since 1992 acts in the interest of nurturing the development of children with special needs via funding creative activities such as music, dance, and art. Dante speaks passionate about the foundation, highlighting the fact that in association with the foundation, he and his family are also announcing the Theresa Academy of Performing Arts, an academy dedicated to actually instructing special needs children in the creative arts.

We break from our conversation and Dante puts on another record. Among the melodic riffs, we find out Dante has more projects — a lot more projects. He tells us he’s working on a full web-series, children’s book, an epic play set during the second world war, and auditioning for more plays. He exhausts himself describing everything, and smiles. You can tell he’s embarrassed and proud at the same time with doing so much. Yet, it’s his nature to be so involved with the creative process. From the inspiration his family instilled within him, to the constant reminder his sister’s memory provides him, Dante is thankful for his passion, “..I’ve always just woken up, being allowed to be creative…”.

Dante Photo Shoot