Sofcoast

Seeing is believing!

2013-03-14T09:11:46-07:00

Now you can own your own Live HD Video multi screen, multicasting system for broadcasting and entertainment applications. Sofcoast is pleased to provide some preliminary video for the MAKO Live! HD - which is our next ground breaking innovation which brings a truly ready to use commercial off the shelf (COTS) air to ground or ground to ground broadcast quality HD Video solution to the world. Prices start at $10,000.00 for a complete system (turn key and ready to fly or use).
Contact us for more details. www.sofcoast.com

2013-03-06T10:04:47-08:00

Coming Soon:
MAKO LiveHD - which is Sofcoast's next ground breaking innovation in the form of Sofcoast's air to ground and ground to ground Live HD Video multi screen, multicasting system for broadcasting and entertainment applications. Contact us for more details. 866-213-2219.

MAKO LIVE HD AERIAL COVERAGE MULTI-SCREEN INNOVATION

MAKO launches / recovers on USS Midway

2013-02-16T12:06:12-08:00

I'm not sure but this might be the first aircraft launched and recovered aboard the USS Midway in over a decade... At any rate we had a blast and have been invited back and are looking forward to it.

Cheers,
John Surmont
Founder/Chief Design Officer/CEO for Sofcoast, Inc.

ISR Payload Maiden Flight

2012-10-16T23:03:40-07:00

This video is of the first payload flight test of the MAKO ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance) variant being developed for DoD and other's.

As a result of decades as end user's/practioner's and five years in the lab, the Sofcoast team is bringing it's vision for tactical information systems to market, starting with their pioneering work in defining a new category of tethered inflatable aerial platform called the Hybrid Air System. Hybrid Air Systems come in different shapes and sizes and all share the basic design principle of delivering unprecedented ease of use for the end user while combining the most desirable features of Small Unmanned Aerial System's, aerostats (balloons on strings) and kites to deliver game changing flexibility, value and performance for portable persistent fixed or mobile elevated platforms. Platform applications vary from video broadcast imaging to extending communications ranges through airborne voice and data communications repeater's.

ASAP XP MAKO Hybrid Air System ISR Payload Maiden Flight from John Surmont on Vimeo.

Otay Ranch Town Center Flight

2012-05-22T10:26:15-07:00

The purpose of the Otay Ranch Town Center flight was to provide unique viewing angles and vantage points for lightweight High Definition camera's while fly in high visibility / high profile / high traffic area's such as an outdoor shopping mall in Southern California.

While we were conducting this flight we learned about a pretty cool paintball facility...which we talk a little bit about in the video.

Cheers.

American Idol Finalist Jessica Sanchez Homecoming

2012-05-14T06:47:45-07:00

Imagery (Including aerial) of Jessica Sanchez's Top 3 American Idol Homecoming at Eastlake High School in Chula Vista (San Diego), CA.

One note: This happened so fast that I didn't have time to work with any of the Sofcoast payload partners and literally strapped a couple of nonstabilized gopro camera's onto MAKO and "went with it." It's only going to get better - and this is pretty good. Especially since I'm standing in the crowd and nobody realizes until they do and they're like "wow! that's cool!" Life is good.

Enjoy.

Unobtrusive and Non-threatening

2012-05-01T11:17:14-07:00

In a previous post titled "The Elephant in the Room" I described my emotional journey and a milestone event for me where in order to allow our company and product to continue to build momentum both in product maturity and accelerating momentum towards market acceptance and entry, I needed put my ego aside and be satisfied with the artistic and utilitarian nature of the MAKO product.

I think that fundamentally this is the manifistation of a philosophy I termed "Low Friction Innovaton", which has been a product design and development approach I have been developing and refining over 20 years of cumulative experiences as a special operations end user/practioner and SOF technologist. I'm learning that it's no longer theoretical or a fantasy - It works.

This has been difficult for me to describe to others and I accept that, for me, the best way for me to describe it to people is to simply demonstrate it.

MAKO is one of my fullest expressions (to date) of this design (and now product) philosophy.

Another incredibly subtle but very important attribute of this approach is that in the case of the MAKO system, in describing MAKO to people while in operation (or to people passing by) it is incredibly non-threatening and unobtrusive. Ironically, this was a key reason I struggled with describing MAKO to people because it wasn't "splashy" and didn't "jolt" or make someone do a double take. (Not counting very early prototypes that were - well - early prototypes...) It was at it's core an elegantly simple, high performance balloon flying on a string. Responses I've seen evoked have ranged from "wow, that's cool!' to "eh." to "so what?"

I get that now and am absolutely ok and centered with this. Because, frankly in everything I do, my ultimate goal is to deliver utilitarian art that has a positive impact. It's starting to happen. The visceral responses come when people see what they can do with the product.

An example is a brief video clip from some aerial imagery from MAKO on a quiet Sunday Morning in late spring in San Diego. This video clip has an audio recording of the sounds from MAKO while in flight.

Again, it's subtle - but when you watch the video, listen to the audio.

What do you hear?

Cheers,

John

Adjacent Market Solutions

2012-04-27T13:54:18-07:00

We're pretty excited to have been given permission to release images and video publicly of our association with Lockheed Martin Skunkworks to bring the Sofcoast's ASAP XP MAKO Hybrid Air System to market this year.

Starting off with a brief broadcast from The Pulse Network during the 2012 National Association of Broadcaster's Show in Las Vegas.

In this segment, Mr. Koonce from Lockheed Martin discusses a brief history of Skunkworks and then talks a little bit about the LM NAB exhibit. More to follow.