This is one of the most common questions I get, and the honest answer is: a lot longer than most people expect.
Once I land from a trip, the process starts with importing the footage. Transferring everything from the Micro SD cards to my PC can take several hours on its own, especially for long-distance flights shot in 4K. A single multi-leg trip can easily produce hundreds of gigabytes of raw video.
I always edit in chronological order, which means some footage can sit on my hard drive for weeks or even months before I get to it, due to my full-time job and the natural backlog that builds up.
The actual editing phase is where the real time goes in. I start by lining up footage from multiple cameras (cockpit, external, and sometimes passenger views) and carefully syncing the ATC audio. Getting the alignment accurate across all sources is a painstaking task. Only after that can I re-watch everything and begin selecting the best moments.
When it comes to turning raw flight footage into a watchable YouTube video, the ratio is roughly 5 to 7 hours of editing for every 1 hour of actual flight time.
That means a relatively straightforward trip, such as a flight down to Montpellier, can easily take an entire day (or more) sitting in front of the computer, cutting, pacing, adding narration, colour grading, and polishing the final edit.
It’s a labour-intensive process, but I enjoy turning those long hours in the air into stories that hopefully inspire and educate fellow pilots and aviation enthusiasts.