The more we fly, the more video I want and in fact do take, so I thought I’d give a quick update with what we’re using today. But first, let me talk about why I do this.

It would be great to say that I want to motivate current and future builders to keep at it and ‘Live the Dream’, and there is something to that. We also try to give those folks rides, though I do less of that than I would like to, or think I probably should. Part of it is also that, when we go somewhere or do something interesting (a fly-in or whatever the case is), we want to share that experience with our friends. And we love to see pictures and videos from our friend’s flying adventures, so it’s reasonable to assume they do the same. But more importantly, I love watching them. Most folks that finish building one of these airplanes does it because they love it; the look, the feel, the idea of it, everything. That’s why I never really get tired of talking about the airplane or showing it to folks. So, I just dig reliving the time we spend in the airplane, because until I retire I spend a lot more time out of the plane than I can in it.

I also realize that I won’t always have the airplane, and I know that I will long to have captured these moments then. I had a conversation with a friend of ours, Mark, who’s a repeat builder. He commented that he had very few high quality/high resolution pictures, and only 1 video if I recall right, of that first airplane. I don’t want to be in that position when the Fox eventually leaves our den.

So, with those preliminaries, I want to capture as many key moments as I can, and do so with as high a quality as I can. Part of that is a decent camera, but video is also a major player. A big piece of that is capturing video of the plane, and I’d like to do more of that, and the other part is capturing the experience. To that point, I watched the Kufalk’s arrival video to Airventure, and really enjoyed the “in cockpit” experience much more than I expected. I didn’t think anyone would want to look at me, and I didn’t expect to want to see them, but I really, really enjoyed it. Part of that was that I was there, but I felt like I was part of their experience because I got to sit in the cabin with them vicariously. So, I’ve decided to add this camera angle to our future flights. I’ve added my older Contour HD (720p) camera on a windshield mount to do this job, and I think it’s working well.

Also, I’ve never been totally happy with the perspective that my newer Contour HD was giving us. I’d mounted it on the roll structure between the cockpit seats to give the cockpit experience (see picture 10 below). It gives a partial view of the panel and a partial view out the window. It doesn’t do either well. I have added a windshield mounted GoPro Hero2 for the ‘Out the Window’ view, and I think it’s doing a great job. I will probably add a mount that will point the newer Contour HD (1080p) towards the panel for times when it is of interest (speed, altitude, location, traffic, or weather). When added to the current wing cameras, it allows me to splice the various views together to tell a story in pictures.

In addition to that, I’ve added a quality digital audio recording to capture the intercom and radio sound, and flight data from either my iphone (with the Dashware app) or the GPS data captured by my Contour HD camera (the newer Hero’s may do this too). This allows me to overaly the speed, heading, altitude and position on the GPS tracklog. This isn’t perfect because it’s GPS data, so airspeed and altitude are a little off, but I think it helps give the viewer a better sense of what’s going on.

Maybe we’re all frustrated movie makers, or maybe that’s just me, but really like trying to tell the story of our travels so that folks can relate, whether they’re a current builder, wanna-be, or just our friends. All of this gear helps to do that, so I hope folks enjoy it.

Video
Go Pro Hero 2 Cameras	Contour HD Cameras
Go Pro Hero 2 Camera in Sky-3D wing mount	Newer, 1080p, Contour HD Older, 720p, Contour HD Contour HD Cameras
	Dashware Software for GPS and Data Display
Go Pro Hero 2 Camera in windshield mount contour Hd over shoulder	Recording with Dashware data overlaid
Audio
Panasonic DS30	Intercom to Audio In wiring (Aircraft Spurce 11-00692)

Posted By: Brett Ferrell
Sunday August 2nd, 2015 at 11:47 PM

Categories: A/V Recording
Tags: A/V Recording Building Camera Contour HD GoPro Hero2