Last friday was an awesome day for flying. Almost no wind, beautiful sunny day, and a virtually infinite ceiling. I got some practice in the Warrior at the Av-Ed flight school in Winchester in preparation for purchasing my own. Video coverage is from about 2500 to 4500 feet MSL depending on which direction I was […]
Zoom H4N Pro Portable Audio Recorder
I picked up this recorder a few months ago for recording cockpit audio and various amateur recording tasks where I might want better audio in the field than what simply recording with my phone is capable of. It’s a bit large and the audio quality is massive overkill if you just want it for cockpit […]
GoPro/Action Camera Airplane Mounting Options
These are the two mounts I use to mount action cameras to the outside of the three planes I currently rent (a Cessna 162 Skycatcher, a Cessna 172 Skyhawk and a Piper Warrior). Both mounts are designed to attach to the tiedowns. I’d like to get video from the tail but until I’m mounting stuff […]
Wife’s first flight!
I mounted an action camera in the cockpit for Dominique’s first small aircraft plane ride (she’s flown commercial lots of times but never in a small general aviation plane). The expression of sheer terror on her face turning instantly to overjoyed when we touched down safe and sound is pretty funny.
More practice solos waiting for the checkride date
My Private Pilot checkride is now fast approaching, scheduled for the 22nd so I’ve been trying to schedule a solo flight once a week until then to stay current and prepared for the final test in about two weeks as of this writing. I cut together some video from a camera mounted on the wing […]
Padgene DZ09 Smart (ish) Watch
Somehow between the shower and the office I lost my watch (just an el-cheapo digital no big loss) so in looking for a replacement I came across these cheap “smart” watches on Amazon for just under 20 bucks. This looked like the nicest of the myriad Chinese knockoffs so I figured I’d spend at least […]
Osburn 2400 Fireplace insert at about 550 Degrees F
This is just a short clip I recorded with my phone of the fire burning in the Osburn 2400 fireplace insert we installed last spring. It measured about 550 degrees Fahrenheit on the top plate. I didn’t think to measure the internal temperature at the time but given that it measures about 350 when it’s […]
SQ8 Mini DV Camera
This is a fun little toy but it has limited usefulness. The image in bright sunlight is surprisingly good but the framerate is a paltry 15 FPS making it really only useful for maybe a cheap on-body camera or something. The low light video is unusable for anything but security type recordings. The IR feature […]
Wimius Q1 4K Action Camera Review
This is a great little camera for the money. The only real drawback is that the video has a slightly green hue compared to higher priced cameras. The color balance can be fixed in software and it’s not so bad that it’s a deal breaker, not at the price they’re going for anyway.
Second practical test prep lesson
This was one of the few remaining preparatory lessons before the dreaded oral and practical test for my pilot’s license. About seven minutes into the video, you’ll see the tail camera suddenly change position pointing just about straight down instead of forward. We were practicing short field landings and when we pitched higher than usual, […]