I know that, like me, some of you have been qualified as … geeks! No shame to that but the invariable question we are asking ourselves is: “How did he do it?”.

Today, I will talk briefly about I’m doing all the recordings and some of the enhancement that I would like to bring.

From the very first flight that I did on a commercial airplane, I thought it would be cool to be able to document some aspect of the flight. Unfortunately, it was not always very practical to do it and getting the camera at the right time was sometime difficult to achieve.

When I’ve decided to start in the general aviation, from the discovery flight on, I knew I would live an experience that very few have had and it would be neat to be able to document it. It would be a way to memorize it for me also. So during the first flight, I took some pictures while the instructor was piloting but I knew that would not be good enough for me. I mean the picture are turning out very nice but how can you capture the feeling of approaching an airport or the subtle movement of a plane in flight… Moreover, if I’m piloting, who is going to take the pictures or the video? Not me! That’s for sure!

Getting video recorded

I knew at that point that I would need to switch to video to be able to capture it. During one trip in Minnesota, some co workers introduced me to a little digital camcorder called Flip. This camcorder is near perfect for what I wanted to do. So I decided to buy the Flip UltraHD.

1. It is digital: No tape to play around with.
2. Record in MP4: No painfully slow capture of the film on the computer
3. 2 hours of recording: That should plenty and avoid having to switch tape every 30 minutes….
4. Recording in 720p format: Support HD resolution. That should help capturing details of the flight.

But having the camera is only part one of getting video footage. The immediate next problem arising is how to fix it. Holding it is not an option at all so it has to be attached to the plane. Well, this is not my plane so it can not be permanent and it should be in and out pretty quickly! I have to admit that I have struggled with finding the proper place to put it and what mechanism to attached it.

I have tried several options you might recognize in the different videos:

• The easiest are the flight with a passenger. Then the deal to fly with me is: "You hold the camera and you record anything that you find interesting or would like to remember!”
• A hard case for camera with a belt strap was holding the flip. A long strap is holding the case to the headrest of my seat. I’ve experimented with 2 different positions in the plane. Ultimately, I’ve decided that I needed to find a better position to record.
  • First one was located on the side of the headrest pointing towards the wing. This position gives some really nice views but an entire flight is getting boring pretty quick. Moreover, it does not translate properly what is happening in the plane.
  • Second position is next to my head, looking forward. This position is nice but is not offering a very good view forward and the difference in illumination between the inside and outside of the plane tends to darken all the instruments on the video. No chance to get any readings.

•   A complete change of approach, I’ve bought a cell phone holder usually used for car with a large suction cup. By attaching it on the side of the windshield, I can record everything happening in front of the plane. This has been the best mount option so far but reveal only a single point of view. I guess more cameras will be required if I want more diverse videos… It has been working pretty well for quite some time but the problem is that it started to not stick too well. It might very well be because of the low quality of the one I have bought… Anyway, I have decided to give a shot to something different: weighted base. I did not had the chance to try it so far but it should be working fine. The good thing about a weighted base is the capability to move the camera at least a little instead of having it very fixed. The bad thing. Not sure how something not secured to the plane will do during advanced maneuvers.

I believe the best option is too have a head mounted camera. This would allow to actually capture different areas of the plane and not getting something too fix as I currently have. It would allow also to capture the instrument panels. I’m currently very tempted by an upcoming model from VholdR called the ContourHD 1080p. This might be a good replacement or complement to the Flip!

Getting sound recorded

Well the camcorder has a microphone but the plane is too noisy to actually record what is happening in the cockpit and unless we are doing the entire flight with the speakers of the plane on, there is no way to capture the radio communication. Looking at the previous videos, there is something missing. Something that does not completely translate what I’m feeling, what is happening in the cockpit. I’ve realized that a lot of the communication in the cockpit is what is missing from all my videos. This is what gives meaning to the visual.  So I had to find a way to record the radio transmission and the in-cockpit communication. It is now done! I have found how I can do such a thing fairly easily.

The ideal would have been to have an audio input on the camcorder but that is not possible with the flip unfortunately. They are trading simplicity for lower price point. So my next best option was to purchase a simple voice recorder connected to the intercom of the plane. I’ve used the Sony ICD PX-720. Why this model? Well, I did not have much of a choice. I wanted a model that had external microphone input, record digitally, and can export in an MP3 format and I wanted now as I had about 3 days left of flying.

Creating the movies

Once I have all the movies, the mp3 of the cockpit conversation, I just have to recombined them together, determine the pieces I want to keep, cut the areas I do not want, fast forward the piece I want to keep but are too lengthy, add a couple of subtitles and we are good to generate the video for upload. On average, about an hour of work for 10 minutes of video. The software I’m using is Windows Movie Maker! Yep, the standard software delivered with Windows Vista.

So what’s next?

So now that I have video recordings of the plane flying and the sound from the cockpit, what is next? I have a few ideas: Getting more videos would be nice and would allow multiple point of view. This would avoid the too linear aspect of the current videos. Recording the GPS trail of the plane is another one high on my priority list. I would like to be able to retrace the movement of the plane and sync them with the video, it should be fun and it would allow to give a more detailed description of the trainings. It would be also a very good set of data to learn from my mistakes… I do have an idea on how to perform that but I have to look for the best device to do it!