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How to Mount a Camera In/On an Airplane

Nice post. I too have a drift 4K as well as a few older GoPro 3. I've tried most of the mounts you have and had varying success. I appreciate the post and how you organized your evolution of videography. I'll keep it on hand for reference.
 
Several people have asked what I use for cameras and how I mount them. I finally took the time to gather up all of my trials and errors and put them in one place. For those of you who don't want to read the whole saga, skip to the bottom to find the mounting options I currently use and the more common ones available.

https://www.rushesroost.com/post/mounting-cameras-in-on-airplanes

Steve,

how do you turn on/off your GOPRO or do you leave it on the entire flight?
 
Leave it On

I went through many iterations of trying to turn it on/off in flight and none of them worked satisfactorily. Usually the remote (iPhone or camera remote) would stop responding after a few on/off cycles. Also, having any kind of paired control system further erodes the already anemic battery life on a GoPro.

In the end, I installed a power supply in the wing tip and just start recording before I get in and leave it going until I get out.
 
cheap cameras with dashcam mode

The super-cheap "action cameras" I have tested have what they call a "dashcam mode" - they start recording when they get power. Works really well, but it seems that for some reason gopro does not have this feature.

I think the future is to use some of the cameras used by drones - they are very small but with good quality, and obviously they are made to fly. Someone will package up a kit for us one day, I'm sure. I've love to have a camera looking at all parts of the aircraft so that I can eventually tuft it, and see how things look. Also, more visibility on the wheels would be great to see how they behave during landings and taxiing.
 
Top of the Empennage ?

Hi All..

With this Covid thing keeping us home and in the shop...

I had to give it a shot mounting a camera with audio in the top of the empennage... Seemed like a cool place to mount one..

If we can just get some good sunny weather here in upstate NY to really check it out.. But it looking good..




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To get even better footage from the hopefully many formation flying opportunities next year, we're trying to gear up ;-)

currently i'm working on an external controlled pan/tilt mount for a "DJI osmo action" cam, starting with a mount to the tail tiedown looking mainly towards the rear / wingmen but also forward for takeoff/landing.
as ArlingtonRV mentioned, i'm also trusting in the motion stabilization of the cam, which is a big plus for those action cams. the field of view however is rather too wide and makes formations look further away than they really are.
once i've got something halfway working, i'll post, too early yet...

one option that i'm also thinking about would be rolling something based on the new raspberry pi HQ cam, which allows different lenses to be mounted. this might permit telephoto type shots as well, on the other hand this makes obviously the topic of stabilization and vibration a lot more problematic.
wonder if anyone has experimented with such lenses? what lenses do you think would be ideal for formation flying?
 
I made an extra vertical stab fairing with an integrated camera mount and a USB power supply inside. I have the wiring there for a beacon light and when I swap the fairing I just also swap the power with the installed connector. There is a springloaded door on the fairing where I can push the USB cable in.

tbcukHL.jpg
 
I guess the WiFi is for downloading the video to a laptop, so you don't ever have to remove the fairing to access the storage card, is that right?

And another question on the audio - I'm fixing to be down for an extensive annual, did you run shielded pair back to the camera for that?
 
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Vid With Tail mount camera

Here is a nice vid distraction for a cold Sunday morning



Tail mounted camera view of landing on a breezy winder day @ B16

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Camera set up.

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enjoy.. Be safe...
 
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