Hi Noel,

While I agree with others that you don't want to be "playing" with the video
camera while in flight, I do think that it would be OK to rigidly install
something before flight and forget it while in flight.

I had a company approach me recently about selling their digital video
systems. They are designed for use in race cars and aircraft. They are
more expensive though - starting at about $1698 for a single camera system.
It uses a very small Sony EXView 580 camera head and a small digital
recorder box. It is not HD quality, but much better than the low cost video
cameras mentioned elsewhere in this thread. The videos on their web site
are quite impressive.

I told them I would think about selling their products after seeing if their
is interest first. I plan to mention the system in my next newsletter. It
would be fun to sell products like this, but I fear that the technology is
changing so rapidly that it doesn't make sense to stock anything.

The systems are from datatoys.com. Below are some links to the products of
interest.
http://www.datatoys.com/products/Spe..._11/index.html
http://www.datatoys.com/products/Pro...duct_info.html

Let me know if you are interested in one of their systems and I'd be glad to
help you out.

Good Soaring,

Paul Remde
Cumulus Soaring, Inc.
http://www.cumulus-soaring.com

"noel.wade" wrote in message
...
Hi All,

I'm hoping to take some on-board video of my first Regional
competition in April - but all I have right now is a hand-held
camcorder. OBVIOUSLY that is not a safe device to use when doing any
serious flying; especially not in a contest environment!

So I wanted to ask folks if they knew of a good setup to use. I'm
thinking about a bullet/lipstick camera that I can put either in the
cockpit (on some kind of remote mount), or up on the TE probe. I want
something I can simply turn on at the beginning of each flight and let
it capture a couple of hours of video (hands-free operation so its not
a distraction during my competition).

I've found some interesting "helmet-cam" type systems (the VIO POV1
system is especially impressive), but I'm not sure if these systems
have a wide-enough lens or can focus on distant objects well-enough to
capture the actual scenery when soaring.

Any tips or ideas on equipment?

Thanks, take care,

--Noel