On Wednesday, January 13, 2016 at 7:37:34 AM UTC-5, Casey wrote:
Just wondering how others feel about sport cameras in the cockpit. Does it help with learning or is it a distraction? Would it help in accident investigations? I've seen some speculation with accidents and if a camera had been on pilot then that could help determine if a medical emergency was the cause.

I know a CFIG that does not like students to have a camera in the cockpit because he thinks it is distracting to the student.

I know that my learning curve of flying and non-flying sports have been helped by me seeing any slight error in my technique.

I know some just don't want to learn another piece of electronics, but its much easier to download and just view. One does not have to edit or post, and the price of sport cameras are cheap for some of them out there.

Could definitive proof of pilot error cause legalities for the pilots family if others were involved in the accident?

I see a lot of cool soaring videos on youtube and most seem to be coming from Europe. Of course some of these have a lot of editing involved. I don't seem many instructional type soaring videos online though. Just yesterday I did see a video from Europe that a pilot did a bungee launch with spoilers open and landed out with near accident, which was informative/instructional.

Casey

It would be wise for those doing videos and posting to carefully consider what they publish because you can't pull them back.
They can be fun to watch and educational but can have negative consequences..
Examples:
One pilot published a video of him talking on the phone while getting ready top land out. It sets a terrible example and shows his poor judgement at that time.
Another has published some really good videos done during contests that document significant periods of flying near cloud base in violation of FAR's. If the Friendly Aviation Association were to pursue this, I can't imagine how it would be defended to get a favorable result.
As to training, If a recording showed a questionable piece of training, possibly followed later by corrective instruction, it could easily be used by an attorney in another case to imply a pattern of bad training. My opinion is that the risk of this far outweighs the likely benefit.
Of course the best solution is to always do it right, but everyone makes errors and selective editing can show whatever the editor wants.
Better safe than sorry.
UH