Cameras in the Cockpit

Recording glider flight video is great fun! Yes, safety is a worthwhile concern.

I try to set my cameras to be 99.9% "press record and forget." Once in awhile I will adjust the angle of my forward camera from recording "me" to recording "something interesting" to the side. But overall you do not want to spend much time paying attention to "aiming" the camera or changing batteries or SD cards. This is bad news. My other "over the shoulder" camera position faces forward and gets the panel usually and 60 degrees to each side. It is easy to interlace these 2 camera angles into a nice continuous multi-angle video with common video editing software such as Final Cut Pro which can time sync simultaneous video easily by using the sound.

Also be careful to run any wires carefully to ensure they are free of any flight controls. I run extended batteries and multiple cameras at times on ReplayXD cameras. This takes some planning. Each glider is quite different. Don't just run up to the glider and slap in in and go flying. Leave ample time to test angles and make sure the camera is free of control movements and not obstructing your vision.

7T