Cockpit video recording -- the time is now.

My Air Glide S feeds data to my Oudie which is recorded in the IGC file at 1Hz. Supplementary data is TAS, GS, TRK, VAR. You can determine gusts in the x and z axes from that data (without heading, you cannot determine gusts in the y axis).

I would like to see a 5 minute buffer with the attitude and 3-axis acceleration data which the Air Glide Sensor Unit produces at 20 Hz.

We are seeing a number of unexplained accidents and are conjecturing among control problems, structural failures, incapacitation and gusts (my own experience).

My take on incapacitation as a possibility is that while quite possible, it seems more conjectured with gliders than the record shows with powered aircraft.

That said any degree of hypoxia can degrade capacity and lead to a suspected loss of control or structural failure.

Roy,

Most of us routinely fly with multiple loggers and trackers. All of that data is just as subject to subpoena as the proposed video data. Logger and tracker data is just as useful in each of your examples: FAA airspace, crazy ladies, insurance companies and divorce lawyers. Yet, I've not heard about anyone being plagued by subpoenas. I'll agree that it's a potential issue; but not one of much concern considering the practical equivalence of what we are already all doing routinely. In fact, most guys are now posting each and every flight to the internet for all to see.

Your point about not being easy to mandate was acknowledged at the onset. It's doable; but only if there were the corporate will to know why the accidents are happening. It's not necessarily an easy sell since the amount that people care about such things does vary.

You wanted to make comparison with PowerFlarm adoption; but that's not a great counter-example since we have achieved virtually 100% adoption of Flarm now at SSA race events. Such things are achievable. My club is getting pretty small these days, but around here almost everyone flies with PowerFlarm. The contemplated video logger would be a much smaller, simpler and cheaper device than PowerFlarm.

On Monday, October 1, 2018 at 6:06:54 PM UTC-7, Roy B. wrote:
"I'm only talking about giving up my privacy when I have a reportable accident."

Sorry Steve -but life and litigation don't work that way. Once you "mandate" the creation and maintenance of the data source it is out there for anybody to subpoena:

The insurance company that doesn't want to pay a claim, The FAA when it wants to revoke your license for busting airspace, the divorce lawyer who wants to see if you really were on a gliding vacation that weekend, the crazy lady who bought a house on airport road but doesn't like towplane noise, . . . they all can get the videos.

And how do we do it? What percentage of the glider fleet now has FLARM (which makes infinitely more sense if something must be "mandated")? 1% maybe? My A&I has to take a course in video installation? CDs have to check video samples before a contest like ENLs? And to what end? Do you really need a video to diagnose a stall spin in? Would a video explain the Arcus/Nephi accident that an experienced pilot who watched and felt it happen can't explain? Is a guy screwing around before his (unexpected) fatal accident not going to disable the camera? Is it coincidence that police and military body cameras have a remarkable failure rate in the field?

Let's all get behind this idea and push it out the window . . .

ROY

Steve Koerner wrote on 10/1/2018 1:06 PM:
I'm sick and tired of reading about glider crashes and never knowing what actually happened. We badly need to be able to learn from the misfortune of our soaring compadres.

The obvious answer is that we all have a camera mounted over our right shoulder that will simultaneously monitor the scene out the front canopy, monitor the panel instruments and monitor the pilot's flight inputs. .
..
..
..
No more mysteries! We need to know what is causing our accidents so we have a chance to fix the problems.

There is always the possibility of a medical event, which is hard to discern from
examining the flight trace. A camera on the panel or glare shield, aimed at the
pilot, and recording in a, say, 20 minute loop would make it much more likely a
medical event (including oxygen issues) would be discovered.

The camera could start automatically when the panel power was turned on, and a
single push of a button on it could erase the video after landing. That would
allow the pilot to protect privacy in non-accident landings.

Maybe we could all wear Apple Watches (or similar), to monitor our vitals as we
flew? A smartphone could store and process the info, perhaps alerting us to
dangerous situations, like too high or too low pulse rates, low oxygen saturation,
and even EKG events. I suspect this idea is too far-fetched compare to the "pilot
cam".

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation"
https://sites.google.com/site/motorg...ad-the-guide-1
- "Transponders in Sailplanes - Dec 2014a" also ADS-B, PCAS, Flarm

http://soaringsafety.org/prevention/...anes-2014A.pdf

John Foster, is the stuff you read on Balleka's accident a few years ago available to the rest of us?

Boggs

AAIB report on Balleka accident

https://www.gov.uk/aaib-reports/aaib...-asw-24-g-cfng

On Tuesday, October 2, 2018 at 4:16:24 PM UTC-7, George Haeh wrote:
AAIB report on Balleka accident

https://www.gov.uk/aaib-reports/aaib...-asw-24-g-cfng

Accident less than two years ago, and report seven months ago.

"a few years ago"

Steve:
let me briefly respond to your points - but in reverse order.

FLARM is an active and useful accident avoidance device - albeit at a cost. Yet everybody still resisted making it mandatory. Although it is useful in the air to avoid collisions it has achieved less than 1% penetration into gliders operating and flights being conducted. Competition flying (where FLARM is well accepted now) is a microscopic subset of glider flying in the US and the accidents that you want to learn about are not happening for the most part in SSA sanctioned contests.

But your camera idea does not even qualify as an accident avoidance device - it's a post accident diagnostic device that might "possibly" assist in some types of accident investigations if it captures useful diagnostic information and if it survives the crash. And it also has a cost particularly if it is to be made crash-worthy. To use a silly illustration of the comparison with FLARM - it's the difference between Health insurance (that keeps you or gets you healthy) and private autopsy insurance (that tells others why you are dead). Of course nobody buys or sells autopsy insurance - there is little perceived value in it and the government does a generally acceptable job doing it free. The same will be true of your cameras and any attempt to make them mandatory: Little perceived value for the cost and the government does a generally acceptable job at accident investigation.

I also disagree that an electronic stream of GPS data points that requires an intermediary program to collate and present into what is essentially a cartoon presentation of the flight (like SeeYou) is the same type of invasion of privacy as a video which is immediately usable, publishable and understandable. Yes- we all fly with multiple GPS trackers but I retain the option (even in a SSA contest) of refusing to submit my flight log and accepting the penalty for that. And need I mention that none of the tracking devices I use carry the problem of being focused on the control stick area while I am fitting and using the catheter in flight? And if you say "OK - we can turn it off then" - you have just made it non mandatory and ruined your whole argument.

In the end Steve, your strongest argument is "We gotta do something." That maybe true and I respect the feeling - but it's not this mandatory camera idea that we should do.

All the best,
ROY

Roy, where the “less than 1%� powerflarm adoption came from? Are you in the US?
In my region (region 11) most gliders have powerflarm, in some areas the adoption is close to 90%. I am not talking contests.
It is hard to take seriously anything else you write when you make such an absurd claim.

Ramy

Hi Ramy:
Your issue about my data is a little besides the point I was making - but to answer your question I am in New England where I am a former SSA director and the Chief Pilot for the largest club. In Region 1 there are exactly zero club gliders (counting all clubs) with FLARM, zero tow planes with it, and only about 16-18 privately owned gliders that have it. Particularly considering that the club gliders are doing the most flights and hours - that's pretty poor penetration. I am not saying that is a good thing - and I am a FLARM supporter - but outside the competition scene it just has not penetrated.

My point however - was (and is) that if you can't get people to mandate use of an accident prevention device - how are you going to mandate a accident diagnostic device?

Safety Nazis, mandating this and that. I think I threw up a little.