What is the L/D penalty of outside mounted GoPros?

On Tuesday, January 6, 2015 9:34:02 AM UTC-5, PBA wrote:
I'm doing this currently and have landed with 5 hrs of extremely boring, continuous flight video of flatland soaring....I need to move to the mountains!

Serious question. Did watching the video change your enjoyment of flatland soaring? Or were you starting to get bored with it before you took the video?

Flubber,

Serious answer: I love flatland soaring and I'm not bored with it by any means. Video taping my own flatland flights has increased my passion and satisfaction with soaring immensely. I was just comparing my 5-hr local flatland soaring video to B4's edited, 1-hr, monster XC, mountain flight. Boring in comparison

On Saturday, January 3, 2015 at 12:55:47 PM UTC-8, wrote:
I am thinking about trying to do some soaring videos. Inside the cockpit footage only is boring and I want to be more like Balleka with amazing outside camera shots. The reason why I haven't done much is concern over the performance penalty of outside cams while trying to do longer XC flights.

Anyone smarter than me (I know most of you are, other than TT) able to figure out the drag penalty of a GoPro either mounted on the wing or on the tail of a 27? It would be attached with the adhesive mount and not the larger suction cup mount in hope of reducing the drag. The GoPro in its larger case to accommodate an extra battery is 41mm H x 59mm W x 40mm D.

What I am hoping to figure out is if it is a 1-2 point L/D penalty or something more like a 4-5 point drop. Those of you who have flown with me know I need every L/D point I can get.

Here's to hopefully a lot of fun 2015 soaring videos shared from a bunch of us!

Bruno - B4
Oh yeah - and Nephi is amazing!

Bruno, Don't change a thing, your YouTube videos are amazing. Keep up the good work. You have quite a fan base.

On Sunday, January 11, 2015 at 10:54:40 AM UTC-5, wrote:
On Saturday, January 3, 2015 at 12:55:47 PM UTC-8, wrote:
I am thinking about trying to do some soaring videos. Inside the cockpit footage only is boring and I want to be more like Balleka with amazing outside camera shots. The reason why I haven't done much is concern over the performance penalty of outside cams while trying to do longer XC flights..

Anyone smarter than me (I know most of you are, other than TT) able to figure out the drag penalty of a GoPro either mounted on the wing or on the tail of a 27? It would be attached with the adhesive mount and not the larger suction cup mount in hope of reducing the drag. The GoPro in its larger case to accommodate an extra battery is 41mm H x 59mm W x 40mm D.

What I am hoping to figure out is if it is a 1-2 point L/D penalty or something more like a 4-5 point drop. Those of you who have flown with me know I need every L/D point I can get.

Here's to hopefully a lot of fun 2015 soaring videos shared from a bunch of us!

Bruno - B4
Oh yeah - and Nephi is amazing!

Bruno, Don't change a thing, your YouTube videos are amazing. Keep up the good work. You have quite a fan base.

CAN'T be any worse than "downgrading" to an ASW-20 from your 27.

Maybe camera used by Sebastian Kawa in Nad Annapurna video would be better than multiple cameras. See 9:20 in http://youtu.be/4UdfTZ3bf9E.

On Tuesday, January 13, 2015 at 2:39:21 PM UTC-8, Ivan Volny wrote:
Maybe camera used by Sebastian Kawa in Nad Annapurna video would be better than multiple cameras. See 9:20 in http://youtu.be/4UdfTZ3bf9E.

Bruno,

Here are a couple of links to external camera rigs I've tried in the past. Both were shot at Parowan FWIW. The first dates from 2005 when the best available solution required a remote bullet camera hard-wired to a digital video tape-based camcorder.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXbfs0tzqbQ

The second one is from 2012. A GoPro mounted to a piece of aluminum channel stock mounted to the wingtip. Issues with framing and vibration, but promising.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv-GTknLkQE

Hope that helps as you think about possible camera locations. I have a few more ideas to pursue - including a cheap version of a panning camera you can mount externally.

Looking forward to Nephi this summer.

Andy - 9B