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Permalink Reply by Tim Garrett on June 24, 2010 at 5:47pm

I was going to start a thread on this. Thanks for starting it.

I've tried a few different things and cameras. Someone gave me a cheap "Flip" video camera that I wasn't too concerned about losing so I tried this:

and this:

The horizontal tail mount was very unsteady and I only went around the pattern once as I noticed a little buffeting through the elevator. The wing tip mount worked great and I had it up to 8,000 ft and 140 mph with no problem. The Flip camera has 2 hours of memory on board so I just started it and took off. The tape is the aluminum duct tape (not the grey polyethylene coated cotton web stuff).

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Permalink Reply by Jonathan Porter on June 25, 2010 at 1:38am

You have made me smile Wow - the power of duct tape! I wonder if it is worth fitting a M6 stud to the wing tip wit a locking wheel so that you can mount using the 'tripod' locking system?

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Permalink Reply by Jim Olson on June 24, 2010 at 7:00pm

I use a GoPro HD camera on the wings and rear fuselage just infront of the rudder on my 601HDS. The camera comes with several mounting pads that have 3M tape on the mount. I use a little duct tape just in case. I have flown over an hour in each different postion, seems to work ok.

Jim Olson
Blairsville, GA
N56BJ CH601HDS
N126BJ RV-12

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Permalink Reply by Tim Garrett on July 10, 2010 at 4:43pm

More camera mounts:

It's a Joby Gorillapod - very useful in the cockpit.

More tape. The video was not as interesting as you might think.

Have you tried anything yet?

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Permalink Reply by Jerry Latimer on July 10, 2010 at 9:55pm

I made the mount in the URL this url (http://www.instructables.com/id/Inexpensive-Vacuum-attached-Suction...). I made added an L so that the camera can be mounted 90 degrees from the one in the URL. I've used it and FLIP camera to record some of my taxi tests. It needs to be mounted to something solid or it vibrates. It was cheap and I'm learning before I buy something better.

Haven't tried to mount it on the outside of the plane yet.
Jerry

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Permalink Reply by Jonathan Porter on August 6, 2010 at 3:09pm

Thanks to your ideas and a lot of head scratching we set up two cameras to take some images of a local area that has experienced a lot of loss of lives and livelihoods with floods (it is not only Oshkosh that has had a lot of floods lately...)

We created two mounts - one overhead - the passenger can lean forward and monitor (although we are looking at a remote screen solution)

the other one takes advantage of reducing the airflow vibration (a real issue with doors off flying) by shooting through the snap-vent hole in the 701's bubble door. The mount rotates up to a modified P clip holder for storage when not in the locked down position. We used two old scraps of nylon rod, drilled a 12.5mm hole through the round part and tapped a M6 on the flat of the cut - the two together create a virtually infinite position mount.

It is wonderful to be able to use the Zenith aircraft to help people identify their source of problems...and enjoy the engineering challenges at the same time...

As a matter of interest the snap-vent hole is just the right size for a 58mm still camera lens to pop out for clear shots when the video camera is rotated out of position...

We hope it inspires others to try something different... The results are actually really stunning - especially if you watch both at once on two adjacent screens - but it may cause motion sickness in those watching!!!

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Permalink Reply by Tim Garrett on August 7, 2010 at 8:40pm

Wow, Jonathan, you did it up right! Bolts and metal bracketry and all! It looks really good! Please post some of the video if you can. I think we all would like to see them!

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Permalink Reply by Jonathan Porter on August 8, 2010 at 2:25am

I am working on sending a DVD to the US for uploading to the site (our internet is tooooooo sloooooooowwwww for videoooooooo)

I forgot to point out the lexan cover that slides over the overhead opening for take off and landing (you can still shoot through it very well) - but it also closes the gap when flying without the camera in place. It could cause a nasty breeze or exhaust fumes entry point, or exit point for car keys, cash, etc if not closed. With the camera there we do not notice any issues.

We will also be looking at a larger opening for message cannister, vaccines and urgent supply drops using our 'modified-pop-bottle-cannister' systems... but that will need a lot more engineering and thought! The 701 can carry up to 40 'cannisters' per delivery flight (based on early calculations). What would be good is to incorporate the drop and video together so that it becomes possible to visualize the drop point as you target over - in order to do that the camera would point forward slightly, with cross-hairs, and once the speed, height, winds, etc are all calculated, a more precise delivery of life saving supplies can be deposited and recorded... but then we are going quite far in our concepts... slowly, one step at a time, restricted by lack of funds - but moving forwards all the same...

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Permalink Reply by Sebastien Heintz on December 19, 2013 at 10:56am

Here's a video and info on my mount system: http://www.zenith.aero/video/flying-with-new-video-camera

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