A 'Black Box' and Video/Audio Recorder for Recreational Aircraft?

[River]

G’day fellow members,

 

Thought I’d start a new thread with regards to the thread on GOPro cameras thread.

 

Firstly let me state the GOPro cameras are an excellent unit and excel at what they do.

 

However there is one drawback if one wishes to use the unit running on a continuous base with looping (when it gets to the end of and memory cards capacity it starts again at the beginning overwriting the original video).

 

This is where I believe the new VisionDrive Car Black Box VD-9000FHD would be an excellent recreational aircraft in-flight ‘Black Box’ unit. It comes with a built-in 2 ½ inch colour LCD screen to allow for easy setting up of what you desire to be viewed and captured plus you can remove the unit and immediately review what you have recorded on the LCD screen if you wish too.

 

With the quite recent series of most distressing fatal incidents/accidents involving recreational aircraft, if the individual aircraft had one of these new VD-9000FHD units fitted in the cockpit of these aircraft, the post analysis investigations would have been exceedingly enhanced in the investigation teams ability to possibly pinpoint the cause and reasoning of the incident/accident.

 

The only cleat may be if the incident/accident aircraft was totally consumed in a high temperature fire as the unit is not fireproofed although depending on circumstances there is the possibility that if the actual memory card is one of the quite expensive Super Pro Extreme conditions versions the card may have a better chance of fire survival.

 

If you as a pilot are able to conduct a successful forced landing and am able to err… walk away from the incident then this unit would be of great assistant in reviewing what went wrong or right with your actions, etc, and could make for a good training video at a later time. Or just use it to review your personal performance or in student training.

 

Part of my reasoning is the VD-9000FHD records both very high quality video vision and audio too. The lens has some 120 degrees of view plus the unit has software settings to automatically tag and save various incidents of your settings choice to a separate secure recording file along with the original video too.

 

This unit, once mounted in your cockpit is a fully automatic system in-that once you turn on the key the unit starts working. A audio voice will come on and confirm the units self-test is OK and that the video and audio are now in operation. There is also an override button which will allow for recording with the key turned off too.

 

It’s very easy to remove the memory card and replace it with another card allowing you to then view the flight etc on your home computer or TV set and of-course if you wish and have the experience you can edit and make a ‘movie’ of your flight.

 

I worked out that the following memory card sizes will give you approximately this much recording time before the original video is started to be overridden.

 

8 GB = 1.6 hours

 

16 GB = 3.2 hours

 

32 GB = 6.6 hours

 

64 GB = 13.2 hours

 

128 GB = 26.8 hours

 

Remember, this is the genuine high definition rate at 1920 x 1080 @ 30 FPS

 

VisionDrive Car (Recreational Aviation?) Black Box

 

Web Address: www.visiondrive.net.au

 

I think its well worth giving this 'Black Box' unit some genuine consideration to use it.

 

Pip..! Pip..! Team

 

Rodger

 

PS: No, I do not have any association with the supplying and selling of this product.

 

 

[Yenn]

One problem which happened with the A380 which lost an engine out of Singapore, was that the recording of some data was overwritten because the unit wasn't shut down until the last engine stopped, that was hours after the main accident.

 

It could happen with the Go Pro I would imagine if it kept recording after the crash.

 

 

[icebob]

Hi River,

 

some good points there. I fitted a Navig8r Crash Cam to my aircraft mainly to point the finger at a couple of "cowboys", nothing like a photo of thier contant transgressions on the flying club wall for all to see to put pressure on them. Well indirectly as i leave the unit on all the time and selected 15 minute save times it records my whole trip so it could be considered as a mini black box, and has audio too, this unit was on special mid last year at $65 from a online computer store, very cost effective.

 

 

[Yenn]

Could have done with a camera on Sunday. Clse encounter with a skydiving C206 turning onto a collision course with me. Don't think he ever saw me. then when on final I had an ultralight do a right circuit in front of me, crossed and turned just ahead of me, so I ducked under him and landed really long on the 2km strip. Unknown to me they do right circuits when the skydivers are active and the ultralights radio was playing up. Would have looked good on video.

 

 

[damkia]

One problem which happened with the A380 which lost an engine out of Singapore, was that the recording of some data was overwritten because the unit wasn't shut down until the last engine stopped, that was hours after the main accident.It could happen with the Go Pro I would imagine if it kept recording after the crash.

It would not be impossible to build an inertia switch that senses a crash (same as goes to an EPIRB???) and use that to cease recording 15 mins after the crash. This would give time to get any significant follow up in the incident such as engine out due to a broken fuel line, with an ensuing fire. Engine out is one thing, engine out with a fire from the right wing would be invaluable for investigation as to the root cause.

 

 

[coljones]

One problem which happened with the A380 which lost an engine out of Singapore, was that the recording of some data was overwritten because the unit wasn't shut down until the last engine stopped, that was hours after the main accident.It could happen with the Go Pro I would imagine if it kept recording after the crash.

What happens after turning on a lot of recording devices - they either record to a set size, record til the memory is full or record on loop til they run out of battery - the GoPro Hero3 can do all of these. One feeture it does have is that it records video in small file blocks so in the event of a power failure only the last block can be corrupted.

I am still fiddling with my GoPro. I am not sure if I should do time lapse (auto shoot a photo every half second) or record a video til the memory fills up

 

 

[Guest sunfish]

I believe the latest update of the Dynon Skyview software incorporate data logging - position, altitude, speed, heading plus engine parameters. I'm not sure about the details yet, but given regulations these days it might be prudent one day to have the data to exonerate oneself from, for example, a "low flying" allegation from a member of the public.