Test flight with our new camcorder

For the past few years I've been watching videos on YouTube of people flying into different areas and capturing their adventures. I've been jealous and wanted to buy a camcorder to tape my own flights, but haven't been willing to spend the money. Michelle and I decided long ago that we would wait until we start our family before we buy a camcorder.

Here is a link to another pilot who posts his flights. This is his flight into Kernville, I figured I'd link this one since this it compares to the flight we just made.

Now that we have a girl on the way, we made the purchase. Granted she's not due until the end of February, but that's just too long to wait. It kind of goes along the lines of getting the new TV in time for the football season and the new camera in time for a long anticipated trip. The anticipated trip is to Panguitch, UT to visit my Uncle Errol and to fly over Lake Powell, the Grand Canyon, Lake Mead, Hoover Dam, and Las Vegas.

We decided that since we have a fancy new HD TV, we wanted to get a nice HD camcorder. We also want it to be digital since we will be posting both flights and videos of our daughter on the web for friends and family to see. The hassle of DV tapes eliminated that category, and since hard drives don't operate at altitude, those versions wouldn't work either. Hard drives rely on airflow between the disks so that the head "flies" between the platters. When the altitude goes up, the pressure goes down, and the head crashes and the disk fails.

This left us looking for a solid state HD camcorder. I also had 2 requirements for flying, an image stabilizer and a microphone input. All the HD camcorders come with image stabilization so that wasn't a problem, but finding one with external audio in was. Canon is really the only manufacturer supporting external audio anymore these days and we ended up with a Canon Vixia HF100.

My airplane just got out of maintenance so I was anxious to get back up and flying so a flight for lunch in Kernville to test the new camcorder setup was perfect. We also decided to take the dogs with us. They've each flown before, but this was the first time they both flew together and Michelle wasn't in back to calm them down.

The dogs did ok, but they both ended up being nervous at some point. Emmett was much worse off, but I think he'll get used to it. He's always not been a fan of bouncing around. When we drive up to trailheads to go hiking, he always lays down in the back of the Jeep, but he's never gotten sick.

The video turned out pretty good, but there are a few things I found that I want to change. I made a little stand the camcorder attaches to that has a sponge between as a shock absorber. I noticed that the sponge allowed the camera to shake more than if it was just attached firmly. The angle also didn't turn out too good, it was looking down too much and the dash takes almost 1/2 of the screen. This also causes issues since it tries to focus on the dash instead of outside. I also want to work on the audio a little. I have it tied into the co-pilot audio jack, but there seems to be a lot of noise in the audio.

I used a trial version of CyberLink PowerDirector to edit the video, but I think in the future, I'm going to try to use Microsoft Movie Maker so I don't have to pay for the software. I decided to shoot the trip in HD since I had more space on the card than the battery would last. The video was incredible when it was focusing on the terrain. After editing and down converting to HQ, the file was about 10 minutes and 652 Mb. Good thing YouTube just started allowing up to 1Gb uploads... It took about 1 hour to render the video on my PC and the clip is still trying to upload after almost an hour.

Tomorrow I'll be working on the attic since I spent all day playing...

Lisa and Matt's visit 4-5 October, 2008

Lisa and Matt stopped by on Saturday to visit. After talking for a bit and watching the Brewers win, we went out to eat at Mon Reve, a fancy French restaurant. I remember the food being very good, but expensive, but this time it was very good, but with normal prices. We hadn't gone there in years because we thought the prices were still high, but we'll probably start heading there more often now. On the way home, we stopped by Stator Bros for some beer and wine, in the parking lot we noticed an incredible spare tire cover of Jesus and the Lamb of God, you have to see this picture.


After dinner we watched the presidential and vice presidential debates. It was pretty civil considering how politically different we are. I think its good to hear opposing ideas and rationale.

Monday morning we recorded the Packers game and watched the Brewers game while Michelle cooked waffles. Matt wanted to go see the airplane and go flying so we headed out to the airport. I wasn't sure if Lisa would want to go to the airport since she's already seen the airplane, but I offered her to come anyways and offered to come flying, but knew she wouldn't. As we were getting ready to head to the airport, Matt noticed the growler we have from Laura and Steve from the Kern River Brewing Company and that was enough for Matt to want to fly to Kernville to go to the brewery for lunch. Matt also pointed out that this was the weekend of our 1 year anniversary so it would be fitting to go to Kernville.

Once we got to the airport, I let them check out the airplane while I pre-flighted it. Lisa decided that she would actually try flying! I showed them a little bit of what I was doing as I did the pre-flight. I feel that new passengers are more comfortable when you explain what you are doing. After we added some gas, we started up, did the run-up, and we were headed for Kernville. The winds were calm and the air was relatively smooth meaning a few bumps, but not too bad for Inyokern. There were a few more bumps along the way as we climbed and flew through Walker's pass, but everybody did fine. I tried to keep explaining things as we flew such as "you'll hear the engine rev down as a increase the prop pitch for cruise."


After we cleared Walker's pass I let Matt fly for just a bit. I didn't let him fly too much because I didn't want to have any sudden movements that would cause extra nervousness. The wind was a bit stronger coming into Kernville, but it wasn't a big deal. After tying down the airplane, I got a rental car from the restaurant. They gave us the "White Chevy." I absolutely love courtesy cars (although this one requires a very minimal fee to cover insurance), so I'm not complaining, just telling the story.



The car started up fine, but as soon as I put it into gear, the belts started squealing and I noticed that the rear view mirror was broken off and laying on the dash. The head liner was hanging down and the ladies had to hold it up in the back so it wasn't down to their heads. I decided to roll down my window, which only added to the adventure. As I tried to roll it back up when we got to the brewery, it came out of the tracks and fell back down into the door, you just have to see the picture for this one. For the rest of the trip, the window would slide back and forth.



Lunch at the brewery was excellent as usual, I had the Kern Burger with no pickle onion or mayonnaise and Michelle had the Olympic Pita with no olives and provolone instead of feta cheese. Michelle didn't have any beer because of her condition and I didn't because I had to fly back; no alcohol from bottle to throttle... After the brewery we drove by Ewings a.k.a. the Broken Oar and Odd Fellows where we had our reception. Then we headed back to the airport since I was warning that the turbulence gets worse as the day goes on.



The flight back was just fine as well and I kept it pretty slow. This way the turbulence would wobble the airplane more the bang it around. The wobbles tend to get more people sick, but the banging around tends to scare more people. Nobody seemed to have any motion sickness problems so slow and wobbly was the way to go. The winds were still calm in Inyokern and we were all back safe and sound.

I'm so glad that I was able to take Matt up and go flying and that Lisa came up for the ride. I know this was way out of her comfort zone, but she thanked me for getting her out of her box. I hope that she was able to get comfortable enough to really enjoy the flight, I know it's difficult for nervous first time passengers. I'm very happy that the weather for the most part was cooperative since more turbulence would had ruined the experience for sure. No the pictures are not edited, she actually flew!

Vacuump pump replace, lock fixed, up and running!

My A&P finished replacing the failed vacuum pump and was able to fix the pilot door lock. He found all the pieces inside the door and had to lubricate it and it's working fine now. While he was working on it, I asked him to install some Rosen sun visors due to the intense sun out here.


I flew around the patch on May 2nd just to make sure everything was up and running smooth after the maintenance; it flew great.

May 3rd we drove down to San Diego for the Red Bull Air Races, see the next post for more info.

Michelle and I went on our favorite buger run on May 11th to Kernvill L05, but this time the service was terribly slow. We got there early before all the crowds, but they forgot our order and it ended up getting stuck behind a few large groups. It took an hour to get our food while we watched others come in, eat there food, and leave before we even got our food.

Here is a picture of the flight to Kernville in the Sierras. This is for road directions, but I pretty much have to follow the highway through the mountains. Once I clear the eastern mountains I fly down the middle of the valley and over the lake before turning up the narrowing valley towards the airport. The pattern is right traffic for runway 17 since the airport is right at the western base of the mountains.

I also have a picture of flying into Kernville a few years ago in another airplane, but the airport is the same. It's a lot of fun to fly into.


I got out to the airport for a few touch and gos today after taking part of the motorcycle training course. I already have my license, but the course is required for me to be able to ride the bike to work. I didn't fly for very long because I was getting hungry.

Michelle and I are planning on flying to Vegas for breakfast on Sunday. That will be a fun flight, I'm going to fly into North Las Vegas this time instead of Henderson since it is closer to down town. I doubt we'll go into town for breakfast, but this will be a nice flight to determine how long it takes to fly in and how to negotiate the terrain and airspace.