Where have you been? What have you seen?
#1467449
It was a relatively sunny day and the plane was free, so I thought I'd pop back to the site of my first solo landaway (about 5 years ago!). Having learnt at East Midlands I thought it might be fun to try a zone transit (having only ever entered the zone to land there).

Managed to get straight through East Midlands' zone (not above 2000ft, via the VFR lane), a few minutes behind a BBMF display at the aeropark. Always good to keep brushed up on transits through controlled airspace, East Mids controllers being helpful as ever. It was a shame to see the now disused Hucknall airfield, and no sign of any developments there.

Gamston's still a nice airfield, and the cafe is still expensive! Good though, and worth a visit if you haven't already. Quite a wide variety of aircraft parked up too.

I took a direct routing on the return flight, remaining east of East Midlands controlled airspace. The video below is a quick overview of the flight, outbound and return. I've overlaid a the track from SkyDemon on the video too.

Enjoy!

#1467823
Rob L wrote:That's quite clever, what method did you use for the overlay?

Rob


It's quite a laborious process... I hook my iPad up to my computer, and 'record' the screen, while panning through the log. Then I take screengrabs of this at 30s intervals and crop accordingly. Then, I merge them all together into a movie, with each frame 3s in duration (as I speed the GoPro footage up by 10x). Finally, I use iMovie's 'Picture in Picture' feature to deposit the trace movie on top of the video, picking an obvious feature like a dual carriageway or VRP to ensure both are lined up. That probably takes about 30-45mins for a 1hr flight!

Nick T wrote:Nice! I'm currently learning at East Mids, so it's good to see some familiar sights :D


Good luck! I learnt there too! Donair I assume. I've got a couple of videos on my channel of flights from East Mids around the Peak District.

Charliesixtysix wrote:You might have waved.... (5:47 in you were directly over our strip)
:-)


I shall remember to rock the wings next time!
#1467848
MidlandsPilot wrote:
Nick T wrote:Nice! I'm currently learning at East Mids, so it's good to see some familiar sights :D


Good luck! I learnt there too! Donair I assume. I've got a couple of videos on my channel of flights from East Mids around the Peak District.

Yep, Donair indeed! :)
I'm just starting to enjoy navigation now - after yesterday's lesson my instructor said we'll do one more route together and then I'll be off out doing it on my own for my first solo nav!

I'll check out your channel :)
#1468171
Thanks for sharing that especially as it was a laborious process to produce the vid, it's really useful and valuable.

Where / how did you mount the camera? Was it a GoPro?

Glad you had a good trip.

Last time I was at Gamston, the cloud was practically hugging the deck but we saw a Langley Holdings aircraft take off.
#1468297
Thanks for the comments everyone :)

JWL wrote:Thanks for sharing that especially as it was a laborious process to produce the vid, it's really useful and valuable.


This is only the second time I've done that, so still refining the technique - much quicker this time!

JWL wrote:Where / how did you mount the camera? Was it a GoPro?


I've got the GoPro suction cup, and mount it on the inside of the side window that's inline with the rear seats. I find in a C152 I can mount in the rear window (baggage hold) and overlook the tail, but the window shape in a C172 doesn't quite lend to this, as you end up with too much fuselage/tail in the way! Trouble with side window mounting in a C152 is that the flaps obscure a lot more of the video when landing!
MichaelP wrote:Good video. Enjoyed that.
Saw the Nord escape as you stopped at Gamston, that brought back memories.
I remember Castle Donnington...


I did wonder what that taxiing aircraft was!
#1468331
Regarding GoPro mounting...

I've had acceptable results with the suction cup on the passenger window of the 152 I'm learning in... (For example
). Gives a relatively decent view out the front - but the downside is that everyone gets to see my ugly mug ;)

Edit: apologies - had meant to link the video rather than embed, but seems the forum has embedded it automatically
#1468568
That looks an awful lot like TG!

I've not tried in a while, but most GoPro suction cups are just about strong enough to stick to the plastic speaker surround on the roof - that way you just get the tops of the pilot/passenger heads!

I keep meaning to have a play around with forward facing cameras, but the trouble is finding somewhere where the camera mount doesn't create a blindspot. If I had an extension bit for the GoPro I'd try mounting it on the copilot side window, facing forward, at present this just gets a lot of side pillar, due to the wide viewing angle!
#1468604
MidlandsPilot wrote:That looks an awful lot like TG!

*checks logbook*

You, Sir, have an incredible knowledge of Donair's finest ;)

MidlandsPilot wrote: If I had an extension bit for the GoPro I'd try mounting it on the copilot side window, facing forward, at present this just gets a lot of side pillar, due to the wide viewing angle!

Yeah I think you're talking about the exact spot I'd mounted mine in the above...

The mount I was using was the suction cup one that came in this pack, which has a slight arm on it.

But you've just reminded me that I have a Fat Gecko lying around somewhere... It's got a slightly longer arm on it (and is complete overkill for a GoPro as I bought it to hold a Canon 5D2 DSLR!). That might reduce a bit of the pillar visibility!

(I'll stop with the threadjack now!)