NMERider wrote: ↑Sun Oct 22, 2017 12:01 am
I've noticed that by flying with a camera, my attention is more upon shooting the scene and less upon attending to the flight....
I'm just the opposite so far, though in my very first few mountain flights from LMFP, I consciously made the effort to YELL to the aft-keel-mounted vid cam about what was happening and what I needed to do. I yelled about my boxing positions, downwind height position cues, final glide slopes, flaring, etc. Another student heard me while she was on the ground below and wondered why, strangely, I was yelling to myself while flying. She thought it a great idea when I told her my reasoning. (I wonder where I got this idea from, Jon?!)
I would replay these vids several times in the evening after my flights, and I learned a lot just from reviewing AND listening to my comments.
I still take vids of every flight, but have not had the opportunity to record my comments well enough unless I am yelling, and even so the audio is garbled with the full face helmet (sans visor). But still, I don't consciously have the camera in mind. Well, ok, I'm lying slightly. I was hoping that the camera was recording me chasing a soaring bird into the setting sun at nearly 2100 ft above launch on my first soaring flight. Too bad it didn't.
One of my recent approaches into a tight RLF was not recorded due to a setting in the camera being inadvertently changed. To my chagrin, the record and feed-back from a most excellent 180 slipping/diving approach and landing through a cut in the trees was forever lost. So now I only have memories of that flight. I wonder if my memories of intense sequences are accurate all the time. Through vid review, I've found that sometimes they are not quite exact and the review jogs the memories back into perspective. Like an 'Oh, that's right...' moment.
Some pilots describe that RLF as the LZ that gives them the heebee-jeebee's. I thought it a good test of my newb skills, payed full attention to the task at hand without hesitation, and did a decent job of it. All without any thought of the vid camera, which was sadly not operating at the time. The second diving approach and landing there were better handled by the camera and I benefited by reviewing it over and over and over again (yeah, it was that fun!)
I think that thorough review of a difficult task that was completed well enough can bring clearer focus to the visualization that ultimately helps lead to good execution of similar future tasks.
In addition to video, better quality audio recording would be really beneficial to the learning curve, with the ability to make quick observations and comments that could be recorded without effort, as Jonathan has demonstrated in many of his most excellent vids.
So I just pulled the plug and ordered a digital recorder and some foam. I hope this new setup will add another dimension to the reviewing of my flights, if not providing more entertainment for myself and friends.
Thanks Jonathan for all your vids and understated suggestions.