Pulled this out of the Piaggio thread since it's already insanely long with non-related stuff...


I'm a believer. I have a GoPro (Hero 11 Black) set up on my cockpit partition. After some trial and error, got the thing powered via panel power** and have it recording cockpit audio via headset jack. I agree it's handy to have video later for troubleshooting as well as later review of flight technique or whatever.

My issue is the GoPro doesn't have quite enough resolution/zoom to see the details of the panel screens. I don't have room to install it physically closer to the panel without major risk of it bashing me on the head etc when I enter/exit the cockpit, plus no great place to mount/anchor it.

Do you have a camera with zoom that allows you to see your panel screens clearly? Which one?

Kinda feels like the Citation would have similar enough cockpit size that you may have faced similar camera issues.

**panel power is from a MidContinent MD93, which actually doesn't supply quite enough power when GoPro is in use. So... it'll extend the battery, but on very long flights the battery may still run out and GoPro shut down. If GoPro is left shut off, it'll recharge though.

Thanks Jon. I have USB ports in the refreshment center right behind my head so I should be able to mount on the partition above my head and power it from the refreshment center without cords going everywhere.

How did you get the audio? I have the old style GA plugs in my left armrest. Is there some kind of splitter you can use to tap the audio? I also have a 3.5mm jack on my pedestal, below the AP control panel that I have no idea what it does. I think I've tried sending audio into it thinking it was a source for music or something but no deice. Maybe I should plug some headphones into it and see if audio comes out of it...

Yes, power is nice, otherwise you're fighting batteries.


I got one of these (on other folks' recommendation): https://www.nflightcam.com/collections/frontpage/products/nflightcam-cockpit-kit-for-gopro-hero9-black

The kit contains filters and a mount as well as an audio connector. You can buy the pieces separately (i.e. just the audio connector), but I found out you will need the filters as well, so ended up buying them anyway. Then you get the mount for free .

The audio plus panel power resulted in a ground loop whine in my airplane. While I think there are no guarantees it works for everyone, I bought one of these off Amazon, plugged it into the NFlightCam audio port, and it worked great.

Overall, though, I'd probably choose a different camera, I haven't been that impressed by the robustness or features of the GoPro. This thread has several suggestions from others, I think a DJI camera was liked by someone. Might be more appropriate to the task. I too didn't really know much so clicked on a GoPro promotion email at the time I was interested. It's... just OK.

Resolution and view/mounting are the major issues to resolve.

My setup presently is as follows:

A Garmin Virb Ultra 30 is mounted in a cradle slightly behind and left of the copilot's head. That panel used to be a FliteFone that was removed, so it makes for a convenient place to mount the camera. The mount is the one that came with the camera.

I made an audio plus power cable for the Virb. It shocks me that this is not something you can buy. You can get audio cables, and power cables, but not both in one cable. The audio is set so the left input is copilot headset audio, right is ambient microphone on the Virb. The power is provided by a large USB battery bank. I tried tapping into ship power (USB jacks), but that created a ground loop and noise, so I just run a battery bank.

The Virb records on a 512GB microSD card. That is many hours.

I have a second camera, a GitUp F1 90:

https://www.gitup.com/cameras/88-130-gi ... pe-f190cam

Inexpensive, small, and works well. No display, but I don't need one. This is mounted on a suction cup side window looking forward. It is connected to aircraft USB jack and set to record on external power. No audio connection, just records ambient. Also records to a 512GB microSD card.

In actual practice, the GitUp has been more reliable than the Virb. Every now and then, the Virb stops recording in flight. The GitUp never has. The Virb also can overheat, and the GitUp, despite being in the sun a lot, never has.


Not exceptionally clearly. Both cameras are 4K and I can read some things.

Note that my TXi panels records parameters every second and I can extract that log to see things like airspeeds, altitudes, frequencies, etc.

What my cameras record are mostly my actions, the audio, and what lights are lit up. The caution lights are particularly important and you don't need to read them, just know which position lit up.


Yes, probably similar.

Things I wish to change in the future:

I'd like to put in smaller USB cube type cameras that run to a Linux box with a large SSD drive ad have the system record all the cameras (say 3 or 4) onto the drive, the audio from the headsets, and maybe ambient audio.

I'd then like to tap an ARINC 429 bus or RS232 bus and have that streamed into the SSD as well. The idea is to time correlate the video with audio and data.

The system would turn on with ship power, run during flight, and then shutoff after flight. I can then take the SSD home and download.

A future idea is to give the system a battery such that after the flight ends, the system attempts to connect by Wifi and download the files over Wifi. Once done, it shuts down and waits for the next power up. During next operation, the battery is recharged some. It would be a safe battery, like a lead acid one would find in an UPS.

The small USB cube cameras would be a lot easier to put in paces that don't cause problems. You could put one just to view the primary flight display, for example, solving the resolution problem.

Naturally, I've been too busy to actually do this yet, so the clunky way I have it now is still in play.

This what the Virb looks like generally:

[youtube]https://youtu.be/_lacsehdGHw[/youtube]

This is what the GitUp looks like generally:

[youtube]https://youtu.be/D4SExzls_IM[/youtube]

Mike C.

Thanks for the detail.

FWIW, I had the ground loop issue and a cheapo ($10) ground loop isolator solved it (see post above for link), but was warned they weren't guaranteed to work in all cases. Still, worth a try for $10.

And the GoPro 11 definitely has overheat/shutdown issues sometimes too.

Seems like the GitUp might work reliably, but appears not to have audio input(?). I like that it starts on power up though.


Your VIRB is a tad closer physically to your panel, and ability to see Garmin screens is a little better but similar.



That all sounds ambitious. I would like to keep it very simple, personally, and just wish I had a little better camera zoom/focus on panel stuff for better detail. But, I also don't want it to become yet another maintenance chore.

I have that, too, but my audio never goes through a 1/8" set of jacks, so I haven't wired it in.


It has some sort of audio input because they did sell an external mic at one point. I've never figured out the input pinning for that.


The Virb does that, too, starts when the battery bank plugs in. It is sometimes called "dash cam mode".


What I really want is a little cube camera that records to microSD card, has no display, uses external power (no battery), and has external audio inputs. You'd think that would exist, but it apparently does not.

I do have a Garmin Dash Cam Mini 2:

https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/731428

It checks most of the boxes, but no external audio input capability. Having audio is critical. I don't usually have the Dash Cam running.

Mike C.

I have that, too, but my audio never goes through a 1/8" set of jacks, so I haven't wired it in.

I don't know how old your equipment is, but before flightaware, I Pads and the like, I have seen data output to a laptop with navigation software. It took the GPS position (or Loran) and put it on the lap top, using the 3.5 jack.

Perhaps a dashcam can be repurposed for this task?

I have contemplated installing a Viofo 4K camera, but not yet gotten around to it. Compared to the action cams previously mentioned, they are tiny and cheap.

They seem to lack external audio inputs.

The Garmin Dash Cam Mini 2 would work better, cheaper, and smaller, if you don't need audio inputs.

Mike C.

"I have USB Ports in the refreshment center"

My refreshment center is a side Pocket, it holds maps and a Bottle of water
Honestly I shouldn't be reading this thread

Mike, have you tried overlaying garmin data over the videos? the Virb movie editor can show telemetry

Yes, I have tried that a few times.

Example shot on my Virb Ultra 30 showing a ground track, attitude, and speed (GPS):

[youtube]https://youtu.be/gQ6sahultQE[/youtube]

I don't find it particularly compelling. One issue is that the attitude sensor doesn't seem to get level right (as you can see in the above video). It also sometimes does weird things with the data, watch the altitude readout on this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rd4pKNT4dkU&t=200s

Another is that the camera has to have good GPS visibility, and on my Citation, near the cabin roof under the metal skin isn't that. I've never really looked at the GSP data from the Citation for that reason.

Another factor is that it is kind of time consuming to edit the videos and place the data on screen. The data isn't all that useful to me for my purposes now, providing evidence for issues to help resolve things is mostly just visual.

A further thing is that my Garmin TXi panels log data so I can look at them to see what my parameters of flight were. The logged data is more detailed, but with less time resolution (1 Hz, wish Garmin would allow a faster log rate, say 5 Hz).

Anyway, the data logging capability of the Garmin camera hasn't been compelling for me. Might be more so for others.

Mike C.

Ah, I meant to say layering the TXi data atop the video, not the Virb data. Agree with you that Virb data is pretty crude.

I have not done that, I don't have the time to figure that out.

I can hardly do simple edits of the video. Need to find some video editing SW for that, the Virb editor Garmin provides is, uh, clumsy.

Mike C.