Club member Matt Klarich (communications secretary) recently assembled a digital camera assembly to fit into the bottom of his modified trainer. The plane is a 40 size trainer with the dihedral taken out of the wing and Saito's .72 four stroke installed with an over sized 16 ounce fuel tank. The camera is a simple digital camera from Walmart that can hold 64 high resolution pictures or six 10 second movies. He has yet to fly the plane with the movie mode running and further modifications will be needed to isolate the camera from vibration. Below are some picture from the plane so if you have ever wondered what it was like to fly up there here you go.

First Set 2-22-2001

Second Set 3-1-2001

This set was taken the other day while very cloudy, at times I had to take cover under the pavilion to avoid the rain while still flying. Big thing this time around is the movie mode was engaged for one flight. The movies are large to download (over 1 meg usually) but they are well worth it. This has been a very interesting trial and I did try going to approximately 600 feet and flying the plane back down deadstick while taking pictures. All of the pictures taken at deadstick (no engine running ) turned out significantly clearer. I did however attempt this a second time with a downdraft catching my plane on final approach and placing the nose of the plane into the ground at an over desirable speed. All that was hurt was my pride and the nose wheel bracket snapped (easily fixed) Enjoy!!

Down at the pavilion

That dot on the runway would be me

Looking south over the runway

Looking North

Good shot of weather

Airport