UR My Co-Pilot

These videos consist of footage that I shot by placing a Sony Handicam on the right-hand seat of a Cessna 172SP, rented from Flight School Hawaii. This in July 2005, about one month after I got my Private Pilot's Certificate.

For the "mounting" I simply put the camera on my tripod and aimed it, and then let it run. The camera's perspective is probably a little higher than most people would have. For sound, plugged a headset into the right seat jacks, and rubber-banded the ear cups together, with a microphone inside, which was connected to the camera audio input. It worked surprisingly well. The mic was small enough that I actually wore those headsets with the mic in one ear on other flights, and plugged it into a cassette recorder to record the cockpit audio.

In my opinion, one of the more instructional aspects of these videos is the screw ups -- there's one go-around (a go-around is when you abort a landing and just take off again), and a few radio goofs, but it can be observed that radio goofs don't result in any real problems, you just correct and move on.

If you're in the pursuit of a pilot's certificate, the details may be the interesting stuff. I trimmed pretty hard in some places to fit it into YouTube 10 Min. increments, but there are complete patterns, and complete radio procedures intact for your edification.


Part One, Departure From HNL

Part Two, Go-Around At HDH

Part Three, Touch-And-Gos At JRF

Part Four, Depart JRF, Approach HNL