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Soaring Society of America › Forums › General › Towplane rear vision
Has anyone had any experience or experimented with using an automotive back-up or rearview camera instead of the barely adequate mirrors found on most towplanes?
Geoffrey,
That’s an awesome idea. We’re having a club event (spot landing contest) this weekend, so I’m definitely going to bring it up.
The only drawback I can think of is the vibration, but some ingenuity can overcome that I’m sure.
Tom
Might I suggest a mirror system such as helicopters use to view their sling loads… Externally mounted and cam be adjusted to see where you wish….if approved by the OEM. DART Aerospace shows one such system.https://www.dartaerospace.com/en/dual-mirror-installation-lh-d350-561-243.html
Another idea is to use an old cell phone. The screen doesn’t even need to work, just the camera. If it can be mounted facing rearwards it can work.
I’ve used a cell phone, suction cup mounted to the rear window of a C172. Installed a camera webcam app (I used IP webcam on android) and streamed it over wifi I think to a tablet. It had a little lag (about 1/2 second), not ideal, but useable.
For an all day event I’d plug the phone into a cigarette lighter outlet or connect an external battery to it.