Onwards and Upwards. Well, onwards anyway...

Dragging myself out of bed this morning, getting out to Cunderdin was a 50/50 prospect at best.  After a day spent celebrating my father-in-law's birthday with maybe one too many bottles of wine and certainly way too much to eat, I was certainly feeling sluggish.  However, I wanted to play around with my action cam and get some footage, and probably won't have an opportunity to get out to the club again for a few weeks so I downed a coffee and packed my supplies, then psyched myself up for the drive.  I'm glad I did, as I had a most enjoyable day.  Read on for more...

Flyin' Solo

This morning I headed up to the club nice and early, away from home at 6am with a 2 hour drive out to Cunderdin.  I was rostered on to fill in for another member as the day's logkeeper, a duty I really need to take on a bit more often as I've just filled the committee position of Club Logkeeper and will be responsible for making sure all of the club's logs are kept accurate and up to date for the GFA.  I also hoped that I'd be able to secure a couple of flights to extend on my last trip where I managed to finally go solo.  It turned out to be a fairly busy day, and I certainly got my opportunity.  Read on for more, including my first flying video!

New Toy, Part 2

Welcome to part two of my test and review of the AEE Magicam SD-21.  Part One can be viewed here.

As previously noted, I was quite impressed with the contents of the camera package - you get an awful lot for the SD-21's going price.  I made the comment that this was a cheap Chinese knockoff of the GoPro2 - I retract that statement.  While the heritage is obviously similar, there are sufficient differences between the cameras that it would be better to label this as an alternative rather than a copy.  Of course, the contents of the package mean little if the camera can't produce decent footage.  I'm happy to say that I was equally impressed with quality of the video produced.  Read on for my impressions and some tests.

New Toy!

Hmmm, a new toy arrived at my desk this afternoon...

A shiny new AEE Magicam SD-21, a Chinese actioncam that is a direct knockoff of the ubiquitous GoPro.  Reviews for these things have been very good but they've been hard to get hold of in Australia to date.  I got mine from Kogan, who at the time of writing have them on sale for AUD $149.00, they're basically a steal at that price.

I decided on the SD-21 after much searching and reading of reviews, much umm'ing and ahh'ing and general indecision.  Many visits to pages like Techmoan and other reviewers of cheap electronics, and many many Youtube videos.  I decided early on that while I'd love to get a GoPro Hero3 Black Edition, I just can't justify spending the approximate $475.00 that they retail for here in Oz.  I just couldn't see the bang-for-the-buck.  Actioncam purists may shudder, but from what I've already seen, this little cam is pretty much identical in performance to the last generation GoPro2 and the lesser specced GoPro3 White.  In some ways, it exceeds them.

So, what does $149.00 net you in the Chinese knockoff actioncam game.  Quite a lot, it turns out.  Read on for the details.

Wind, Important Lessons; and a Surprise...

G'day all, and I hope my fellow Aussies are having a great Australia Day weekend!  After being dragged by the kids out to Crawley to watch the annual Australia Day Skyshow over the Swan River - which was actually better than it's been in years! - and dealing with all the crowds, I was ready for some quiet time up in the air.  So, after a relatively late start for me, I got into the car with plenty of cold water and a packed lunch and headed out to Cunderdin for the day.  I arrived just in time for the 9:30am briefing, it looked a bit quiet today - not a whole lot of activity around the place.  That changed pretty quickly!  Read on after the jump for more...