Next\u00a0step is to gather the requirements, so we make a pod that is truly exceptional,\u00a0plus the more potential problems we consider and solve up front, the happier we\u00a0will all be!<\/p>\n
Safe:<\/strong> If we thought we were making a product that would add\u00a0risk to pilots, passengers, or people on the ground, we would abandon the\u00a0project. Everything has to be overdesigned, must fail safe, and provide no\u00a0opportunity to harm anyone.<\/p>\n Rugged\u00a0\u00a0 and Reliable:<\/strong> If small\u00a0companies have to do a lot of customer support because of bad design, they will\u00a0go broke: it is as simple as that. Making a rugged system that just plain works (in this case \u201cboring is good\u201d) is a worthy design goal. Also, imagine the\u00a0disappointment a user would experience if they landed after a gorgeous flight,\u00a0and found something had malfunctioned and there was no video! Which leads us to\u2026.<\/p>\n Simple:<\/strong> We wanted the pod to appeal to people who were primarily pilots, not photographers, and yet it has to deliver broadcast quality video. It also has to produce great video, under wide ranges of temperature,\u00a0weather, all the time. So a big design criteria was to keep it simple: anything\u00a0\u00a0 not needed was dispensed with. Important details have to be done right:\u00a0fasteners had to engage positively and easily, and it had to be apparent to the\u00a0user that they are engaged. Everything you need to do should be clear and\u00a0obvious.<\/p>\n Easy to\u00a0\u00a0 use:<\/strong> What does \u201cuse\u201d mean for a camera pod? Well, you have to load the cameras into it, turn them on,\u00a0mount the pod, confirm all is well (fasteners engaged, cameras rolling), then\u00a0easy to detach after the flight. So the bays that hold the cameras have to be sized correctly, the vibration absorbing mechanism has to be easy to position\u00a0correctly but not bind when the pod is mounted to the aircraft, the fasteners\u00a0have to be easy to attach and detach, and during a preflight it has to be really\u00a0easy for the pilot to see that the fasteners are positively engaged and the\u00a0cameras are functioning. That suggests a visual aide for the fasteners, and the\u00a0need for a \u201cwindow\u201d thru the pod so the user can see the blinking LED in front\u00a0of the camera that indicates it is functioning,<\/p>\n Make\u00a0\u00a0 great images:<\/strong> This is more\u00a0subtle than it sounds. Where do you mount such a pod, and where do you point the\u00a0cameras? Let\u2019s say you mount it on the belly of the aircraft, to get an\u00a0\u00a0 unobstructed view of what is below the aircraft. Do you mount the camera\u00a0parallel to the ground, and use a bunch of the image frame up on the sheet metal\u00a0or composite on the aircraft belly (which never changes in the course of a\u00a0flight)? Or do you point it straight down? Or pick some angle in between to show\u00a0a hint of the aircraft, and yet maximize the amount of the camera frame used to\u00a0show the outside? If you rule out a steerable camera because you want greater\u00a0coverage for less cost, and you want no moving pieces, then you have to consider\u00a0the best possible camera position, and that is almost as important as the\u00a0selection of the right camera.<\/p>\n Flexible capability:<\/strong> Sometimes the thing you are really interested in is\u00a0on the left of the aircraft, sometimes on the right, sometimes ahead of you.\u00a0Sometimes the lighting of things behind you is better than the light on\u00a0something in front of you. Sometimes you plan the flight to put the subject on\u00a0\u00a0 one side, but traffic forces you to put the aircraft someplace else. And lots of time something amazing you never expected to see that day happens to be under\u00a0your flight path. So we decided to design in the capability to hold up to 4\u00a0cameras, all rolling at the same time, to ensure a 360 degree field of view\u00a0(hence the Eagle360 name!). If you have one camera, great, pick which position\u00a0you want it in. If you have more cameras, great, load them in. That is flexibility. And since these are digital cameras, all you are burning are electrons!<\/p>\n Room to\u00a0expand functionality:<\/strong> We\u00a0knew once we have the physical structure figured out and an STC granted, we\u00a0would want to add functionality, and it was a good bet that would involve\u00a0\u00a0 electronics, because so much of the cool stuff these days involves computers. So\u00a0we needed to build in space for an \u201cavionics bay\u201d, to allow us to keep adding\u00a0great features and capabilities.<\/p>\n Low\u00a0\u00a0 cost:<\/strong> As idealistic as this\u00a0sounds, our mission was to make awesome HD video accessible to virtually all\u00a0general aviation pilots. Other video systems have been available for specific\u00a0individual types and models, typically for well above $10,000: you had to have a\u00a0real commercial reason to invest in such a system. We wanted to hit the lowest\u00a0practical price point so this great, new way to enjoy flying was available to\u00a0the largest number of pilots. That made for a challenging but satisfying design\u00a0goal.<\/p>\n Immune\u00a0to potential foreseeable problems:<\/strong> We spent a bunch of time anticipating potential\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cgotchas\u201d that could limit our pod from being the success we want it to be. The\u00a0outside of an aircraft is an environment with great ranges of temperature,\u00a0moisture, vibration and lots of different petrochemicals: how do we make a\u00a0system that won\u2019t be hurt by the chemicals, won\u2019t fog up in a climb, or stop on\u00a0a hot or cold day, and won\u2019t flood the cameras if we fly through precip? The\u00a0more such problems we anticipate and design around, the more terrific our pod\u00a0will be.<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Next\u00a0step is to gather the requirements, so we make a pod that is truly exceptional,\u00a0plus the more potential problems we consider and solve up front, the happier we\u00a0will all be! Safe: If we thought we were making a product that would add\u00a0risk to pilots, passengers, or people on the ground, we would abandon the\u00a0project. Everything […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-background","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/airbornesensor.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/airbornesensor.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/airbornesensor.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/airbornesensor.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/airbornesensor.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/airbornesensor.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58,"href":"http:\/\/airbornesensor.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions\/58"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/airbornesensor.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/airbornesensor.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/airbornesensor.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}