I had a go a making a short video about my Jodel D140.
I’m planning to do a few more, and would welcome any suggestions on how to reduce vibration, whilst allowing the installation to remain fairly ‘compact’.
I’ve seen Peter’s anti vibration mount, for use with the camcorder, but am looking for something more Gopro sized.
I previously owned a Jodel 1050 and now fly a DR400/180 and on the two types my time is in excess of 800 hours. I have flown many other types of spamcan but IMHO nothing comes close to the Jodel for such delightful handling qualities. If Alan Ship’s other creation ever came on to the market, I would there in a heartbeat.
I can’t see any vibration problem on this video. I would be interested to know if you are recording the cockpit audio through the GoPro or recording the audio separately with a digital audio recorder and then adding the sound during the editing process.
Hi Propman,
Yes, I’m loving the aircraft; hopefully I’ll meet Alan at some point.
I edited out most of the bits that were poor, but I believe the effect at 3:57 is the result of vibration, and as I reduce the power at 4:10, the instruments blur as it all goes a bit shaky.
The cockpit audio was recorded through the Gopro, using a cable fro NFlightcam which I got from Mendlessohns, plugged into an unused headset jack.
Thanks for that video. You should really take her for some mountain flying (if you haven’t already), because that’s where the “Mous” is really the perfect plane.
I don’t think there is anything about a go-pro which makes it immune to vibration, but it might be that cameras which contain no (zero) motion stabilisation might be less affected by the typical high frequency airframe vibration in GA aircraft.
I’ve just been reading various reviews of this and while most of them are too banal to be useful, that camera has stabilisation which paradoxically might make it less useful for GA work. I have not been able to find out whether it can be disabled. Curiously I found a review of the FDR-X1000V which says the stabilisation is highly adaptive and even works in drone use.
As regards antivibration mounting, the lighter the camera is the harder this is to achieve because a lighter suspended mass needs more elastic supports and for something like a go-pro these would be very elastic.
Nice video. I am fascinated by the D140 and especially the later models for the pleasing aesthetics. I often wondered why they were heralded as the “best” choice for mountain flying in Europe? The Maule M7 and C180 would be able to do everything the same on paper, except store 90kg perhaps so far aft. I can’t see the 90kg in the far rear being commonly used up the mountains. Is it just because the French like to use their own aircraft, and it is a tradition? Or is it something finer that I am missing out on. Various niches do have their own aircraft choice, horsey people and PA32’s for example.
William
A few minutes on the autoroute, will confirm the French like to buy French, often in the face of better alternatives.
I’ve no experience of the Maule, but the C180 is clearly a fantastically capable aircraft, and outperforms the Jumbo Jodel in most departments.
Having said that, I wouldn’t score the type too highly in the fun to fly department, despite some of my best times aloft having been the Bahamas in a 182, and British Columbia in a 185 on floats.
For me the well harmonised controls, stick, and fantastic visibility, mean if I was lucky enough to have the choice, it would be be the French one that would get pulled out of the hangar more often.
This particular example will (hopefully) be more economical to run, having 180 horses, a fixed pitch prop, and a LAA permit. Of course she needs keeping indoors, can’t fly IFR, or very quickly……
Thanks Nick,
Its definitely an aircraft that is on my bucket list of aircraft to own. Its probably safer than money in the bank, and even if you had to pay more for one when it came up you would likely get it all back in a few years time after you’d ticked the box. There is a nice one on planecheck at the moment for €75k
You would nearly say a C180 is harder to buy. I sold mine and it could not find another K model without paying maybe €20k more now.
Well, Nick, the 180 does that on at least 50 hp more. Imagine a D140 with 230 horses pulling at that airframe…
Many Maules seem to have considerably more horses, too. I don’t think the D140 stands back behind the Maule and the 180.
Fair enough mh, what I really ned to do is take her to the Alps as Rwy 20 suggested!
