Flew over Denali

[natdm]

The park was gorgeous. I put on a 360 mount to do some recording, and it turned out great. We only flew in it for an hour. We went up Ruths Glacier, flew around a little in that area, and then spiraled up to pass Denali, then down another glacier (not pictured). Most of the other passes were fogged in, so we kept it pretty conservative.

The other pilots flying were super chill and gave us tips. I kind of wish I had recorded that. Overall, I wish we did it longer, and I wish we could do it again. The weather is shot for the next few days, and then we need to head back to MN.

I forgot the cowl flaps on some of this. I climbed from 6,500 to 16,500 and forgot to close them when we reached the top. Oh well.

[Echo]

Beautiful! Thank you for sharing.

[Flyler]

Amazing.  That 360 view is just perfect for the scenery.

[AndreiC]

@natdmCan you please share your exact camera set up? What mount, what camera, etc? I’d love to be able to film like that my more mundane flights. Thanks!

Beautiful videos btw, very envious. 

[Danb]

On 7/25/2025 at 9:40 PM, natdm said:

The park was gorgeous. I put on a 360 mount to do some recording, and it turned out great. We only flew in it for an hour. We went up Ruths Glacier, flew around a little in that area, and then spiraled up to pass Denali, then down another glacier (not pictured). Most of the other passes were fogged in, so we kept it pretty conservative.

The other pilots flying were super chill and gave us tips. I kind of wish I had recorded that. Overall, I wish we did it longer, and I wish we could do it again. The weather is shot for the next few days, and then we need to head back to MN.

I forgot the cowl flaps on some of this. I climbed from 6,500 to 16,500 and forgot to close them when we reached the top. Oh well.

+*#$”’ AWESOME

D

[midlifeflyer]

Incredibly beautiful.  Thanks for sharing that. 

[dkkim73]

Well-done. Love the cloud cap, too! 

[Bunti]

Great video with fantastic views!

Could you tell us how exactly you installed the camera. Good would also be  a picture of the install.

Which camera did you use?

Thanks, Stefan

[natdm]

On 7/26/2025 at 11:12 PM, AndreiC said:

@natdmCan you please share your exact camera set up? What mount, what camera, etc? I’d love to be able to film like that my more mundane flights. Thanks!

Beautiful videos btw, very envious. 

 

22 hours ago, Bunti said:

Great video with fantastic views!

Could you tell us how exactly you installed the camera. Good would also be  a picture of the install.

Which camera did you use?

Thanks, Stefan

Thanks! I have an Insta360 video camera attached to a FlightFlix mount. I don't have a picture of it at the moment, sorry. It mounts to inspection panel screws and you can get it signed off by a mechanic since it's not 'temporary' (screws). Mine spans two different inspection panels.

https://flightflix.aero/collections/360-camera-mounts/products/maui-flight-surface-pole-mount

Some notes:

1. The cameras battery, at a moderate 360 setting, is still only like 1 hour. I have a second battery but don't feel like crawling out to the wing to change it mid-flight at 16500ft, so I just create clips
2. The connection to the camera is wifi so it's not terrible, better than bluetooth.
3. The camera, by default, will turn off after 3 minutes of no video. That sucked, I changed it after missing some glacier overflights.
4. Fligitflix has a fan-powered charger you can clamp to the mount. They haven't released it just yet, I don't think. It'd be another $400 or something... but better than a bunch of backup batteries that take forever to charge.

The editing process:

1. Connect to insta360 with the insta360 app and make a lot of tiny clips based on the videos you took. The app editing process is ok, but it crashed a few times on me and annoyed me.
2. Export them to your phone/wherever you want.
3. Use LumaFusion (paid app) on iPad to edit videos together. You can use any video editor you want but I like LF, and I think they do really great work for editing videos on the go. You can also post directly to Youtube from LumaFusion which is cool.

I also have a ton of gopros because I thought videoing our trips would be amazing. Editing is terrible and I hate it, for any camera. So I have tons of gopros if anyone wants them for pretty cheap, and more batteries than you'll ever use. They work great but the insta360 is more of a "one and done" video. I have a gopro hero max (360) which is cool but this just had a better form-factor.