Affordable, high definition cameras are opening up a world of sporting video to those who can’t compete with the pros. For aviators, we get to share our passion, the beauty of flight!
I recently borrowed a GoPro camera and gave it a try. The flight in the Piper Arrow was short, 29 nm, from the new airport at Panama City (ECP) to DeFuniak Springs. The sky was spectacular and the air was fresh from the north but at a mercifully pleasant temperature for February (low seventies in °F). The air was a little turbulent below 2500 feet, explaining the slight bumpiness of the video at low altitude. 
After takeoff, climbing to smooth air, I circled over the cypress and hardwood-lined Choctawhatchee river which heads south from southern Alabama to empty into the Choctawhatchee Bay near Destin and Ft. Walton in the Florida Panhandle. As shown below, that river drains some of the best scuba and cave-diving springs in Florida, including Morrison Spring, featured in the previous post.
Locally, there seems to be some nonchalance about the spelling of Defuniak, De Funiak or DeFuniak. The French care of course, but the locals don’t. Surprisingly, the town was not named after a French trader with the Choctaw Indians. DeFuniak Springs was named after Fred de Funiak, the first president of the Pensacola and Atlantic Railroad who envisioned DeFuniak Springs as a resort for northern visitors.
A pilot can appreciate that in the video the approach to landing in DeFuniak Springs was not as well aligned as it should have been. I had fallen victim to the visual illusion spoken of in the blog posting Killer Optical Illusions – Size Does Matter.
I usually fly into runways between 150 and 200-feet wide, including current or former military runways and the airport at Panama City. It had been a year since I’d flown into DeFuniak’s narrow 60-foot wide runway, and even though I circled the field twice I still found myself too close-in on downwind (flying parallel to the landing runway, in the opposite direction). That, plus a strong tailwind on base (perpendicular to the runway) put me past the point where I would normally line up for landing.
Over-correcting close to the ground can be fatal due to an event called the stall spin accident. It occurs when aircraft are flown incorrectly close to the ground during that potentially fateful turn to “final”, trying to line up with the runway. Being mindful of that I kept my speed up and corrected no more than necessary to find my way to the runway.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but my wife was parked opposite from my intended landing spot watching the approach. I’m glad that, all things considered, it turned out well. At least it drove home my previous point that “Size Matters”.
Technical details: This HD video was taken from the cockpit of a Piper Arrow. A GoPro camera filmed the action. Royalty-free music was generated automatically by Cyberlink PowerDirector 10 with SmartSound technology.