When I started flying with the US Unlimited Aerobatic Team I got annoyed at how hard it was to hold a camera steady on an aircraft. I've worked in image processing applications for years. I wrote a little program in C++ using the OpenCV library which will take a video, process through each frame, and try to crop the video around the aircraft.

Sometimes it works great. Sometimes it thinks a cloud is an airplane. It only works if there is nothing in the frame but sky and airplane. Any shot of the ground or an insect in the frame will confuse it. It's in alpha state and requires a Windows computer and an operator who knows how the command line works. It's here to download because I get a lot of requests for it. Give it a shot, but I've since moved on to another solution. Maybe someday I'll come back to this project if there is enough interest.
Download Motion Crop (.zip | 111 MB) Thanks to Russell Bell for posting his example on Youtube and sharing his process:
1. Increase the contrast
2. MotionCrop Parameters
   - Window size: 1000
   - Threshold: 0.5
   - Iterations: 3

Being an aerobatic judge requires that a person can assess minute errors in angle in the blink of an eye. Judges get a lot of grief for missing mistakes but how is a judge going to get better without making a bunch of mistakes? I wanted to see what would happen if we gave judges a tool to let them practice their craft. Maybe instead of getting mad at judges we should give them more tools like this. Let me know what you think.

Sometimes I like to make little games. This one is heavily inspired by the Apple II game "Sabotage" which I played on a school computer in the early 1980s. I wrote it using Pico-8 so I call it "Picotage!".

Picotage is a very simple action game where the goal is simply to survive as long as you can. Shoot the helis before they drop soldiers, or shoot the soldier's chutes after they drop, or shoot the soldiers. But don't let the soldiers land and shoot at your base!

If you want to learn how to program games I highly recommend giving Pico-8 a try: lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php

I've always liked flight simulators but none of them are good enough when it comes to aerobatics. Flight sims are usually designed for people who are either learning how to fly a Cessna or who want to be a fighter pilot. I wanted to fly something like my Extra, or a Pitts biplane.

Acro FS is a stick-and-rudder aerobatic flight simulator. Designed from the ground up to accurately simulate aerobatic flight, it allows you to experience what it’s like to strap into a high-performance stunt plane and take to the sky. There’s no navigation, no radios - just a lot of horsepower in a state of the art aircraft.

The public beta version recently came to a close, and we are excited to be working on the next version. Stay tuned!

I've had a love affair with model airplanes since I was a little kid. R/C planes and drones are great fun but sometimes it is too rainy to go outside or maybe you'd like to build up your skills without having to worry about a crash.

RealFlight is a flight simulator for model airplanes, helicopters, and drones. Fly more than 140 vehicles at 50+ flying sites in a huge open world. Test your skills in the challenges, and fly with your friends in online multiplayer games.

In November 2021, Knife Edge Software sold RealFlight to Horizon Hobby. I've retained Knife Edge's core technology which will allow me to refocus the company and continue to make best-in-class flight simulators. For more details about the sale, check out my Thank You letter located in the Articles section.