Niagara Falls as you have never seen it

Everyone knows about radio-controlled model aircraft. In the past few years a specialized type of RC aircraft has become increasingly popular. In the military they are called drones. Among hobbyists they are referred to as FPV, First Person View aircraft.

FPV craft have a video camera mounted in the "cockpit" of the model. It transmits live video back to the controller on the ground, who flies the craft using that flight view. The video can also usually be recorded for later playback.

With excellent HD cameras the result can be quite stunning, as here:



I have seen FPV systems more sophisticated that this. The most complex setup I have seen was a plane with the camera mounted on a gymbal with the video projected into a helmet the on-ground pilot wore, seeing the video in the facepiece before his eyes. When the pilot turned his head or looked up or down, the camera rotated accordingly. As you might imagine, this was a very expensive system.

There have been RC aircraft mounting cameras for a long time. But they usually are not considered FPV craft unless the video streams back to the ground station in real time. Some models on the market use your wifi network to stream and you can see the video on your tablet, tilting it to fly the aircraft. (Needless to say, flying these is a short-range proposition.)

FPV prices are dropping. Amazon has an FPV quadcopter (a very stable design) for $288. At lower prices, however, range will be limited (and so will quality, for that matter). Serious hobbyists hand build systems that can stream and be controlled to slant ranges of several thousand feet. This guy even tried to send his plane to the edge of space using a weather balloon, then glide the plane back down.



So this post is another under the "I gotta get me one of these" category.

But this is an even bigger "gotta."