New Heli Cam
 

Recently switched over to electric powered heli's for asthetic reasons, and smoother flight.

This little bugger is 5 feet long, 10 pounds total weight without camera. Flys for 10 minutes per battery (I have multiple batteries). Flys very smooth and quiet and is very reliable.

I'll be posting footage in a month or so.
http://fritzrips.com/Gallery1/albums/Heli/IMGA0225.jpg

That looks sweet Derek! I can not wait to see the footage!

How much did you spend on this, if you don't mind me asking.
I've always been interested in these, and this one sounds rather nice...

What camera do you attach to it?

~Gabriel

I'm looking forward to footage too.

How much does it cost......................Total investment for radios, heli, electronics, video downlink, heli, batteries, infrared stabilizer, and everything needed is around $8,000 USD.

Camera.........Pany SD1 for now, but that might change. We went for a very light camera, as we are hauling this heli on our backs (12 pounds), so weight is important. Our gas helicopter had a payload of 8 pounds and we flew a FX1, this one needs the smaller, lighter cams.

The learning curve is very slow. It takes a year or more to be proficient at flying safely and learning all the ins and outs of it. It has become more or less a full time gig flying every day, tweaking this, tweaking that. But it's coming along nicely and I'm finally getting the type of footage I had hoped for.

I'm hiking it up to 11,000 feet today to see how it works up there. Should be fine.

I originally started this venture with the thought of filming skiing with it. Winter of 07-08 we will be flying this every day in Utah.

Hi Derek,
going this way myself at present for a project that was going to be 3D graphics but now will be live footage, your not joking about the learning curve this is the hardest thing I've ever learned to do.

where did you get the heli?
 

where did you get the heli? I would love to research this more for my projects..John

Hi John,
You can buy the helis at good model shops, or even ebay there are lots of types and sizes the bigger the better for AP BUT the bigger they are the more they cost to buy, fly and repair. the mounts are made by certain businessess Airfoil for one.
Have a look here for more info

http://www.rcgroups.com/aerial-photography-128/
www.aplanding.com
http://www.runryder.com/

Hi Derek,

I'm hoping to speak with you personally... I'm looking at doing some aerial shots soon and am a little out of my depth in this, looking for some advice... unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any direct PM available?

Anyway, if you have a moment, I'd appreciate you getting in touch with me. It's doug *at* psychicbunny.com