I know of someone who used to do aerial photography for a living using planes, and he may still use planes for some areas. Now he uses programmable drones though; expensive ones that he can program to fly a specified grid and then return.
Cody I posted some pics in the wrong reply i think ... One of my RC planes .. the bald eagle is down below somewhere ...
Yeh Ken , now they literally do most anything you can think of ... riding a bike and the guy had a programmable drone just following above and a little behind him ... but the idea of package deliverys they are working on just frazzles my mind, lol ... I picture 3 pounds of nails falling out of the sky !
Yeah, especially if you could tie some cat treats to that helicopter...how long do you think it would take for your cats to bring it down and get those treats @Ken Anderson ?
My grandsons always get remote cars, motorcycles, planes, etc. for Christmas. This past Christmas they even got a small drone. Since they are young it doesn't take very long for them to wreck these things and put them "out of service" for good...which is probably for the best since they really aren't very good at "driving" these things. Here in Lafayette we once had a Business with a racing track for slot cars. I was a teenager then and bought my own slot car to race on the weekends. I never won any prizes, etc. but I enjoyed racing my personal race car around that track.
I have a Quadcopter (drone) that has an on-board camera that broadcasts its images back to the controller on a seperate frequency, showing what the Quad sees on the operator's video screen! It's called an FPV (First Person View) system. It also takes still and video pictures of what it sees during its flight which can be played back on a computer or other device. The Quad also has a GPS system, which shows on the operator's video screen the Latitude and Longitude coordinates, the distance and altitude from the launch point, and will keep hovering in the last position until commanded to fly to another position at a speed selected by the operator. It also shows the Quad's remaining battery power. It has an RTH function (Return to Home), which will automatically cause the quad to return and land at its launch point in case of a low flight battery or interference with the control signal. You can also use the "follow me" function, where the quad will follow you from your changing GPS coordinates as you move on the ground. All this technology for $216 on Amazon Hal
My son ,Tony, (up in north Idaho) has a drone and he loves flying it and sometimes posts pictures on Facebook or Youtube when he takes some that he likes. Here is a short video that he made. Most of the pictures were done with the drone, but a little bit is from the helmet camera when he was riding his motorcycle. My youngest grandson edited the scenes and added the music.
Here are some RC vehicles I own...wife won a navigational award at an RC boat regatta for her fishing boat.
I have flown a small drone for some time and enjoyed the experience but here in Britain they are becoming a nuisance. Unlike the States we are overcrowded, HD cameras are intrusive and there's a toothless law restricting flights closer than fifty feet of properties or people. Needless to say it doesn't work; we have had a number of drones almost hitting commercial air line planes.
This is a large 1 square mile area near my home, which is completely free of obstructions, with plenty of room for flying Drones without bothering anyone. The San Gabriel mountain range has just received a fresh snowfall. These are my Drones: The little one is just a toy, but the larger one has an on-board Camera and can record videos and stills which are viewed on the transmitter control box. It has an automatic "return to home" function which will automatically cause it to return to its launch site in case it flies out of transmitter range or loses the transmitter signal for any reason. Hal
That's what it should be like: no bothering of others, plenty of room, and no obstructions. The thing is, though, what can you film that you haven't seen yet? Anyway, in our densely populated and crowded areas some morons also fly their drones with the result of bothering others, and even air traffic, competing with other drones, spying on people in their homes, and more often than not, losing control of their drones. They are a nuisance. Give a boy a drone. BTW, Hal, is there something you don't seem to have?
When I belonged to the Maritime Modelers, I had a large, well-detailed Tugboat that I would run in our Regattas at municipal lakes. One member had an 8-foot Battleship with rotating turrets and elevating guns. My other R/C vehicles are my Army Fast Attack Vehicle, my German Tiger Tank, my Helicopter, and my Drone. I've owned my Fast Attack Vehicle for about 40 years, and it's my favorite, because it has a true Gear-Type Differential, instead of the usual slip-axles. Hal