I have been reading up a little on various UAV exploits and if I'm honest, I am a little hooked. So the bad news is that I have never flown an R/C plane in my life, the good news is that I have background experience in controls and electrical engineering, HVAC controls to be precise, but better something than nothing .

I loved the lighthouse project, it looked reasonably simple and pretty well detailed and provided me with enough keywords to 'Google' for more info.

I have a few questions though which either I couldn't find or have just got too tired and missed.

The U-NAV equipment looks good, but I couldn't figure out how the speed of the plane is controlled. Another thing is can you upload commands to the U-NAV while in flight i.e. through an RS232 radio modem? My thinking is that if you could relay the GPS data back to a PC you could invoke 'on the fly' commands through another application.

P.S. I have a Hobbyzone Super Cub on its way to me to at least get my foot on the bottom of the r/c flying ladder (hope this was a good starter) and plan on strapping my very slim and lightweight Samsung X820 to it for some video footage.

I got involved in the hobby because of UAV's at work. I think learning to fly is essential to the whole pursuit unless you are working with someone that can do the flying.

One approach to throttle management with a small UAV is to have the pilot set the throttle for level flight and leave it there. If it's windy and the plane changes directions a lot, this probably isn't going to work too well, but otherwise it will be fine.