Sure thing. First of all, that video is the footage from the HD keychain cam on the wing--not my flight cam. The resolution on that is a lot lower.

So the video system on my plane consists of:
- BevRC 800mw 1.2ghz video transmitter and receiver, set to 1280mhz - http://www.bevrc.com/bev-13g-800mw-p-52.html
- Sony 1/3 CCD 540TVL camera with 2.1mm wide angle lens - http://www.securitycamera2000.com/pr...ide-2.1mm.html
- DPCav V-dipole antenna mounted on the left wing - http://www.dpcav.com/xcart/product.p...cat=272&page=1
- Powered by one 500mah 3S lipo
- #11 HD Keychain Camera on right wing for high quality recording - http://stores.ebay.com/hxelepro360-Dianas-Store?_rdc=1

And my ground station consists of:
- BevRC video 1.2ghz receiver with stock antenna (see link above)
- BevRC video splitter - http://www.bevrc.com/video-splitter1...uts-p-139.html
- Sony DVP FX-930 portable DVD player w/ video inputs for display ($25 on eBay)
- EasyCap USB video capture device for my laptop for ground recording (still working on finding good software to use with it) - http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=360370519597
- Aluminum framed case mounted on a tripod to hold everything in
- Powered by one 1800mah 3S lipo

Everything is pretty much plug and play once you get it hooked up. The video transmitter comes with all the wires you need to hook up a camera and battery, so you just plug it all in, turn it on, set the channel on the transmitter and receiver, and you're ready to go.

Patrick, great video man. That little camera does a good job! Thought you were lost in the skies there for a bit. I mixed what I shot yesterday with some of the previous video. Have no idea on how high we got...but it sure was fun! Me thinks I better put an extension on my receiver though!

STRYKER-HIGHEST ALTITUDE YET!.wmv (4 min 20 sec)

Patrick how much research did ya do before you purchased your gear looks like it will cost around $200 to $250 to purchase the whole gear.. Could you add a go pro camera to the gear if you wanted to?

Alan you were high up there...cool stuff.

Row

Oh I've been doing tons of research on it. I've been spending a good portion of my spare time since March researching RC and FPV stuff--mainly on this forum. I haven't added it up specifically, but the FPV gear probably did cost a bit over $200.

And yeah, I'd love to add a GoPro on there someday. Not entirely sure if it would fit on my current plane, though it might if I replaced the flight camera with it and used it both for flight and recording, which I've heard you can do. It would definitely take some serious tinkering to get it mounted on there, and no telling how well the plane would fly with that big a camera on it, since it is rather large with the full protecting housing on it. That would go better on a Skywalker or Zephyr, but people have put it on an Easy Star before which my plane is similar to, so it could be possible.

Patrick, if you want to get a change of scenery, consider a flight over Back Bay down off the Sandbridge beach. Sometime next month with a gentle breeze. No tourists and nobody bothers you. I'll go with you with binos so as you know where you are. You'll definately need a spotter. Back Bay is easy to get lost in (over). Sound good? We can talk about it later.

That would be great Allan. I would definitely like to fly at Sandbridge sometime. I've got all kinds of ideas for cool places I would like to fly. I've been scouting Google Earth a bunch today looking for different places to fly over the harbor in Norfolk, but I don't think I'll be able to fly many places there because there are so many military facilities around there. Wouldn't want to get in trouble for flying too close to one of those.

Patrick thankyou for the info Very much appreciated. I might add that to my list of to do things.. I was thinking more in terms of Tricopter but who knows ...By the way Tricopter back in action...

Oh yeah, I've seen a lot of videos with a GoPro on a tricopter. I think in that case you pretty much have to use it as both the FPV and recording camera because there isn't room on a tricopter for two cameras. Luckily it does work as both, though I've heard the GoPro doesn't do well in low light like at dusk.

The Go-Pro will definately go on my X-mas wish list. Looks like I won't be flyin this Saturday due to a biz appt. but may try to go out Sunday.

Hello prelator,

Color me jealous, I had been working on some FPV with my Heli and a little on my plane before I had some control issues and decided to park it from 150 ft at full throttle into the top of Lynnhaven Middle. Anyhow It looks like you are having some good success. Thats great! I will have to check on my laptop to see what capture software I was using. I was using the same USB stick you mention in your post but because I wasn't able to get my compression stuff setup to work properly with 64 bit Windows 7 I had to run it in raw mode which made for some REALLY HUGE VIDEO (200Mb+ per minute).

Anyhow, I haven't been able to fly or tinker much lately because I am focusing on my degree but I still have all my gear in the garage... waiting...

I did want to respond to your post about flying near Norfolk. The biggest thing to keeping out of trouble is to understand the airspace in which you are flying. From my recollection when I took groundschool (its been a while so forgive me) as long as you are below 500 feet and say outside of the borders of the airport you should be fine. Now you obviously don't want to be goofing around in the takeoff and landing path of the airports but as long as you stay below 500 feet you should be fine. Just as an FYI that is also the FAA guideline for all RC aircraft as well. There are a few videos of a guy flying his Easystar up and down the Hudson river in NY and all the park police did when they came by was watch. He flies by skyscrappers and the statue of liberty if I remember. I will see if I can find it on Youtube.

An interesting resource would be to visit the website http://skyvector.com/ which has free access to aeronautical charts. There are a lot of symbols but the rings and shaded areas around the airports are what designate the class of airspace.

A good description of Airspace is available at http://www.flytandem.com/airspace.htm

I hope this is informative,

DW

Originally Posted by prelator

That would be great Allan. I would definitely like to fly at Sandbridge sometime. I've got all kinds of ideas for cool places I would like to fly. I've been scouting Google Earth a bunch today looking for different places to fly over the harbor in Norfolk, but I don't think I'll be able to fly many places there because there are so many military facilities around there. Wouldn't want to get in trouble for flying too close to one of those.

dwvabeach, you'd probably be right if I was only dealing with the FAA. From the map, looks like all of Hampton Roads is in Class C airspace, so I'd be fine flying under 400 feet (though since I don't have an OSD or altimeter on my plane, I have no idea whether I'm above or below that). I'm not really worried about the FAA though, but the Navy. Even if normal planes are allowed to fly above the military facilities around here (I don't see any areas marked prohibited on that chart), I don't think the Navy would take kindly to an RC plane flying over one of their shipyards at like 200 feet.

Case in point, one flight I'd really like to do is this place in Portsmouth: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=36.81...h&z=17&vpsrc=6

The big white area next to the boat launching park is a vacant field that as near as I could tell when I stumbled across it last spring while checking out the neighboring park isn't being used for much besides an industrial dump lot for random concrete pipes and such. It's totally open, and would be a perfect place next to the river to launch from. Only problem is, that's about 2,000 feet away from the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, which often has aircraft carriers and submarines in it. I took my kayak past it in the spring and there's this big boom stretching across the water to keep boats out, with big scary signs saying "Warning: Restricted Area. Use of force authorized." There were guard shacks all along it presumably manned by armed military police.

Whether it's technically allowed or not, I'm just worried that with all the paranoia about terrorism these days, if I flew my RC plane anywhere near that place (not even flying over the shipyard, just past it) and someone saw it, it might freak them out. Worst case, I'd be afraid they might try to shoot down my plane or something (wouldn't be too difficult with a shotgun). What do you guys thing? Would it be safe to fly there, or would the Navy freak out over an RC plane flying anywhere near one of its facilities?

In other news, my trip to New York this weekend fell through because my train was canceled, so looks like I'll be around after all. I kind of feel like sleeping in tomorrow though and just taking it easy, so I probably won't be at 3 Oaks, though I'll probably do some flying elsewhere in the afternoon. I did a flight over my neighborhood for the first time this evening, and it was pretty cool.

You certainly have a good point. I think that depending who was on duty and what security condition was set on base you may just get a few people spun up. Probably a good idea to just use Google Earth to do your exploring in those parts of town...

Mt. Trashmore to towncenter would be really cool. Its not that far LOS, there were a few videos from a few years ago on Youtube with guys flying off of Trashmore. I don't know what the current stance on RC craft is over there but I haven't seen any in the times I have been there.

Sounds like fun. Maybe I will have to get my box of broken bits out and try to hammer a few things straight and come out of my cave.

Take care,

DW

Flying is not officially permitted at Trashmore. Nevertheless, I see people there on occasion. If you are flying and some fat dude riding a golf cart sees you, he'll tell you to stop. Eariler this summer, I saw the golf cart nazi stop and talk to a guy who was running a car. The guy was all by himself in a gravelly area between the two hills. After golf cart guy drove off, I just had to ask him what he said to him - he told him to make sure that he did not to run the car around people

As far as the Towncenter is concerned, I really think it would be a BAD idea to fly a model airplane around those buildings. Just because there are some YouTube videos of Trappy doing it in Manhattan doesn't make it acceptable - not a smart move IMO.

That said, there is a large cleared lot where "Bill's Flea Market" was, just to the west of Towncenter. It's right across the street from my office building and I fly there on occasion on my lunch breaks. I've seen two other guys flying there too

Yeah I don't really plan to fly around tall buildings anytime soon--it will be a long time before I'm at Trappy's skill level lol. Though the Williams Farm Park site where I most often fly is only 2 miles from Town Center and I can see the buildings pretty well even from there.

Trashmore would be cool. I might fly there sometime if I don't get run out before I even have a chance to setup. The current city dump is actually right next to Regent and I flew over that last week. The lighting was really bad and I got a little disoriented that time, but I want to go back soon and do some more flights there, flying up to the top of the hill and back down along the side. Might be a bit tricky though as there's several radio towers there that were interfering with my video signal a bit last time, and I don't know if that would be worse flying closer to the ground. And if I crash in the dump, let's just say I'll have brought new meaning to the phrase "trash my plane."

Oh and yesterday I scouted another cool location to fly, Lynnhaven Inlet and Pleasure House Point off Shore Drive: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=36.902...h&vpsrc=0&z=16. I explored the waterways around there with my kayak and found a perfect open area on the point to fly from. Once I get a little better at flying FPV close to the ground rather than 500 feet up as I have been doing so far, it would be a great place to fly around skimming the marshes and beaches.

Actually, I seen somebody flying a profile f22 with a combat streamer there about 2 or so weeks ago as I was zippin' on by down the interstate. Somewhere in this thread I read Mt. Trashmore was off limits because of a few people. Maybe things have changed there.