Oct. 14, 2007 - Bay Area skies are seeing a growing number of aircraft carrying video cameras and sending TV signals back to the ground. But these planes have no pilot aboard; they are miniature versions of the drones used by the armed forces and NASA.
This is a unmanned aerial vehicle, a civilian version of the Predator that costs millions of dollars. This is a UAV that costs less than 200 -- one flown by a professional pilot in a control room; the other by a hobbyist wearing goggles. The industrial strength drone is used by NASA, surveying forest fires and the environment, flying miles above the earth.
The other provides amazing video for amazingly little money. Just a couple of years ago, the battery and electronics for a plane like this weighed more than the plane. But the technology has improved so much, that the gasoline engine on this aircraft has been replaced by an electric motor.
And the motor, the batteries, camera, transmitter, even gyro stabilizers, plus the plane -- all of it weights less than 10 pounds. Wade Hirsch sells these kits online as Future Hobbies. He says, "Since it is electric, you have a lot less vibration, so the camera's nice and steady.
You can overlay it over a program like Google Earth and just program it through your computer, just let the plane go, and it will go ahead and fly to its target. You can literally click on the map where you want this thing to fly, and it will go do its pattern and then come back to you." What also might come back to you is your lunch.
Goggles can be disorienting for the first time flyer, because they put you right in the pilot's seat. It's not all video, either. Sacramento photographer Patrick Egan uses rigs like this to take high quality photos for real estate firms.
But, for now, any camera turns a Small-UAV into a problem.
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