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Well, actually, I wanted to put one of those damn x cams or whatever they were called on a Kyosho Mini-Z (I highly recommend this site -- they were super friendly with good prices).

This was supposed to be a combination of an "I can do this" project combined with an upskirt cam for the bank I worked in at the time. Unfortunately, in between my "ooh ooh ooh I want the Porsche" RC car spending spree (4 grown men buying about $2k worth of toys at once) and "oh fine I'll buy a goddamm camera just to see what it is" (back then my girlfriend never had time due to finals so I had some spare cash) I neglected to check how BIG those remote cams actually were...

That's probably fair - more information is warranted. Let me give you some specs, and you can work it out for yourself - bear in mind that this is for my heli, which is one of the smaller petrol-driven aircraft on the market. Certainly not large enough to hoist a decent-sized camera / computer combo.

I fly a Nexus 30, basically an entry-level heli. The blades on mine are carbon-fibre (upgraded from wood), 48" diameter. Those blades run at about 2,000rpm (it's about a 10:1 ratio step-down from the engine driveshaft). That means that in a hover, the tips of the blades (the bit that moves fastest and hence provides most lift) is moving at around 300mph, or about 0.4 mach.

In fact, the main reason I switched to carbon-fibre instead of wood is because CF come in pre-balanced pairs; after spending an hour balancing wood blades, the heli would still shake quite badly. That's considerably easier with pre-matched carbon fibre, but I still have to fully dismantle it every 5 flights or so (~1.5 hours flight time) since it shakes all the screws and bolts loose, even with threadlock.

As for engine noise, I'm not sure. Certainly you could replace the 2-stroke with a 4-stroke engine, and muffle it a lot better, but you'd run into all sorts of other problems (4-stroke engines tend to be heavier, lower RPM, and less reliable - OTOH they're more efficient).

As for jitter-correction; you'd have to jitter-correct significantly faster than the heli is shaking (around 30-40hz), so you're looking at a fairly high-speed camera. That adds weight, and these things don't lift very much (mine will just about lift a 1lb bag of sugar).

Essentially, it might be possible, but I doubt it. Hell, these things are considerably shakier and less stable than a full-size helicopter (less weight == more maneuverable), and have considerably less endurance. You'd be far better off sticking a hulking great camera on a full-sized heli and putting a pilot in it. Admittedly though, that would defeat the point of the exercise...

Seriously. The ZipZaps, and most of the stuff from Tyco and Nikko aren't that fantastic.

Get the real deals. 1/18th, 1/10th, or 1/8th. Electric or nitro. On-road or off.

HPI
Kyosho
Serpent
Tamiya
Team Associated
Team X-Ray
Traxxas

RC racing has got to be one of the geekiest and most rewarding hobbies to boot. Meet a lot of nice people this way at events.

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I used to have one at my last job and would drive people nuts racing it around the office while talking on the phone.

This is not an entirely new principle, its more like a linear ducted fan. or a Stretched turbine

A new principle would exclude fanning, flapping or any kind of turning of wheels (circular motion) to create thrust. This is a beautiful project, but it is really a derivative of Leonardos helicopter, which was an Archimedes screw for air.

When there is propulsion generated without circular motion (props, turbines, ducted fans), or without shooting something out of a tube like rocketry, then we will be talking about something that is really new.

Sure the Tommy Bit Char-G chars are cuter, but I prefer a car that is faster and looks nicer, say, like my Dodge Viper ...
http://www.kyosho.com/cars/kyod01x3.html

"Under the hood":
http://www.kyosho.com/cars/kyod01x1.html

--

"The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite."
- Thomas Jefferson

Sure the Tommy Bit Char-G chars are cuter, but I prefer a car that is faster and looks nicer, say, like my Dodge Viper ...
http://www.kyosho.com/cars/kyod01x3.html

"Under the hood":
http://www.kyosho.com/cars/kyod01x1.html

--

"The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite."
- Thomas Jefferson

check the main planes page here and just to pre-emt they do have a spitfire

check the main planes page here and just to pre-emt they do have a spitfire

I've had my Mini-z for more than a year now, they are really neat. But quite expensive here in sweden, around 150 USD.
And you can spend a fortune on extra parts...
http://www.kyosho.com/cars/kyod01x1.html

Manufacturer page: http://www.kyosho.com/cars/kyod37x1.html
My preferred supplier: http://www.towerhobbies.com/promos/00so/kyod49sm.h tml

Real mini R/C cars. That little tank thing looks like some low-quality stuff. These things are fairly fast and have a real suspension, but they do cost a shade more than the crap tank and are a whopping 5" (instead of the tank's 4")... They've got 7 frequencies, though.