In my local paper today they have front page article about these things......Local guy is holding a $17,000 8 rotor model that is 5 ft in diameter.

A few rules:
1. No commercial uses (new legislation coming in 2015 from Congress)
2. 400 ft height restriction (law, not the ability of the craft) and must fly within visual range
3. No flying over crowds, no flying near airports

They do specifically mention that these things have great potential both good and bad:
1. Roof top inspections without ever leaving the ground
2. Cheap photography vs. a real helicopter
3. In the wrong hands, a $500 chopper with C4 aboard could fly into a crowd (think stadium) and kill hundreds

On the shelves by next year.
I could see a pack of em following a group of racers.
couple of inflatable screens on the beach for nice viewing...
USB ports will be in everything, transponder will plug in to either the helo or camera.

anyone remember Battlebots? I got another idea...

eta: you could lob a brick of c4 into a stadium from the parking lot with a slingshot made for water balloons.
boating, and especially boat racing, seems made for this. call me biased.

If you buy one, be very careful, especially around people. Spinning at high speeds, the blades are like razor blades. Indeed, an experienced 19 year-old enthusiast was killed this past September when his R/C helicopter hit him. It not only sliced off a portion of his skull, but it severed an artery in his neck.


http://www.christiantoday.com/article/toy.rv.helicopter.decapitates.man.video.roman.piro zek.19.scalped.to.death.after.losing.control.in.br ooklyn.park/33865.htm

Personally, I wouldn't fly one around another human being, no matter what. Hurt someone, and a trial lawyer will surely come a-calling.

We are working on a kite/parachute camera system that will fly above us when we do endurance runs to have live video the entire way. We will have a way to adjust the height and angle from side to side from the cockpit while were running. Here is a video of the first test. The drone's do not fly near fast enough to keep up with even the slow poker run boats.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIRVR03FCkw

Not an issue with these phantoms...there isnt nearly the inertia of a single rotor heli. They are virtually harmless. Now if it fell out of the sky like a brick, that would be a different story...

There are RC planes that go 200mph. You can put a camera on any of them. The pilot could fly it from a boat or from shore. I've heard of guys flying 35 miles from the control station...they have the video transmitted from the air craft to a monitor or goggles. Crazy stuff!

That's a cool idea. Can't wait to see how its works out.

MP

hi guys. I fly a twin engine 5 million dollar helo. I had to take evasive action 6 months ago because I had guy flying one of these at night. It had non standard lighting. To be honest when it was coming at us we didn't know what the heck it was. We managed to evade it. If one of the engines had ingested it, I don't know what would have happened. My persona feeling are these are going to cause problems, i.e. peeping toms, criminals, and other issues. This is just the beginning.

They fly drones at Mission raceway following vintage racers here in the Vancouver area. There is about five multi-rotor units used.
If someone is serious to do great footage and don't want to crash expensive rc helis, should hire Bert Kammerer. he can fly a rc heli as good as a real dragonfly,lol
Check out his 3D flying here>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17lmeOfpxVU






http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LjjWM66WHI

http://vimeo.com/67200326#at=0

cool one from the wakeboarding world