Uploaded November 2013 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
After two months of hard work on design and construction, my latest project is finished, and proven airworthy! "Recon" is a nearly ten-foot wingspan radio-controlled aircraft with a gimbal-mounted GoPro Hero2 on its nose. It's powered by two 1100kv (1100 kRPM per volt, NOT Kilo-Volts) 3-phase electric outrunner motors with two parallel ESCs and 2200Mah LiPo battery packs.
The avionics consist of two 2.4GHz radio control systems (using a total of 10 channels at present), an Arkbird flight stabilization/autopilot system with OSD (On Screen Display) and live flight telemetry, plus 5.8GHz transmission of live video from the GoPro's video output.
The GoPro records the full resolution HD video onboard, while the ground station captures the live VGA video stream with over-laid flight telemetry via 5.8GHz microwave RF. In this video, you see the GoPro video (reduced to 720p) full screen, with the live video stream inset at lower right.
The plane was designed and built completely from scratch, and made use of many junk "resources" such as scraps of EPS (Styrofoam) and sheets of EPP (called "foam board") from the dollar store. Various RC and electrical equipment come from Hobby King, Amazon, and boxes of old RC stuff I had laying around.
This is the first of what I hope to be many amazing flights with great scenery...
The soundtrack is "Dark Harbor" from the "Mission Control" CD by Technician (yours truly), MP3 album and single track available on iTunes at: itunes.apple.com/us/album/mission-control/id583890621 full artist discography and CDs available at HTTP://technician.jcmdi.com
Note: This is copyrighted material, however, you may download this footage directly from YouTube and use it free of charge in your own non-profit/non-commercial YouTube videos, school projects, etc. The full free usage policy and YouTube copyright notice/ad info can be found here (please read before using JCMDI material): jcmdi.com/stockfootage/faq.html#freeusage jcmdi.com/stockfootage/faq.html#partner
After two months of hard work on design and construction, my latest project is finished, and proven airworthy! "Recon" is a nearly ten-foot wingspan radio-controlled aircraft with a gimbal-mounted GoPro Hero2 on its nose. It's powered by two 1100kv (1100 kRPM per volt, NOT Kilo-Volts) 3-phase electric outrunner motors with two parallel ESCs and 2200Mah LiPo battery packs.
The avionics consist of two 2.4GHz radio control systems (using a total of 10 channels at present), an Arkbird flight stabilization/autopilot system with OSD (On Screen Display) and live flight telemetry, plus 5.8GHz transmission of live video from the GoPro's video output.
The GoPro records the full resolution HD video onboard, while the ground station captures the live VGA video stream with over-laid flight telemetry via 5.8GHz microwave RF. In this video, you see the GoPro video (reduced to 720p) full screen, with the live video stream inset at lower right.
The plane was designed and built completely from scratch, and made use of many junk "resources" such as scraps of EPS (Styrofoam) and sheets of EPP (called "foam board") from the dollar store. Various RC and electrical equipment come from Hobby King, Amazon, and boxes of old RC stuff I had laying around.
This is the first of what I hope to be many amazing flights with great scenery...
The soundtrack is "Dark Harbor" from the "Mission Control" CD by Technician (yours truly), MP3 album and single track available on iTunes at: itunes.apple.com/us/album/mission-control/id583890621 full artist discography and CDs available at HTTP://technician.jcmdi.com
Note: This is copyrighted material, however, you may download this footage directly from YouTube and use it free of charge in your own non-profit/non-commercial YouTube videos, school projects, etc. The full free usage policy and YouTube copyright notice/ad info can be found here (please read before using JCMDI material): jcmdi.com/stockfootage/faq.html#freeusage jcmdi.com/stockfootage/faq.html#partner
