Once you’ve been flying a while, you might want to think about combining two hobbies into one, and strapping a digital camera to your helicopter. Yes, it is possible! Go to YouTube, and you’ll be able to see all sorts of RC helicopters playing “Spy-in-the-Sky.”
Some of these craft will be quite a lot bigger than yours, but with digital cameras – both still and video – getting smaller all the time, there’s no reason why electric helicopters can’t do the same job professional RC film crews do with their gas-powered gyro monsters.
The cheapest way to get started is to mount a conventional wireless camera with video hook-up to the underneath of your heli. Suppliers of RC helicopters sell mounting brackets, or gimbals, for all size craft including mini-micro.
However, it’s important to make sure the weight does not exceed that of your bird, or you’ll never get airborne! Since the smaller things get, the more expensive they tend to be, why not play safe and buy one specially made for the job? They can be used in other places besides your under-carriage, have reasonable stills and video quality (like any camera, this will depend on the number of pixels installed, but 5.0 is about average) and they come with full hook-up so you can watch the show from the ground as it’s happening.
What you’ll be buying is a “Spy Cam” pinhole, and they retail from around £25 upwards, with another £25 for the mount.
You can buy “combo” kits of RC helicopters. These combine the chopper, camera and mount in a single box. We’ll be going there next…