Daily Archives:February 18th, 2008

FPV

On the one occasion, many years ago, when I tried to fly a radio-controlled plane, I found it extremely difficult. It was OK when the plane was flying away from me, but when I wanted to bring it back towards me, the left/right controls were reversed. It was most counter-intuitive and the landing was far from elegant.

Recently, though, I’ve been thinking that it ought to be straightforward to mount a wireless camera on a small plane. A view of the transmitted video signal ought to let you fly the thing as if you were sitting in the cockpit of a real plane, something I know how to do.

I haven’t, alas, had a chance to try it, but it turns out that lots of other people have. It’s called FPV (for ‘First-Person View) and there’s lots more about it on this site. Here’s a nice example:

© Copyright Quentin Stafford-Fraser