I had been doing some gopro flights with my minimag, but it just wasn't a great idea because:
The minimag is just too small and hard to see from a distance, which is why I already lost one plane and camera after losing the plane because it was too small after it got caught in a strong wind.
The minimag needs a lot of power to stay airborne with the weight of the GoPro HD. The wing loading is just really high with that extra weight, and my last flight where the motor died on final, I barely managed to land while dropping from the sky at what felt like less than a 2/1 glide ratio.
A byproduct of the minimag's wing loading means that I have to run on power at all times which causes both noise and vibration, neither are ideal for filming.
That also means that I can't run the battery that long and the flights aren't much longer than 10mn.
If I do lose the plane, better lose a much bigger one that's easier to find in the weeds :)
The one issue with the Cularis is that it has no landing gear, when putting the camera under the plane, that's the first thing to hit the ground on landing, which ain't ideal (I saw someone who put the camera under one wing and used a counterweight, but the view isn't as good.
I ended up putting the camera under the plane with some foam to protect it and planned to land in the weeds. For my 2 flights, that worked fine although it wouldn't work as well if I had to land in a parking lot :)
My first flight (video below) was 16mn and went fine. The second flight lasted a whole 25mn, although that was pushing it, the battery died just as I was landing (i.e. I got lucky :) ).
I took some 3Mpix shots from the video, a few are below:
the flying field
hwy 280
the next door cemetary
another nice view of the cemetary
they have a nice array of solar panels
nice houses next door
why do people fill their garages with junk and park outside?
