Yea, definitely an expensive novelty. But still, pretty cool, especially with a shot of it crashing...

If i owned and knew how to fly an R/C airplane, this would be awesome. I'd get it in a heartbeat.

Kaiser want camera for first-person on the little moving things. I'd so eat this up for an RC race car, and when I've finally grown tired of first-person view from my toys, I'll send a home-made SCUD missile to my neighbor's window, and I can watch the eerie gawk of terror.

The problem is that you really don't know how far from the ground you are, and if you go vertical and stall, you could be losing altitude even as the camera is pointing up. So you need a spotter or maybe even a different person piloting. Conservative flying, at the very least.

@Kaiser-Machead: How far does your neighbor live from you that you could actually appreciate the video? Not to mention being caught in the explosion?

I dare say that this idea was taken from this guys work: [video.google.fr]

Still cool but not exactly a new idea.

You better be strapped to a very steady chair when flying this. I could easily see you losing your balance and falling over if you were just standing up.

Needs head-up display of altitude, fuel, and distance from pilot.

I'm going to strap that on an R/C helicopter along with a remotely controlled bb gun. I will call it Squirrel Hunter and all the neighborhood cats will learn to fear it.

@P3nnst8r: Details man. Details.

Finally I can contribute to patrolling the border.

It just occured to me the possibility for using this to make amateur films...

This is one of those things that make me say, why didn't I think of this???

I'm taking one of these to a strip club!

I feel like we just saw this footage on Gizmodo not too long ago. Not the plane stuff, but the car footage. Was that a different product?

The opportunity for remote controlled plane dogfighting makes this very desirable. If I had kids I would totally pretend to buy this for them and then tell them they weren't responsible enough to use it.

Reminds me of an episode of NewsRadio where Joe installed a camera into a Boba Fett figure to help Beth cheat from the building across the way. He had on "VR glasses", and they throw the figure out the window towards the end, and Joe is on the bed screaming like he is falling.

OK, it was funnier on the show.

It's in this clip at about 4:30 in.

+ Watch video

@Gann: Where can I submit a pre-order?

That video definitely sells it. If I wasn't on a budget right now, I'd definitely order one... or pre-order I guess.

that is awesome

why not just take flying lessons...

@Kaiser-Machead: Regardless, it'd still rock.

Great song and good flying. I have an electric R/C Helicopter but i think you need a Nitro one so ir can carry some weight. looking forward on selling mi electric chopper and getting a nitro chopper

Remote controlled BB gun FTW!

An instant Predator kit!

That looks amazingly fun. All the sudden I want to get into R/C Aviation now. That video is incredible.

it would be awesome taking one of these to central park in NYC and flying around the park/city

i thought i could use it to get a squirrel's eye view
now i just need to find an army of mutated neo-squirrels, complete with alpha male, to clean the homeless out of golden gate park

thats fucking sexy.

I would mount it to my "Johnson" and run around naked in public to get people's expression's live in real time, then, of course, go to jail All FPVPervert like.

Faslane

just kidding ;-) this is pretty cool!!!!

They've had cameras on model trains (HO and above I think) from like last century (90s really). So this idea is not new. Plus I used to frequent another website where people were sticking wireless cameras on their RC planes and shooting video while in the air. This was early this decade. So, yes, the idea is definitely not new. What I think is new is the addition of the glasses. Now, I'm going to have to go back to this article and read up to see how they pan around. Is it head movement or are they having to press buttons to move the camera around? If it's head movement that controls the camera then this thing really is THE BALLS!!!!

As far as telling the height above ground, check the video on the hobby-lobby website, it shows an on screen display there which gives you all that info.

this, is one of the greatest inventions of our time! think of all the possibilities...ridin' in a convertible with the top down in the back seat, watching yourself from 200 feet up or so. does this model have a gyroscope/ accelerometer in the headset to control the camera's angle?

Wow, this is really cool. I wonder if it would make flying easier? I wouldn't know, all I have is a RC car with 20 minutes of battery life. But even that would be more fun! It's definitely not worth the price though. At least, for a car.

I am so putting this on my dog and letting him loose in the ladies' locker room.

[tbn0.google.com]

Dude - the panning - tell us how it pans. That makes it.

seems like more pepping tom stuff for me.

Wow... this would totally rock if you wanted to assasinate someone from a 1 Kilometer distance.

That is an awesome perspective.

As others have mentioned, they have been putting the cameras on RC planes for some time now. They use little motors to do the tilting, which is controlled by the joysticks, not by head movement. Some of the planes they have been putting on are actually fairly small and light weight.

Very cool, I would buy that in a second if I didn't have the opposing wife.

This thing already has accessories: heads-up display, pan/tilt mount system, etc.

Some of the clips showed altitude/speed in the corner of the screen. A guy at a local field where I lived had a similar system at an air show a few years back, but he was fully enclosed in a trailer with a TV monitor. In any case, they probably have the controls linked up via a buddy system with a backup pilot in case the 'VR' pilot gets disoriented or there's a glitch with the video device.

This, however, could open up the possibility of beyond-visual-range flight, which would be interesting. A few cap-bombs wrapped in black powder and BVR ability and suddenly you've got a fully function UCAV, albeit with a limited range and flight time.

This is awesome. If I only had the money. Your very own UAV.

It's even cooler if you're actually flying the plane.

i want one! If it were in the $200-$300 then MAYYYBE

I saw one of these in action the other day. They DO use a spotter, its hard to get your bearings without it. They used it with a head tracking system which could be overriden using a switch on the transmitter, and then controlled by the transmitter.
They also use a splitter and mount a video camera to record the feed and a portable dvd screen for other ppl to watch (like me)... I tried the HMD dysplay on while the pilot was visually landing it (apparently its easier and safer that way) my experience was not that nice, if you are not piloting you get dizzy fast, kinda like watching someone else play quake or UT.

Déjà vu from 2006:

[gizmodo.com]