PRODUCT CLOSE-UP Company Draganfly Innovations Product Name Eyecam Functions Full Color Remote Video Camera Price $299.95

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be in the cockpit of your favorite RC airplane? How would it look during all those tumbles and spins? Well the folks at Draganfly Innovations, Inc. have come up with the perfect solution - The Eyecam!

The Eyecam is one of the world's smallest all-in-one color video cameras with built in transmitter available. The Draganfly Eyecam weighs only 1/3oz and comes complete with color camera, transmitter, receiver, and all necessary cables.

The Draganfly Eyecam is unlike the inexpensive 440MHz cameras flooding the web. The Eyecam utilizes 2.4GHz which can carry more bandwidth for the video signal and results in accurate color and sharper pictures. The Eyecam has a useable range of 1000-1500 feet with a direct line of site. It gets its power from a 9 volt battery through the supplied power harness.

Draganfly Innovations designed the Eyecam to work with their Draganflyer III Helicopter (to be reviewed in an upcoming issue). This combination will provide the ultimate in aerial surveillance. But due to its small size and light weight, the Eyecam is easy to mount on just about any radio control flying machine including airplanes, jets, helicopters, sailplanes, etc. No special wiring is required and the antenna is built into the camera.

The system comes complete with a A/V receiver that is designed to be powered by 12 volts. I cut the cable from the supplied AC wall power supply and added banana plugs so that I can power the receiver from my flight box at the field. On the end of the receiver, there is a power switch with an LED indicator, a power jack, and 2 RCA jacks to connect to the camera.

To view the video you have a couple options. If you have a 12v TV at your field, you could just connect the receiver to it to watch the video live as you are flying. I wanted to record the video so I connected it to my Sony Digital Camcorder. There is a little 3.5" screen that you can view the video live while recording it at the same time.

I decided to test the camera the day of our club fun fly. I mounted the camera to to my 40-size Cap 232. I wanted to see a "pilots-eye" view, so I mounted it to the top of the canopy facing forward. The camera is so light that I was able to mount it with a 3/4" strip of Duct Tape. This may sound like a "hack" way to mount it, but I wanted to try and use it on a couple different planes so this made the most sense to quickly relocate it. It worked perfectly . I installed the 9 volt battery in the servo compartment. As soon as I applied power to the receiver and turned on the camera, I was instantly looking at the nose of my cap. I saw exactly what the pilot would see. Awesome.

As I taxied the plane and added power to take off you can see the propeller vary in RPM on the screen. Once I broke ground, wow, it was amazing. The picture was of super VHS or Hi-8 quality and very stable. I was assuming that it would be bouncy with a lot of vibration, but it was perfectly stable, like a "steady shot" feature on most camcorders.

The range worked out to be about 1500 feet or so from either side of the pit area. So basically, I could fly exactly where I normally would without losing signal. One thing we quickly found out is that there is an arrow at one end of the receiver that you should always try to keep pointing in the general direction of the aircraft when in flight to obtain optimum reception. We did not do that during the initial flights and there was a lot of static as I flew away from the receiver. This was easily cured by having a helper point the receiver as I flew. The picture was 100% better. The best part of this flight was watching the video of the plane coming in for a landing...It was just like sitting in the cockpit.

The next flight we put the camera on a friend's 120 size Ultimate Biplane. The plane was equipped with a smoke system so we decided to mount the camera on the top wing facing rearward. Again we fastened it with Duct tape and taped the battery to the wing strut. This proved to be even better than the first flight. With the camera facing backwards you got to see the ground in much better detail. When the smoke was applied...Awesome, is the only word to describe it. The picture quality was crystal clear. Watching the video afterwards, you would think that we strapped a $1200 camcorder to the airplane. It was that good! Check out the Ultimate montage video below!

PRODUCT SPECS > Camera and transmitter weight: only 9 grams! > Camera and transmitter size: 15mm x 22mm x 32mm (5/8" x 7/8" x 1 1/4") > Camera Lux: <3 @ f1.2 > Camera Auto Electronic Exposure of 1/60 to 1/15000 sec. w/ Auto Gain & White Balance > Camera Signal to Noise Ratio: >48dB > 365K (PAL) or 250K (NTSC) camera pixel resolution > Wireless Transmission Range: 300M (1000'), Line-Of-Sight > Transmitter RF Output Power: EC R&TTE Compliant > receiver Video Input/Output: 1Vp-p/75 ohm