I have a few years of R/C Trucks experience, but I am totally new to the plane scene. Here is my situation...

During the course of this year, a friend and I will be making a full-length mountain biking movie. We will be using cable cams, dollies, etc. to get some nice shots, but one thing I though would be completely different would be to mount a camera to an R/C plane and get some very nice overhead shots in the larger fields and mountains. I am looking for a plane that I could mount a camera and mount to, with the following criteria:

- Plane must be electric powered (nitro or petrol would be too much hassle and noise, even though I work with nitro R/C trucks)
- Plane must not be too big (i.e. easy to transport to remote locations, but must be able to accomodate camera and pod)
- Plane must have landing gear (I don't want to have to throw it, and a plane without gear would destroy the camera when it lands)
- Plane must be stable but relatively fast (the shots have to turn out good but the plane has to keep up with the mountain bikers)

The plane must be able to carry EITHER a 650g (1lb 6oz) handheld camcorder, or a professional 1.6kg (3lbs 10oz) camera. In both cases the camera will be mounted to a pod with servos controlling camera pan and tilt. The servos will be powered by the plane's on-board battery. The pan and tilt functions will either be controlled by the same radio used to control the plane (although this might make it hard to fly the plane and control the camera at the same time), or to a seperate radio for a second person to control. A wireless video sender will send the video from the camera down to a screen on the ground so that we can see what the camera is filming and then control the camera accordingly. I was thinking that the plane should be made of balsa to make it easier to mount the camera pod, as foam would not work very well.

I was looking at the Telemaster range of planes, as they are known for their stability and ability to lift weight...

So does anyone have any suggestions on a plane I could use, and any other tips, comments, or criticism? Thanks,

SpikeX