Hey guys haven't been on here or owned a rc plane before.
Looking for some direction, basically I want to build a good sized plane I can strap a video camera to and fly around the mountains. I do a ton of dirtbiking across a couple mountains nearby, rumored there are 100+ abandoned copper, silver, gold and quartz mines scattered throughout the mountains. Would be really cool to be able to locate and ride to a few of them haven't seen one in the 20 years I have been riding up there.

My thought is i want to build a plane body and get the engine controls and actuators needed to fly. I work construction and come across tons of rigid foam insulation bound for the dumpster, thin sheet metal from hvac ducting, etc...
I'm not too worried about the actual building process, what I need to figure out is the controlling and specific parameters of the design. I can usually get to a pretty good hilltop vantage point but it would be nice to not need LOS to control it since carrying a large fragile plane up a mountain on a dirt bike may be hard to do...

My big questions and concerns are

Are the GPS based control systems doable on a fairly tight budget? If so what should i be looking into?
I have seen some setups you can program a flight path into and have it fly itself around a loop and back which would be ideal, launch from a clearing, make a few mile loop along a set of valleys to record and come back, if I could takeover control to land I feel like it may be safer for the plane

Is there a kit I can buy with the basic actuators, control hardware and such?

I have seen many sizes of engines on ebay, I would assume I want to aim big like the .91 or similar, would need decent fuel capacity to stay up 15minutes, with gas just over 6lb/gallon one gallon would require a decent wingspan to keep up.

I will be looking at the info threads just wanted to post up what I was looking for

A fairly large airplane is going to need a runway. If not for taking off then for landing.
looking for a mine entrance from a plane will not be easy.
for the plane any of the Sig Mfg Kadet line would do for ya

Sounds like a drone would be much more useful to you.

Yes, you are talking about a drone, not an RC plane. You asked about something that could go a few miles round trip. That would put you into commercial drone territory. You say you want to do this on a fairly tight budget. If around $5,000 is what you consider fairly tight, it's doable. But it sounds like you are looking for something more hobby grade with a hobby grade price. The various 450 size quadcopters can carry a good camera (Mobius, GoPro, etc) along with FPV gear and enough batteries for a 20 minute flight or so. There are folding ones on the market that would pack small and give you around 5 pounds to stuff into your backpack. Range will be around 3/4 mile from the launch location before the video signal starts to go away. Around $1000 will get you a GPS equipped drone with waypoint navigation and the electronics and batteries.

This is where you should start.

http://knowbeforeyoufly.org/

You are heading into the commercial side. Flying BLOS "beyond line of sight" presents danger to the NAS "National Airspace System".

Good luck, be safe, and be legal.
There are no low budget legal methods.

Thank you guys for the input, and for the link on the regulations
Looks like for now I will be limited to looking for mine tailings piles in Google earth. I'm within 10 miles as the drone flies from a major international airport so flying the wrong way across the river to checm traffic could be bad move o.0 thankfully the mountains i ride in are 20+ miles the other direction.
Looks like i may have to do some digging on quadcopters I did see a couple that can be quickly assembled for a trip up the mountain and remote controlled from the hilltop. Being autonomous isn't that necessary, just convenient for covering large search areas. I know where a couple are supposed to be just need to be able to fly over and see before I ride/hike in

http://www.google.com/earth/download/gep/agree.html

It's free and I use it to pick out deer trails.

Or my car at work.

Yeah i have used google earth to find small clearings and long lost logging roads but havent done much combing over the pictures for tailings piles. Most of the mines are within a few feet of the many creeks so that narrows it down..