I have absolutely no experience with any kind of remote control anything. I am a helicopter mechanic and currently in helicopter flight school, but I am a newbie with RCs. My question is this: which helicopters would be best suited for photography? I'm thinking of an RC heli based business. I don't want to go through the trouble of buying all of the equipment and dealing with this servo is better for that and this landing gear would have been better for this. I want to purchase the whole nine yards at once and be done with it. What recommendations do you have on the types of helicopters that would suit this purpose? Thank you for your time.

I dont know anything about this at all but came accoss this article that might be of interest for you.


http://www.littlerotors.com/articles...0703/index.asp

http://www.airfoilhelicam.com/carbon30.html


These people also make and sell dedicated camera helis ...........

http://www.bergenrc.com/Observer.asp




Cheye

Thanks a lot. I appreciate the response. If you don't mind answering another question for me, are there many real helicopters in New Zealand? My wife if a physican assistant and I will be a heli-pilot; we are tossing around the idea of moving there in a couple of years. Any thoughts on that? Thanks again,

Brent

I personally think New Zealand is the best country in the world and couldnt think of a better country on the plant to live in!!!(but im probably a little biased). As you probably know we are not a huge country so a really couldnt tell you how many real helis there are here, but I would say quite a few. Tourism is a major part of our economy so helis play a large part in this. Also our terrain can be a bit wild so once again helis play a large part in the commercial side of this. My boss is currently going for his heli pilots licence as he want to buy his own to play in so there must be a few. There have been two heli accidents in the last week here which have been quite high profile with both of them not yet found. Being a heli pilot apparently you dont need to file a flight log so they are not exactly sure the path they were taking. Both were privatly owned. There has been major searches for them but unfortunity because of all the native bush and wide open spaces it makes it hard. If you need any other info place sent me an email or whatever. More than willing to help.
Cheye

There are heaps of "real" helicopters here in New Zealand

For a heli based photo bus, you can buy the whole setup, as seen on the web, for about $50,000. Personally, I think it is a huge rip off.

You would be better to get a good raptor, and learn to fly, and the G-2 sim. Then get a good electric or gas heli and a camera and set it up yourself. All that and you would be under 5 grand. The nitro helis are great to learn on, but spew too much oil for photography. It is easier to shoot from electric or gas where you don't have to contend with the nitro.

Good luck. Learn to fly it well before you strap on expensive camera gear. That would be a really costly lesson.