About Us

Why I started all this?

I got into RC flying when I was 16 in 1980. Radio Control was very expensive hobby at the time. I remember making $2.75 per hour and two channel radio cost me $80 and used 8AA cell and 4 in the receiver (batteries not included). I've been in RC ever since with some breaks. Soon after, I went to college, and I have been working in Engineering Research and Development since 90s. I also have patent award to me through work. Last couple years, I have been flying RC helicopter. electronics revolution has made it very affordable to get into RC Helis, and I wanted to go with electrics. I started with a wonderful trainer called LMH corona. got it with standard brushed setup, but quickly, I went to Brushless motor(mega 16/15/3) as it had more power, less weight and better efficiency. I learn to fly heli with mega motor and 8cell nihm pack, which is still a good beginner power package for corona. I befriended Matt Shumaker from www.ballistictechnology.com and lot of people from RCgroups.com as well as runryder.com over these two years, I acquired several helicopters besides two ballistic technology upgraded coronas including Robbe Eolo, T-rex and Eco 8. During the first 6month of 2005, I spent most of my spare time developing a new Collective Pitch head for Corona for ballistic technology with its design completion, I had more time.

Availability of inexpensive Lithium battery was impetus that got me started on AP. Frankly, I always wanted to get into aerial photography using Helis, but platform cost was major stumbling block. Electric heli is my passion, and for AP, I wanted to stick with electrics, but I just could not afford the packages offered. With Lipos, all of sudden I had large weight allowance to work with even in smaller heli like corona. Just by going from 8cell nihm pack to 3S lipo, I saved almost 300gm and had more power. I have flown corona with two 8cell pack for load testing, so I knew I had plenty of load carrying capacity. With design completion of CP head, I finally had some time. Looking around in the market place, I could not find any vendors offering an AP solution that fit my need. This meant developing my own. Kilroy in RCgroups had already made a beautiful AP setup for his corona, so I decided that my platform was going to be a spare Corona that was totally upgraded with BT upgrade. I built a first version of AP mount, and took quite a bit of picture. Version 1 of the mount was frankly way overbuilt, heavy, with all up weight at about 1700gm ready to fly, but it was very stable platform. Kilroy was running 2000gm corona setup, so I knew I was fine. In my case, i was flying with 250gm camera, sony dsc-p74 4mega pixel camera that I already had. AP pics in the gallery were taken with it. Soon after, I decided I needed gimbals for passive stabilization. During this same time period, Aragon, who is a friend from RCgroups wanted to get into AP, and in fact had built slow stick AP platform. it came about that I built a camera mount with gimbals of my own design for him. The camera framework is based on his design. This camera mount design was incorporated into my Heli mount as well. During this time, another friend ThanhTran in RCgroup was working on trex AP setup, and having problem with vibration. My offer to build him a AP setup was quickly taken up and T-rex AP version was born. Dave "TRSDOC" wanted a camera sled that can be zip tied to his landing gear skid of his Eolo, so that design is being worked on. At this time, I had already refined my corona design and got the weight down below 200gm for the whole system, while increasing strength. So, I have adapted this design into eco8, eolo as well as Logo 10 platform. and updated it. I have lot of new designs inthe works. my goal is affordable AP for everyone.

Design philosophy and material selection

Strength, weight, ease of use/manufacturability and cost dictated my design philosophy and material selection. I wanted to be strong but light weight, but cost low enough to make them and sell at reasonable price. Garolite G-10/FR4 is a fire retardant Fiber Glass board designed for circuit board application. it has tensile strength of 40,000 psi, flexular strength of 55,000psi, shear strength of 19,000 psi, but also have good flexular modulus of elasticity of 2700ksi. basically it is very tough. Great for Landing gear application and relatively light weight. It also has great insulation properties. It is also available at reasonable cost. Ease of use meant that the AP system had to be quickly taken on and off the heli. Lastly, I had to be able to manufacture it on my CNC mill. This meant using existing mounting holes in the heli (I chose Landing gear mounting hole as appropriate) I went through several design iteration to arrive at the present design. I wanted the design to be very strong while being relatively light. I chose goal of 30-50gm for camera mount (depending on size/option) about 100gm for T-rex 450XL AP setup and 200gm for corona/eco8/eolo setup , and 1lb for larger heli I designed in a bit of flex to help relieve lot of energy and LG mount or crutch is designed to be part of the strength. because of this, it will bounce a bit, if landed hard. Lets just say it is very strong and durable. I have tried to break 1/8" G-10 that is 1" wide x12 ", and I could not without putting it on vice and levering it with wrench.

Now, helicopter is mass of whirling blade and energy. electric heli can be setup so that it has minimal vibration. No engine vibration to worry about either. still, there will be some vibration, so on most of our design, (except for the sled), the camera is located directly underneath the main shaft. this is area of minimum vibration. also, gimbals will add quite a bit of damping as well. Still, good setup of heli is a must, and operation needs to work on minimizing vibration. vibration is enemy of good pic, so it needs to be controlled. Camera sled is a different beast where design was dictated by the need, but vibrational damping can be more readily applied between the skid and the sled.

anyway, I would like to thank all of you who has been involved on this endeavor in one form or another. Special thanks to Aragon who has provided this web space, TRSDOC, ThanhTran, BBrown, Helidave and others who have given me support, idea and good wishes. I also want to thank Matt Shumaker for being such a inspiration of hard work, faith and generosity.