Neighborhood watching with the Swinglet CAM high resolution flying camera

[KD5NRH]

Very similar to what I want to build.

My ideal is a vertical take-off, horizontal flight craft with similar GPS and surveillance capabilities, as well as simple enough AI to direct itself to land when the power reaches a certain threshold and it isn't within range of its objective GPS coordinates.

http://hexacopters.com/

Nevermind...somebody beat me to it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlPsJ9y9vNM

[AJ Dual]

I don't think you get how cheap rokkits can be.

Yes, but there are no relatively cheap accurate and guided rockets with a range of more than 1-3km. (Stinger and Russian counterparts)

Katyusha's are cheap, but unguided. Anything that can actually be fire and forget from punched in grid coordinates is going to be very pricey as compared to hexacopter or any of these other GPS "hobby" UAV's.

And another way to maximize target damage with minimum explosives payload would be a conical self-forging copper disk warhead.

Better for vehicles and anti-material work, than anti-personnel. OTOH if the personnel you're after are inside the material or vehicles... 

[rcnixon]

A buddy was on a team that built and flew a model aircraft across the Atlantic under GPS control

carrying weight is always an issue, maybe you could build an ROV zeppelin

Maynard Hill, an icon in the RC field.  August of 2003, Newfoundland Canada to Galway Ireland.  Maynard also held (holds?) the RC altitude record at 26,990 feet.  See:

https://www.modelaircraft.org/files/Hill-Maynard.pdf

Russ

[freakazoid]

http://www.gizmag.com/swinglet-cam-aerial-photography-drone/16892/

UAV powered by a Li-polymer battery for 30 minutes.  Operational range ~12.4 miles.  Top speed up to 30mph.  Pre-determined flight path based on up to 20 GPS coordinates, but can be remotely controlled.  12 Megapixel camera.  Capable of autonomous landing.

That, plus this idea, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59ttSwYNspw Coupled with this, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBbjt3OZydg Attach speakers and blare Flight of the Valkyries = Hours of fun.