I’ve started planning a new little project for aerial photography. I was thinking about the problem of shooting in the less than predictable winds of Western PA, and about the urban environment with much smaller greenbelts. (Okay, there *is* a green belt, but that’s not the same thing.)

Anyway, the above sketch is the first complete device scaled drawing I’ve produced. It’s a remote controlled powered parachute. The intention is to use an electric motor, with a rather large propeller. That’s in the cage-thing on the left in this picture. The wheels are rather tall to allow the camera platform to sit nicely underneath. I won’t be able to shoot forward with this rig, just left, right, and down.

Most powered parachutes put the fan behind the “driver”, as a pusher. This puts the fan and the lines of the parachute in potential conflict. I’m approaching this with the fan on the front, and the parachute hanging out the back, which hopefully will turn out better.

The above fancy aluminum one will be the “1.0″ version of it– I’m planning on building a test model from plywood and aluminum strip to test out the geometry and flight characteristics before building a nice one. I’m also not sure of the rear caster plate shape… I like the first one, but the rear one just seems “off” to me.

More later, as it’s all developed =) Estimated time for starting this is around June 2009…

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