Introduction
Hello, and welcome to CatsEyes Aerial Photography. This site is about using radio controlled (R/C) aircraft for Aerial Photography (AP) for researching and documenting rail history.
New stuff
January 21, 2011: Two site updates to report this month.
First, I have finally updated the Cat's Eye 2 pages, adding a third page describing the current design of the airframe.
Second, I have added an RSS feed. This site is updated very infrequently (it can go several months between updates), so I thought it would be useful for people to just put this in their RSS feed reader, rather than having to check the site every now and then.
I hope you can figure out on your own how to enter the RSS feed url into your feed reader. Unfortunately, I can't really provide support as it depends on what feed reader you are using, what browser you are using etc.
Platform status
The Cat's Eye 2, now in development, will be similar to the Cat's Eye 1, but will add a video downlink, and full pan/tilt capability. I expect it to be somewhat larger than the Cat's Eye 1, roughly the size of my Long-nose Getter. It will be hand-launched, but has one big wheel for landing.
The Cat's Eye 1 continues to be my primary aerial photography plane while I design the Cat's Eye 2. It has been a almost two years since its maiden and shows no sign of aging. It is on its second camera now (a Pentax Optio S10). I am very happy with the Cat's Eye 1 and really don't see a lot of room for improvement for a still-photo-only type of plane without video downlink.
I briefly re-outfitting the Long-nose Getter as an FPV plane (First Person View, aka fly-by-video). I found the goggles to be annoying and disconcerting. I had one short flight, and the Getter is still in one piece and that's about the best I can say about it. The other good thing was that I tested out much of the equipment that is going to find its way onto the Cat's Eye 2.