A1) About an hour flying around gently - I'm using relatively high compression ~10cc engines of European manufacture that aren't bad for fuel consumption.

A2) Micro-video cams have been put aboard micro-electric helicopters that you can fly in your living room. Even the smallest Methanol fuelled I/C engine helicopters currently readily avaialable ie. 0.3 cubic inch or a '30' powered helicopter could easily lift a mini handycam - the major difficulty is vibration supression. Any of my bigger machines could very probably pick up a Professional VidCam but they would be almost unflyably sluggish and run out of fuel very quickly.

Other folks with a personal interest in photography from the air have worked all this out already - try posting the same quaestion in the rec.models.rc.helicopter newsgroup on usenet - they're a friendly bunch and you'll get much firmer more up-to-date information on the current 'state of the art'; <a href="http://www.quickuk.co.uk//">QuickUK</a>, my sponsors for quite a while in the 90s, also do aerial photography professionally.

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You're welcome. :D

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