Last night I was reading how some folk are planning to monitor their areas of operation (read acreage) if TSHTF. There was talk of outer ring foot/mounted patrolling, clearing shooting lanes, night vision equipment, remote trip devices, etc. Then it ‘hit’ me:

Radio Control (RC) hobby aircraft with a miniature TV camera transmitter.

How to keep track of your bird? I can think of two solutions using markers.

There is a ‘light wire’ in different colors that runs off the receiver batts that can provide a nighttime visual reference for flight control.

Or if you have night vision (NV) goggles, you can place IR reflectors on the bird for the same purpose. Note that depth perception is limited with NVGs.

RC aircraft vulnerability is very slight. During light hours approach the recon sector from the sun and egress by 'backtracking'. At night even with ‘markers’ the odds of someone hitting the bird is almost nil due to no size, speed nor altitude reference. That’s if they detect the bird at all. Plus if someone fired at the bird they would reveal their location. Win, win!

I would suggest to randomize your flight schedule and to land your Remotely Piloted Vehicle (I like the military nomenclature!) from different approaches.

Add the cost of a horse, feed and tack and you could probably put together a sweet recon platform. It would cover more area in one flight without exposing yourself than you and your mount could in a month.

For entertainment you could buzz and drive off the migratory birds!

At one point I had collected some RC links but that ‘puter crashed. So if you’re interested go here to gather aerial photography info: http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=128 - http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=128 .

You also have a wide variety of aircraft frames and power options which are comprehensively discussed in a friendly environment. Lots of help there. For power I would go with the newer battery driven electric motors in that they are quite and rechargeable.

If you have any other ideas, please post 'em!

BTW I am not an RCer. But I did a little research a while ago as I’ve always wanted to get into it but never took the time to do so.

Thanks! We've been brainstorming how to secure our wooded acreage.  the forest is too dense to see people approaching.  We have cleared a few "viewing" lanes but there are just too many trees some over 100 ft and dense underbrush.  We're working on clearing the underbrush  and some trees for a 150 ft diameter around the house.

We do keep loaded guns at all doors and also one upstairs for a better angle.  We can also escape out of our basement but only if the bad guys weren't waiting.  We have a window in the basement that is boarded from inside but back filled outside.  It would be only 3-5 minutes work to dig to the outside if we were trapped in the basement.