long range rc spy plane?

You can buy an Air Hogs Hawk Eye Blue Sky RC plane at Wal-mart for $60. I have one, it's pretty fun, can't fly in any wind though. It has an on-board video camera that you can take pictures and video which you can plug into your computer and edit and share them.

Your gonna need a Ham Radio license to get the distance and then I think the output watts are limited by law

First you have to see where the plane is so you will need an onboard video transmitter with some sort of telemetry that can give you feedback on how the plane is doing ( as well as the video signal of course). You can get that from here http://www.rangevideo.com/ .

Then you must extend the distance that you can control the plane. Definitely you will be breaking some laws here (rangevideo won't help you on this). But since you are a spy, then it's obvious that the laws are beyond you. To do this, you can either modify your Tx antenna by making it directional such that all the RF power output are thrown towards a certain general direction where the plane is during flight. There are a lot of directional transmitter antenna designs out there. Radio laws usually prohibit unlicensed or unregistered RF transmission beyond 1000 miliwatts or transmissions that can go beyond 100 meters (I'm not sure if that's either or). It depends on your local laws of course that is if you want to be a law abiding spy:-).

Disregarding the law, you can use brute boosting your radio transmission. For this you will need an RF booster. much like those RF boosters those CB radios are using as someone suggested. You just have to tweak it a little bit to match the frequencies of you TX controller but you have to understand that those kind of RF amplifiers (CB radios) aren't designed for continuous transmission. You will have to device ways and means so that your final stage transistors from burning either by lowering the power ouptut or by making a better heat sink.

How much RF power will you need? That will depend on the type of RF transmission you have. To tickle you fancy 1 watt of propagated RF microwave signal can reach more than 20 miles. The fact is that the higher the frequency, the longer the distance and the more direct the transmission is meaning, the plane should be within line of sight of the TX antenna. You will really have to build a high antenna after all, you don't expect to be standing outside the field control the plane that you can't see anyway.

To have almost unlimited distance use your cellphone as the data carrier to control your plane.

It doesn't sound like any of you have a real clue.

TRY

THIS WEB PAGE!!!!!!

http://diydrones.ning.com/profiles/blogs/a-newbies-guide-to-uavs#

i dont know how old this question is but all you need is one of those new phones, you couldve used a satalite phone a few years back with a web cam duct tape and what not..but now all you gota do is log on into that google earth live and you can see whats happening ,live i think..

My idea would be to somehow attach a cell phone to the plane. With this, you can utilize the cell phone towers for long range communication.

You need to check out diydrones.com for a uav setup using a multiplex easystar to start with.

For video there is heaps of different ways but one to start would be fpvpilot.com

I doubt you would get 30miles feedback and control, you would need to check out the flying rules in your country, especially the USA before attempting something like that. There are altitude rules etc for RC aircarft.

1st of all you cant do that (im sorry i had a dream like that too) unless you need a long attena and i think you can with walkie talkies but the reciever must be attach to a 4 or even 6 ch controller but i think walkie talkies run on telephone lines for long distants (50%) you need 3 huge foam gliders and search up rc supplies on google

I would also like to do this one day, but my budget isn't vary big at the moment. My idea is to have an electric powered plane equipped with a solar panel on each wing (and an inbuilt batter). You run the motor off the solar for most of the time (and charge the battery if possible) Then at night it can use the battery. On the subject of making a plane fly itself there are a few things: Guidance and Flight. Flight: keeping it in the air, use of accelerometers, gyros etc, or a pre built thing like the Co-Pilot II (quite expensive though) Guidance: GPS, can be home-made, look at sights like the one on the lego UAV project. (can't remember where)

Hmm... I think that you and I share a dream... Well, you would need a RIDICULOUSLY long attenna, atleast 15 ft. I would think. You might be able to hack a few Walkie Talkies, and use thier radio transmitters, which could range to around 30 miles. For the plane itself, it would need to have a huge battery, or run on a fuel based engine, and have quite a large wingspan. I believe that it could be done, but it wouldn't be too easy. I hope that I helped.

the ardupilot a zigbee and some engenerring could help solve your problems try www.diydrones.com

 ok this is what u need:
custom RC plane design with at lest 1.75m wing span(helps wit fuel economy)
solar power isnt a good idea as the amount of cells needed, weight of the cells and the power it produces just isnt gonna happen
 walkie talkies could be good for a few miles or so but u need descent electronics to know what ur doin
for fuel idont no perhaps multible batteries or a turbine or somthin u could not power it at all and have a glider

but check out this site for more it helps a lot:

fpvpilot.com/default.aspx

i made i spy plane this is what u need

First of all, we both share the same dream. If I were you, I'd check the laws in the state that you live in to see what restrictions there are on antennas, model airplanes, spying, etc. If a license is required, it doesn't mean that you can't make your RC spy plane. It means you should probably fly your plane closer to your controls (probably a good idea anyway).
Next, get your plane. There are RC plane clubs (check your local area) that do nothing but build RC planes, and launch them! Or you could just buy one..
Then, you'll need a camera, a transmitter, and a reciever. Check around on the internet for these (but buyer beware-cameras, transmitters, and recievers can run up a LOT of money these days). There is a book that I know of that could help you- 101 Spy Gadgets for the Evil Genius-this has your name written all over it (I can tell). So definently look around a bit before diving into this. There is a B/W board mounted camera for $11 at supercircuits.com that might work...
If you get your plane to work, don't stop there. Make ground vehicles that launch your plane (and other RC crafts as well), make RC plane launching boats! Make Rc launching amphibious vehicles! Be creative! Add laser pointers to your RC crafts, or make them drop water balloons on unsuspecting passerbys below! And most importantly, have fun.

Hmmmmmm...

Google Earth?

OH! OH! OH! NO YOU DON'T NEED AN ANTENNA! MAKE IT A UAV! =D
No clue how to do it, though.

Try looking up the Gossamer Condor for something big.