Sorry, I'm not from the US and with a cursory google for gun shops found that a Glock pistol of some description (a brand I recognise) is ~$500. If you have ac

Sorry, I'm not from the US and with a cursory google for gun shops found that a Glock pistol of some description (a brand I recognise) is ~$500. If you have access to basic tools (as in, hacksaw and glue), you can build your own fixed-wing airframe using $100 of foam, carbon rods, and off-the-shelf motors, ESCs, batteries & props & servos[2]. See RCGroups for hundreds of downloadable designs. Your radio control gear will cost you about $40 for the cheap stuff[3]. An ArduPilot 2.5 autopilot is $180 off the shelf [4]. The thing is, if you are building your own scaling up (within reasonable bounds) doesn't really change the price. Something Skywalker sized (~2m wingspan) is easily build-able by almost anyone and will easily take 1kg of payload. $120 dollars[1] gets you a video link & camera with a 20-30km range you can use to fly the thing straight into whatever you like. So the dumb GPS targeted version is 100 + 40 + 180 = $320 The video targetted version is 320 + 120 = $440 Obviously, that doesn't include the 1kg of 'payload'. [1] http://hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__754__540__FPV_Telemetry-900MHz.html http://hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__754__540__FPV_Telemet... [2] See hobbyking again [3] http://hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__16239__HobbyKing_HK6S_2_4Ghz_FHSS_6Ch_Tx_Rx_Mode_2_.html http://hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__16239__HobbyKing_HK6S... [4] http://store.3drobotics.com/products/apm-2-5-kit http://store.3drobotics.com/products/apm-2-5-kit (add basic GPS)