"at night and autonomously, that's going to be a problem.  Updrafts from fires can be hell to fly through.  Ive flown uav's in the day and because of problems ive had, we have to take control manually.   Do it during the day, but good luck getting…"

"no, a winged platform that flies way points and carries a near infrared camera is easy to build.  Build it out of foam so you can neatly tuck the cameras into the fuselage for protection.  Foam also eliminates a lot of motor vibration which is a big…"

"sorry I forgot to mention that I have used a skid plane, no land gear, and it will still smack the plane up.  A skid landing is just a semi controlled crash."

"Ive done extensive mapping with plane platforms.  Easy to get up and easy to get down if you have a lot of room and a field to land in.  Not good at all if you have trees, or no smooth areas to land.  Multi rotors would work well on 40 acres or so,…"