Hmm, interestingly challenging project, but don't take it lightly. Lifting water bottles seems easy for YT idiots. Flying them is another story due to a dangerous pendulum effect. It's doable, but not without serious engineering.
My sentiments, exactly.
I flew one of the first 360° GoPro arrays with an X8 heavy lifter. Because of the nature of the job, I designed it with a 4' long rigid 1/4" 20 all-thread "arm" that articulated in all directions at the connection to the bird. I was given 24 hours to design, build and test this thing.
For testing, I strapped an old hard drive to the all-thread because an HDD weighed almost exactly as much as the GoPro array (about 1.5 lbs, if memory serves). Needless to say, it wasn't necessarily the weight of the load, but the dynamics in stronger winds that made this rig downright scary to fly. Fortunately, we were flying a mere 40' AGL and not over people.
We got to the job site the next morning and, unfortunately for all of us, wind was blowing about 10 mph with 17-20 mph gusts. The director wanted my pilot to fly out over a canyon, but winds were just WAY too strong out there.
About 1 hour into the shoot, when things were not going well (as that **** GoPro array swung like a pendulum), I had the idea off putting the bird in ATTI mode and letting it drift with the wind. This was the winning ticket. I had my pilot fly upwind SLOWLY to our destination, and then just let the bird drift with the wind. The footage was glorious. The director was happy. My pilot was happy.
Safe to say that the X8's maximum payload was much greater than 2 lbs....probably closer to 10 lbs. or more. But that swinging, dynamic load was VERY hard to keep in control. I don't think I would fly any such array ever again with anything other than a heavy lifter like the M600 Pro or equivalent.
Remember that in ANY design/engineering situation, one must severely derate capacities and capabilities for dynamic loads. It's not uncommon to derate 5:1. In other words, if you're lifting a 2 lb. dynamic load, you better have a vehicle rated for a 10 lb. payload.
D