One of the more delightful YouTube video genres involves sending a camera into towards the blackness of space beneath a weather balloon. The first one I ever saw featured a father and his young son in Brookyln. Other have used it for everything from college admission letters to Hello Kitty to Natty Light, to even a LEGO version Felix Baumgartner's jump. Okay, that last one didn’t actually make it to space, but it fits the genre: slow launch, frantic first person footage as it plummets, and then a triumphant recovery. Most of these drops rely on a tough camera casing that can survive the fall back to Earth.

David Windestål of Sweden had a different idea. What if, instead of just sending a camera into space, he sent a drone? Well, technically an RC model plane. Here's how he did it: