Teach me about drones

[lovemachine]

Drones. What's your opinion of them? Bad idea? Or is it something awesome?

I ask because I saw on the news last night about getting on a list for "no drones" over your property.

Has anyone looked into purchasing one?

 

[T.Lex]

Whatcha mean by "drone"? Like a glorified R/C airplane with a camera? Or a 6- or 8- propeller helo looking thing that can run a GPS track and return to base while streaming/recording video?

There's a spectrum of hobbyist "drones" out there.

Like certain other things, they might be considered a tool that is useful for certain purposes, but not the best tool for other purposes.

 

[iChokePeople]

I have a Parrot ARDrone. Just a toy drone, really, as drones go, but a fun toy. I think a better one would be fun, as well, but haven't bothered with it, so far. My dog loves to chase it, but he's hard on it when I make a mistake and he catches it.

 

[printcraft]

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

It's a tool like many other things. The technology just makes it possible where it wasn't before. If there's a picture you need, or a really cool picture you can get, but couldn't without renting a helicopter, an R/C quadcopter can make it possible. If you keep the thing hovering by your neighbor's 10 y/o daughter's window waiting for her to change into her pajamas, you're a pervert. But you're a pervert anyway, this just makes it easier. It's just a tool. The use it's put to depends on the user. Here's the nanny state wanting to punish everyone to try to prevent anyone from doing wrong.

 

[Brian Ski]

From what I see the starting price to get off the ground is about $400 and up.

I don't see much difference than a RC helicopter. Maybe a lot easier to fly.

Now unless you are talking about the drones the military has. I could go for one of those!!!!

 

[RockofStrength]

 

[ModernGunner]

And he just drones on and on and on and on...

 

[Brian Ski]

And he just drones on and on and on and on...

Where is the sign I like him so much I voted for him 3 times!!!

 

[jd4320t]

I think they are very cool and interesting. The problem is we are seeing all these cool videos and not realizing those drones are a lot more expensive then what we're thinking, at least that's my experience. I'd thought about putting $500 into one but after some reading I realized it would be pretty limited and not worth it to me.

I'd like to see some real numbers of what the really cool drones are costing, the ones that fly high and far and have better remote controls.

 

[SnoopLoggyDog]

Henry County Emergency Management is using them for Search and Rescue. Pretty cool idea. Link at https://www.facebook.com/hcoem.uac

I have a friend who is a Chicago Fire Chief, who wants to use them for sizing up HAZMAT incident scenes and disaster response. The problem is when you get too many of them flying around in a small area. Can you imagine 9/11 with hundreds of those things buzzing around the World Trade Center towers during the time of the attack?

More info here. http://amablog.modelaircraft.org/suas/

 

[Lectric102002]

If you ever visit Black's Beach in CA, take a drone.

 

[T/SF34/A]

They’re all fun and games until your privacy is violated.

 

[JollyMon]

Boner Drones?

My father has a DJI phantom II (why I dont know). Its fun to play around with and take around the property to see it from a different perspective. I like my mini quad copter and have been thinking about going to a fpv quad copter for some time now, but dont have the time or space to make it worthwhile yet.

 

[femurphy77]

This is the only drone I'm interested in!

 

[DEC]

I own a DJI Phantom 2 V2.0 with gimbal, GoPro, and full FPV system. I bought it for various video projects and business reasons. The things are pretty cool and fun to fly. You have to use common sense on many levels. Safety being a huge issue. They are flying lawn mowers so you can imagine what will happen if someone gets hit with one (lots of graphic images out there already). There is air space safety as well, to which the FAA has guidelines in place. Then there is the obvious issue of invasion of privacy. At the end of the day it is no different than using a camera and telephoto lens to spy, so you really have to watch what you are doing to not get caught up in that type of mess. An operator really needs to keep his quad over his own property (or over property that he has permission to fly on) at all times. Intentionally crossing property lines is just asking for trouble.


Right now it is against the law in the USA to use them for business/commercial purposes without a special exemption from the FAA. The moment you strap a camera on any flying vehicle and profit in anyway from the images you set yourself up for repercussions from the FAA. On 2/15/15 the FAA announced their initial commercial drone proposals which really are not too bad IMO, but it will be a couple years before they go into effect as slow as the government moves.


Being a hunter, the first thing that everyone screams is that "you are going to use that for scouting that big buck to know when to set up on him". First, I didn't buy my quad for that reason and have no interest in using one for any such purpose. Scouting with one will be tough. If you are familiar with GoPro cameras then you know that 10 yards looks like 50 yards. So imagine what a deer, turkey, or goose would look like from 200' above the ground. Tiny dots. On top of that for the most part animals scatter when these things get in the vicinity due to the noise. You will get a curious deer to hang out occasionally but generally speaking they will flee when they hear one.


The thing to remember is that these things are expensive. I'm over $2k invested right now. It is not a matter "if" my quad will crash. It is a matter of "when" it will crash. Never fly more money than you are willing to lose.


Here is a video from a few weeks ago when I was flying at my house and over some property that I own.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRKClm-C5GQ&list=UU3gc_CXTt9PD3-tLYGQf3Nw


Here are a couple photos that I took as well a week or so ago.

 

[Brian Ski]

On top of that for the most part animals scatter when these things get in the vicinity due to the noise. You will get a curious deer to hang out occasionally but generally speaking they will flee when they hear one.

I have not seen one in person, but was told they were pretty loud.

Nice pics by the way. Always wanted to get some of the place here. Some look pretty decent from Google Earth, but nothing near as nice as yours.

 

[Waveraider]

I'm far from being a liberal, but my concern about drones is lost jobs to more automation. As an Industrial Sales Rep, I see it in Plants all over town. American workers have already lost jobs to China and Illegals. Amazon wants to deliver with Drones, and think of the hit to FedEx, UPS and the USPS. Next is your local Pizza Shop...

 

[Bennettjh]

Drones is bad!!

 

[Waveraider]

Drones is bad!!

Never said that, concerned about basic jobs being lost. How many Engineering/Factory jobs at Cummins have been lost to automation?