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Is there an official Parrot AR Drone Thread?
- Thread starter RebeccaL
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I got mine Friday. Never flown before but it's just so easy. Give it space outdoors, crank up the tilt and watch it fly. Do consider a second battery since 10 mins or so flight time may not be enough.
I put together a quick vid when I got mine.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w6xY_P6Hmk
10 minutes is standard for RC helicopters. Even a high powered Nitro Helis and turbine motors doing aerobatics lasts 10 min.
BTW flying an std RC helicopter is quite difficult like balancing a marble on a plate. This Parrots seems like it flies itself.
If you are used to those type of flight times then there is no issues. Yeah it pretty much does fly itself whilst taking directions from the user, the biggest thing vs helis is due to it's advancements, no real way to do any kind of loops or rolls but that being said, the way it moves is more than enough. There is a good group of numbers over on the ar.drone flyers forum. Might be able to find someone local to let you have a go.
you are looking at buying quite a few batteries in that case. There are third party higher cap batteries. Most people go for the 1300mah which gives them a few minutes more so maybe 13/14 mins flight.
Even though this is insane fun, I've heard from various tech sites that the battery life is absolutely horrible, kinda sucks considering it's 300$. 
some pretty bad reviews on Amazon one guy bought one not working out of the box. was told to ship it back to the company. After a month had no progress on the repair he finally decided to try to get his money back.
I think the biggest scare for a lot of people is the amount of horror stories about them being dead on arrival or problems with flight. Seems to be a quality control issue.
I bought mine second hand and flew without a single hitch on every occasion so I can only look at it on the basis is there must be a proportion of owners with working systems vs defunc ones. For the price, I think that is where the dissatisfaction comes into play.
In relation to the battery, as mentioned it is not out of the ordinary for those times considering how much work does into keeping it in the air, providing a video feed whilst tracking it's position. It's short but enough time to fly and enjoy yourself.
Only downside I find is it is pretty fragile so considering it's designed to be airborne, may not really take much damage before parts need replacing.
I bought mine second hand and flew without a single hitch on every occasion so I can only look at it on the basis is there must be a proportion of owners with working systems vs defunc ones. For the price, I think that is where the dissatisfaction comes into play.
In relation to the battery, as mentioned it is not out of the ordinary for those times considering how much work does into keeping it in the air, providing a video feed whilst tracking it's position. It's short but enough time to fly and enjoy yourself.
Only downside I find is it is pretty fragile so considering it's designed to be airborne, may not really take much damage before parts need replacing.
Even though this is insane fun, I've heard from various tech sites that the battery life is absolutely horrible, kinda sucks considering it's 300$.
The tech sites doing Drone reviews have no experience with RC helicopters and their flight times.
The Trex is one of the most popular hobby grade helicopters. A blinged Trex 450 Pro can cost more than $2,000 and it will fly less than 15 minutes.
And unlike the Drone a Trex requires lots of experience to fly and assemble/balance.
If you want to read reviews from experienced pilots check out
www.rchelicopterfun.com
and
www.rcgroups.com
Also for videos of hobby grade helis doing stunts search youtube for Raquel Bellot or Alan Szabo. Both are professional RC pilots. Here are two of their videos. The first is Szabo with a Trex 450 and second is Raquel with a 700Nitro:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exN75Bytq_o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II-V-561ro4
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I have a nitro powered on road r/c car. Every time I take it out something breaks, and usually requires $20-50 and an hour or two of my time to fix. I've been into r/c my whole life, it is not a cheap hobby. $300 for a r/c heli is very reasonable. The drone intrigues me, but I don't think I need another toy!
Some of the "tech" reviews really didn't seem to understand the technology and were more interested on how much weight it could handle.
On a plus note, my 3D camcorder arrived today so it got a quick test in recording and unfortunate durability.
Will need coloured glasses or the ability to cross your eyes for long enough.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7c2XaNBDIE
On a plus note, my 3D camcorder arrived today so it got a quick test in recording and unfortunate durability.
Will need coloured glasses or the ability to cross your eyes for long enough.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7c2XaNBDIE
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