If tempted, there are a few considerations before buying your drone. Don’t buy beyond your skill level. Some drones are easier to fly than others. Learning to fly any remote control aircraft is difficult and requires lots of patience. You will most likely crash it as part of the learning curve, so go acquire your skills on a cheaper model first, then move on up as you become more experienced. Learn with a ‘spotter’ to assist you, only fly in good weather, don’t learn near water, trees, power lines or anywhere that’s busy. Long grass can save a crashed drone, but makes it difficult to find. Remember to keep an eye on your battery and quickly understand the meaning of ‘Vortex Ring State’! Do you want to record? Again, drones with cameras are not expensive, ok, you get what you pay for, but as a general rule of thumb, anything with 10-megapixels or more is good quality as far as video is concerned. If you choose one with a removable camera you can fly for longer when learning. How much flight time do you need? At entry level the average flight time is about 7 minutes.
As a pilot that is disappointingly short, but 7 minutes of video is surprisingly long. The more expensive ones last 12 to 15 minutes, the top of the range up to 25 minutes. The easiest solution – buy more batteries as the recharge time can take hours and feel like days. Do you want FPV? That’s First Person Viewing. That means you see what your drone’s camera is seeing in real time and is a great way to fly. This is achieved either by a monitor built into the drone’s transmitter, on a tablet, i-Pad or even smartphone that can be attached to the transmitter, or with increasingly popular FPV goggles. Goggles are still a little expensive but are incredibly exciting to use and are a prerequisite for drone racing with the big boys. There’s lots of advice and assistance available online, Google away and check out the likes of www.beginnerflyer.com - you will be up and away in no time. Have fun, keep safe and post your results on our Facebook page :o) Willie Pitlochry Life 79