Bought a drone.

I just bought a drone.

Now to figure out how I can use it for business.....

Perhaps next spring some video is in order to show off some pole/wfp work. I'll have to teach the wife how to run it, after I learn.

I didn't buy a $1000 Phantom, but the camera on this is nice, and the drone has great reviews.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01HG8QTK8/ref=s9_simh_gw_g21_i2_r?ie=UTF8&fpl=fresh&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=&pf_rd_r=BW550TK2VMMA6S47VY6F&pf_rd_t=36701&pf_rd_p=6aad23bd-3035-4a40-b691-0eefb1a18396&pf_rd_i=desktop

Syma X8HG drone. I got it direct from China, for 2/3 of the price. Pretty sweet drone for a first drone. If I buy another, it will be WIFI enabled so I can see what the drone sees, on my phone.

Just don't send it near me.....I will give it the Mike Rowe treatment.

I have no intention of being a jerk with a drone. I have actually wanted one for 3 years now. Until recently, they were either really small and useless, or huge and expensive.

I want to incorporate this into my business. Besides, some of the shots from drones are just awesome.

GoPro ha their own drone now, called Karma. No idea of the price, but I'm sure its as expensive as a Phantom.

Nice ! I bet you can definitely use it to your advantage for your business, please post some videos of it when you do, I'm curious.

can you fly that one first person view or do you just record video then download it from camera after?

This drone doesn't have FPV. I am debating on buying another, IF this one is something I can fly and get used to.

Found another drone that takes the same batteries for about the same price as this one.

I've also been looking at a DJI Phantom. I can get one for about 500 all the way to 2k.

We will see how droning goes, and if it goes well, I will end up owning a few before it's all done. There are just TONS of options for camera drones. Cheap to expensive. Even GoPro's new drone is pretty awesome.

I'd like to end up with a drone I can fly 1-2 miles away from me. GoPro's I think goes better than 4 miles away.

I can see the usefulness of a drone filming aerial shots for the elevated type of cleaning that you do. Unfortunately, I remain an angry old man in regards to drones.....I don't like any of them and will blast every one that I see on my property.

milspec6 wrote:I can see the usefulness of a drone filming aerial shots for the elevated type of cleaning that you do.  Unfortunately, I remain an angry old man in regards to drones.....I don't like any of them and will blast every one that I see on my property.

Trust me, I'm no less an angry old man!
I will be registering for my drones with the FAA (as required). Part of the rules cover where you can and can't fly a UAV. You can't just fly one anyplace you want.

I'd blast one flying over my property without permission too.

a distant family member does professional drone videos for corp bizs. does 6 figures.

Drones showed up today.

They are already assembled and batteries charging.

My spare batteries have not shown up yet, unfortunately. But, sometime tomorrow I will do maiden flights.

How durable are they? Can they handle a crash if the batteries die in flight?

Well, both seem to be fairly durable. I'm not worried if it drops from 10-20 foot. More than that, I don't think ANY drone would survive unscathed.

Both of my drones have battery indicators for the drone and the receiver. It reads out on the little display on the receiver. Any half decent drone now, has that feature.

Besides, both the drones I bought have readily available parts, if something breaks or wears out. Props and motors are cheap. So are the batteries, IMO. I am going to town shortly, to pick up some rechargeable batteries for the receivers. Then I don't have to buy batteries all the time for that.

I also installed the prop guards on both drones. It may kill my performance some, but for now I am more worried about crashing and breaking props. When I get more skilled, I'll take them off.

Kids and their toys

So I test flighted both drones.

I was wrong about a drone battery indicator on the controller. That is indicated by the lights on the drone. Fast blink means low battery.

The Syma, with the real nice camera, so far is a bust. There was some wind (10 MPH) but the drone would NOT sway left or right. I had to use Yaw to make it fly anything more than back and forth. This makes this drone pretty uncontrollable. With the bit of wind today, it looked like a bird on crack, flying around. No control to it. I did not attempt to screw with videos or pictures.

The JXD, was a really nice flyer. Controls were great. The FPV works nice too. Though, I didn't pay much attention to the screen, as I am too new to this to take my eyes off the quad.

Both quads have a very short flight time. The 2200 MAH batteries fly about 10-15 minutes. The screen on the JXD also runs out of battery in about 2 flights.

Without GPS on the drones, they are pretty hard to hold position in any sort of wind. They drift a lot too, with the wind.

Both Quads have the ability to flip and do stunts. Not something I am looking for, but maybe others are. I am more interested in film footage and nimbleness of a drone.

I crashed both drones, and no damage was to be seen. The Syma did ALOT of crashing, no rotor or body damage.

So you bought 2 drones ?
That's super short flying time on the battery, there must be some extended battery you can get on the internet for at least double that time ?

Yup. I got two of them. One with FPV, the other without.

The battery life is actually pretty good for a "toy" drone. DJI Phantoms only run about 20 minutes per battery. Those things are as big as a battery for a drill.

The spares I have coming are as big as you can put in the drones. 2500 MAH. The ones that come with them are 2000.

Sounds like Korean testing......the birds were probably concerned.

milspec6 wrote:Sounds like Korean testing......the birds were probably concerned.

I wonder if the birds were like "oh we missed those days where there were no drones and no planes, when we can let our kids go out and fly without having to worry anything will hit them" lol.

More than likely the birds were rolling their eyes and laughing. Probably still laughing at the crash.