It is no surprise that 2015 was the year of the drones. Call them what you will, quad copters, FPV device, drones, the distinction between the three is blurred now a days. My Dad and I thought we would hop on the "Drone Bandwagon" before the FAA shuts it down.
My mom bought my Dad and I each a small drone to practice with.
To practice with you say? Early this year I built a custom 250 race drone that my hope was to connect a FPV camera to and participate in some local races(Milwaukee Maker Faire actually had a drone course this year). It was a huge struggle, but after months of working and tinkering I FINALLY got the drone in the air.
The only problem that with such an expensive drone, being controlled by such a novice as myself, I succumb to numerous hard landings. But on one particular occasion that my Mom and I continue to bring up, I gave the remote to my Dad to try and fly the quad copter in the front yard. I gave him a brief description of the controls and told him, "If anything goes wrong, cut the throttle."
It wasn't long before the quad copter was hovering closer and closer to us. He panicked with the controls which rocketed, and I mean ROCKETED, the quad copter over the house crash landing only 12 ft from the koi pond, in a crash zone of roughly 8ft.
I found propellors even further away.
So the beginner to intermediate quad copter is much more our speed.
These quad copters require a 5v power source to charge up the Lipo battery for roughly 30 min before each flight.
It might be hard to tell, but it wasn't too long before my Dad was able to get the quad off the ground hovering in front of him. Maybe next summer/spring we will upgrade to a larger quad copter.
(Maybe, If we are ready for that).
With the day done, and no propellors broken, the McGeen family would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
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