Episode #92
The Parrot AR Drone is a high-tech, ultra lightweight, remote-controlled quadricopter (helicopter with four rotors). Now an RC quadricopter is pretty cool, but one that streams HD video from its camera to your iPad, iPhone, or Android device in real time, could be very, very cool. I’ve dreamed about owning for one for years, but only found the courage last month to plunk down $299 for the latest and greatest model, the Parrot AR Drone 2.0 Elite Edition.
The button says “I Want It” and boy did I ever…
Why did I want one and what did I hope to use it for? I’m glad you asked. I am about to start work on a video of our house, which we’re putting on the market, and I wanted a killer opening shot. I was thinking either a crane shot from the street that gradually revealed the house, then the roof, the back yard, the neighbor’s yard, and finally, the greenbelt beyond. Or, possibly, a tracking (hovering?) shot starting at the street, flying up the path and through the front door into the house, ending up looking out the open front door from the great room.
I won’t spoil the suspense this time; you’ll have to read on to find out if got what I wanted.
Anyway, after unpacking it, installing the (free) FreeFlight app on my iPad, and then waiting two hours for its 1000mAh lithium polymer battery to charge, I headed for a nearby soccer field to practice flying my new toy:
Me flying the AR Drone (frame grab from video shot by the drone)
The FreeFlight app makes it easy enough for anyone to fly the drone and my first flight was fun and uneventful. I hovered up and down, flew forward and back, and landed safely. It was kind of fun, but then I discovered the first of many disappointments with the drone: Its battery lasts just 10-12 minutes.
I figured I’d need two or three spare batteries, so I was pleased to learn that Parrot offers a higher-capacity (1500mAh) spare battery rated for 18 minutes of flight. I was much less pleased when I discovered that they cost $60 each plus shipping and decided I could wait. (And, since my $300 toy takes two hours to recharge, I did quite a bit of waiting).
After recharging, I returned to the soccer field and almost immediately found a much worse problem than the ten minutes per battery charge: The wind. Apparently all the sample videos I watched on the Parrot web site were shot on totally windless days. The day I started flying we had gusts up to 5 or 6 mph, but that was more than enough. With the drone hovering at about 30 feet, a strong gust of wind sent it soaring upward and out of control, across a street and out of sight, where it ultimately crashed into a tree.