Flying with Friends

My long time friend Aaron, who I have known since the 7th grade of public indoctrination school, came over to fly his new toy- a small drone! This thing was sweet tho, for 30$, it flew just like the first drone I had ever bought, which was 135$. He hadn't yet figured out how to take pictures with it, but there was an app to connect to the camera for that function. And it even resembled the Mavic Pro in its body structure which I loved right away! It was much lighter in comparison to the Mavic Pro, since the majority of its parts are plastic.

From what he said, he flew it at home for a couple minutes before coming my way without charging, and he flew again for about 5-7 minutes, so for about a total of 10 minutes flight time of decent exertion. Which is pretty good battery life for a 30$ drone. My 135$ first drone only lasted 7-9 minutes on a 1 1/2 hour charge, and that was just hovering, low exertion. It did not have autonomous flight stabilization or obstacle detection and avoidance systems on board (neither did my 135$ drone), nor did it hold up too well in a slightly breezy afternoon wind (same problem with 135$).. but the pilot was smooth and in control the entirety of his second flight. Was able to snap some action photos while getting pretty excited for him to dabble in the drone world. He took it to a decent height of say 30 meters and was cautious to bring it back as it began to drift away in the wind. The way I got my first drone stuck in the large tree where my tree stand is built onto.

All in all, the toy was pretty sweet. With practice and the right weather conditions, I bet Aaron would be able to take some O.K. photos or even some videos with it. The camera is obviously not a high powered camera in comparison to the DJI's Mavic Pro or Phantom or even the Spark with its 2.7K video resolution, so I cannot say how much quality the photos would be in a moving vehicle with no gimbal stabilizer. Also now DJI has just come out with the Mavic Air.... which I am not getting into details with, but man, they just keep making them better and better. But hey for 30$ I ain't going to complain about Aaron's either. The thing flies well and that's the first purpose of the toy for Aaron. He got it primarily because of son Jaxon has been obsessed with drones ever since I first came over... as can be seen in the photo of Jaxons 3rd birthday, when he first saw it.

Although I may have bought my Mavic Pro with the intention to take beautiful photos and videos of clouds and the beautiful Mother nature. Flying was always my first intention. But with the Mavic Pro, one does not need to be an expert at operating sUAV (small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle = drone), or be good at video games, to fly competently. The Mavic has all the tools to practically fly itself and teach you how to become a better pilot as you go. Although, I do prefer to fly my drones, the Mavic and Spark, in sport (manual) mode. I like the control.

If anyone is interested in the actual brand of this drone, just ask in the comments or something as I do not have it on me, but can get that info if desired.

This is certainly a beginners drone, but the big catch 22 is without the autonomous flight controls, one will end up crashing it enough to destroy it- just I did to my first drone. And that deters people from getting a more expensive, more durable and more intelligent drone, I feel like. Because now they think they cannot fly well enough for the more expensive ones... well you certainly get what you pay for. So with the practice I learned from the first drone, from all the crashes and eventually severing an armature and busting a cheap small motor, I DID buy the expensive drone. And have yet to cause damage to it. Knock on Wood

Thanks for reading, if you did. Cheers to all!

The photos are a mix of my iPhone and Spark photos that I took, @kelsnm is still practicing on how to adjust camera settings and what not to take a nice photo with the Spark.