ar drone

I’ve been playing with the world’s most exciting personal quadricopter, and frankly I’d rather own one of these than a full-sized, people carrying helicopter.

Straight out the box and immediately you want to fly it. This I’m glad to report is not a pipe-dream. It really is idiot-easy on set-up. Just download the free app, locate where the battery goes and it’s pretty self-explanatory from there.

But this is the worst idea ever. Trust me; take some time to learn how to properly control this gadget, what all the settings mean, and most importantly, what “Absolute Control” is.

“Absolute Control” is a setting the AR Drone 2.0 has that toggles the drone’s perspective when you fly it. With AC off, the forward and backwards perspective runs according to which way the AR Drone is pointing, and not to which way you are pointing. This is important because when you’re standing with an iDevice in your hands, and you lean the drone forward, you don’t want to be worrying which way the drone is pointing, you just want it to obey.

This setting alone is going to save you on barrels of damage that you could do to the soft outer shell of the drone which protects the valuable innards like the motherboard and the full HD video and still camera.

While on the subject of the camera, what more do I need to say. I’ll show you. Here’s some footage from the Fucha Gatherings party out in Magaliesberg a week back. What an absolute jol.

As you fly, you push record from the screen of your Smartphone or tablet, and it switches on. All the footage is stored directly on to your device, or if you prefer on to a USB memory stick which you connect on to the drone.

The camera onboard is a 720p HD one, shooting at 30fps and through a wide-angle lens. My advice is to fly it low when you’re shooting at something nearby or at people. Otherwise you just chop off the body of your subjects. If you’re shooting landscape, go wild and high.

Bide your time cautiously while the drone is in the air. Quite disappointingly the battery on the drone only lasts about 10 minutes, and that’s not even mentioning what it does to your Smartphone’s battery. Still, a small price to pay for this amount of fun.

The second gen AR Drone is brilliant for a number of reasons. First of which is the lengths they’ve gone to make sure that you don’t crash it. They’ve got settings onboard which make take-off and landing easy enough for a toddler to master, if the battery on your phone dies mid-flight the toy enters drone mode and drops to the earth and hovers and they’ve included an auto-pilot mode for the extremely nervous amongst you.

The second reason this gadget rules so hard is because it’s far from a one man show, solitary experience. Your mates will gape in awe as you fly it, waiting for their turn. And in no time they’ll also invest the cash for a drone of their own so you guys can partake in some 165-foot altitude dog-fights.

And thirdly, upon buying your drone you sign your membership card to the AR Drone online community, a thriving nest of like-minded fliers who are enthusiastic and available with tips, ideas and footage of their experiences with your new toy. The best part is that you don’t even need to be a certified nerd to join. In fact, all the better if you aren’t.

Cost: R3 500
From: www.smac.co.za
Forum and help: http://forum.parrot.com/ardrone/en/