Beginner drone

[rbeckey]

My adult son is a graduate student. He has indicated an interest in drones, but does not have time to research how to logically get started. I have zero knowledge on the subject.

I'd like to send him a gift at Easter. What should a complete rookie get to start in the hobby? Something to learn and build off of.

 

[SkyFire]

What's your budget?
What would he use it for?

 

[DaHabes]

There are a lot of options, but the key thing is to buy a drone from a company that has a decent reputation, since there is a lot of junk (Chinese) out there. I bought a fairly cheap drone last year (under $100) and it was pretty junkie. Hard to fly, short range. It would up in a tree. The neighbor found it on the ground after a wind storm before he ran over it with his lawn mower.

The best game in town is DJI, they basically own the consumer space and a good portion of the commercial space. If you want to go low cost to start, the best option is the Tello. https://store.dji.com/shop/tello-series?from=menu_icon

It's $100 ($149 with spare parts, a good idea). I bought one but haven't spun it up yet (waiting for decent Spring weather). You can buy a game controller that makes it easier to fly ($49 on the website or $35 on Amazon). It's decent, not junk, the company has decent support and it's not too big an investment.

From there the sky is the limit, just like an hobby (aka, ROCKETS). The Mavic series starts at about $500, goes up to about $1300. You can add FPV to the series for additional bucks. As you go up in price you get better sensors, more flying time and distance and more collision avoidance logic. Anybody can fly the expensive ones easily in the beginner mode, but where is the fun in that.

Good luck.

 

[rbeckey]

I believe his main interest going forward fill be high res video and photography. Budget is likely ~$200 for this gift.

I'm thinking that the learning curve means that its better to start modestly.

He is a climber, skier and cyclist so he will be outdoors much of the time.

 

[georgegassaway]

Whatever it is, I highly recommend one that has "altitude hold" mode.

With Altitude hold, the "throttle" is not really throttle. It is "climb/hover/descend" control. Middle stick is hover, higher stick is climb (the higher the stick, the faster it limbs), and lower stick is descend (the lower the stick, the faster it descends).

Otherwise, if it is old fashioned throttle, then the throttle stick has to be continually jockeyed to try to maintain altitude.

Although if a person wants to RACE, or do aerobatics, then altitude hold is not wat they want to do.

Indeed this does beg the question of what type of flying. "Free to fly", or the Mavic type aerial platforms where the computer is almost totally in control and you are "nudging" it to steer. I have a Mavic, which is very easy to fly, and super rock-stable. But I can't maneuver it as much as my other Quads or even the Lunar Module Quad or Mars Lander Quad.

And does he want to get video/photos? Possibly fly FPV?

Another thing is whether the multicopter has GPS or not. With GPS, if it flies away, you can flip a switch and make it come back and land where it took off from (Or is it loses transmitter signal, automatically return home and land).

 

[teepot]

Mavic 2 kit on Amazon $998 for every thing. 6 months to pay no interest. It's rated #1 last time I looked.

 

[Brad_G]

This great drone to start with. Doesn't have all the functions of the high dollar ones but if you learn to fly this, you can fly any drone and if you crash or lose it, you are not out a fortune.

https://www.amazon.com/Powerful-Bru...uPWNsaWNrUmVkaXJlY3QmZG9Ob3RMb2dDbGljaz10cnVl

 

[shockie]

Mavic 2 kit on Amazon $998 for every thing. 6 months to pay no interest. It's rated #1 last time I looked.

The U.S. government recently added the world's leading drone manufacturer, Da-Jiang Innovations, better known as DJI, to its economic blacklist. just say no to Chinese products. In the coming China-American war, DJI drones will be used by the Chinese military to kill your fellow American citizens. https://www.thedronegirl.com/2020/06/23/american-drone-companies/

 

[teepot]

The U.S. government recently added the world's leading drone manufacturer, Da-Jiang Innovations, better known as DJI, to its economic blacklist. just say no to Chinese products. In the coming China-American war, DJI drones will be used by the Chinese military to kill your fellow American citizens. https://www.thedronegirl.com/2020/06/23/american-drone-companies/

The black list is for government purchases not civilian. And I doubt the Chinese would use commercial drones when they have military ones. I agree that we should try to limit our purchases of Chinese products. But to not buy any Chinese products would be nigh on impossible.

 

[MikeT]

Buy cheap than buy three of four times. Stay away from anything you can't get parts for.

Mike

 

[DaHabes]

The U.S. government recently added the world's leading drone manufacturer, Da-Jiang Innovations, better known as DJI, to its economic blacklist. just say no to Chinese products. In the coming China-American war, DJI drones will be used by the Chinese military to kill your fellow American citizens. https://www.thedronegirl.com/2020/06/23/american-drone-companies/

Would be happy to buy a US made drone, but I'm not aware of any. Please forward info if you have it. I would be willing to bet that virtually every consumer drone you can buy is made in China, or the parts are made in China if it is assembled elsewhere.

I regularly look at where things are made when I purchase them. 90% say made in China. Clothing may come from Vietnam or Malaysia, but I only buy enough clothes to cover my nudity with clean clothes on a regular basis.

 

[afadeev]

What should a complete rookie get to start in the hobby? Something to learn and build off of.

Mostly good advice on the candidates.
Something I would add, based on personal experience - be prepared to write-off the first drone (or RC plane) you buy to learn to fly.
It will be going down hard more than you planned, it will get stuck in the trees, it will need repairs and replacement parts, and complete replacements. If more than one pilot is learning to fly in the family, multiply the projected loss rate by the # of learner pilots.

Mavic 2 kit on Amazon $998 for every thing. 6 months to pay no interest. It's rated #1 last time I looked.

Mavic Air 2 with Fly More combo is what my kids fly for fun these days, and for rocketry shots.
But it is our 5th or 6th drone, and we've written off (or returned, or warrantied) all the earlier ones.

I believe his main interest going forward fill be high res video and photography. Budget is likely ~$200 for this gift.

MA2 has all the high-end features I value, but I would be hesitant to recommend buying it as a learn-to-fly starter kit, unless you are comfortable writing off $1K toy.
Mavic Mini is 1/2 the price (lower range and video quality), but it still at double your target price point.
Below that, there is a massive drop in performance, quality, and capabilities. You will likely be priced out of the FPV flying capability set. I can't say that I would recommend anything other than line-of-sight <$100 starter drones that others have pointed out.

He is a climber, skier and cyclist so he will be outdoors much of the time.

If the kid already has the latest GoPro Hero 8 or 9, anything less than DJI MA2 will be producing inferior videos. And they will notice.
If he doesn't have GoPro, I would recommend getting one of those.
It's what my kids use 10x more than the drones.

 

[Winston]

A "return to home" (RTH) feature is also desirable. This isn't very accurate at all in aircraft without GPS which use only inertial navigation from the same sensors used to stabilize the drone, but the idea is to return the aircraft to the general area of pilot if the aircraft loses reception from the pilot's transmitter due to flying out of range or some other issue or a "return to home" button is pushed. GPS equipped aircraft are, of course, far better at this. Depending on the flying location, one of the small, inexpensive audible drone locator modules might be also useful.

 

[Winston]

Clothing may come from Vietnam or Malaysia, but I only buy enough clothes to cover my nudity with clean clothes on a regular basis.

I own a 20 year old jacket made in Russia that I bought in a farm supply store that is well made and still perfectly good. A previously normal, tall-front style cap (not one of the shallow, skull conforming ones that I can't stand) made in Vietnam is the best quality cap I own, bought to have a badge/patch sewn on the front of it. It had a holographic sticker on it to prevent the damned Chicoms from counterfeiting it, I suspect.

My brother-in-law is an anti-Walmart snob, so I told him that without Walmart I'd be naked and neither of us would like that.

 

[afadeev]

The U.S. government recently added the world's leading drone manufacturer, Da-Jiang Innovations, better known as DJI, to its economic blacklist. just say no to Chinese products.

Well, this took a sharp turn into jingoism and misinformation.

There is no such thing as "economic blacklist" in the US.
There is an "entities list", but it has no practical meaning for the US consumers:
https://droneanalyst.com/2020/12/21/dji-added-to-the-us-entity-list-whats-the-impact

In the coming China-American war, DJI drones will be used by the Chinese military to kill your fellow American citizens.

Bonus points for finishing in a dumpster fire of war mongering and total BS.