I'm thinking about buying one for entertainment. I have no idea where to begin. Price point or brand? Anyone?

Don't you drone on enough?

Who you planning on spying on?

Fish on...

Todd

Mainly to look around blind corners on the river to see if someones anchored up in the next good water.

No, just for fun and to take some cool pictures.

My friend got his at costco,great camera,extra battery,case,for under 500 I believe.

ive had a couple, and a few helicopters... i have 1 chopper and 1 bigger drone right now...

buy a cheap one first, get used to flying it, that way you wont crash a 1500-8000 dollar drone your first time trying to use it...

the little choppers that are about 30 bucks are a great way to get started if you havent flown RC vehicles before, it will help with the learning curve with the drone...

most choppers in the cheap realm, dont have a 6 axis system like drones do... but, most drones will allow you to turn off the axis system to fly them like a regular chopper, that means they can go forward, backward, left, right, but cant bank taking corners...


a while back, i got a Propel X11 wifi drone, it was a 120 dollar drone that i got on clearance for 25 bucks (they had 4 more that i should have bought, but didnt, and they were gone, quick), it flys great, although, the camera isnt that great... its HD when its sitting on the ground, but not super great when flying... if you crash it you can get parts, and its cheap... unlike a DJI...

now for the "good" stuff, the DJI line is hard to beat, you can get a Spark for around 400 bucks, which is a simple little drone with an HD cam, but dont get too excited about what you can do with it... then there is the Mavic line(air, pro, ect) which start at around 800 and go up.... then there is the Phantom line, which also start at around 800, but get more expensive than the Mavic line, the pro can push 1500+ depending on where you buy it... when you start getting upwards in the lines, you get the Phantom Pro and such (theres different models of the Phantom and Pro, with numbers), they come with 4K cameras, which shoot 12 mp stills... you can also buy FLIR cameras for them, but they are about 2 grand for the cam itself....

then you have the DJI Inspire line, they generally start at around 3k for the 2 model, you can get refurbed 1 series ones for 1k-1500 depending on where you look, but they are the old series... and they reach prices upwards of 6k dollars....

theres also the Matrice line, but they are Hexacopters (6 props) not quadcopters, and they come with no camera, they also start out at 5 grand....

like i said, get a cheap one first, mess with it, see if you like it, and go from there... drones arent for everyone... some people cant even drive cars....

Thanks for the advice.

I just have a small copter. So small, in fact, that it is really only good inside the house as even the operation of the heater/AC will affect it. Like Evo says, start cheap and practice.

I have had a long-time interest in RC planes. For them, owners often hire pilots as the skill needed to fly versus the investment make it worth it. So, it will be a good idea to get a model that has repair parts easily available as Stuff Happens.

When I was kid in the early 80's, my Dad wanted to start up a new father - son hobby, so he got us an RC plane kit. This was the early days of RC when it became super popular on the market. I was stoked! So over the course of the cold winter months, we proceed to build this cool balsa wood framed Cessna style plane. All winter long, we worked on it her and there - after dinner and on the weekends. We bonded together as we took great care making sure we built her just right. I begged him to paint flames and little missiles on her, so we did. She turned out perfect and I showed all of my friends. I was so proud.

Then came the big day! First flight! We set out to a barren piece of land outside of town that had nothing but a little bit of old asphalt and tumbleweeds. It was a calm, clear morning about 56 degrees. Perfect weather for a young aviator to spread his little wings. I was stoked! Dad showed my how to prime the engine & fire her up. He toggled on the controller and passed it to me with a tear in his eye. His boy was gonna fly! I took that golden controller into my hands like I was the ruler of the universe. I pushed the little joystick forward as he showed me and off she went! Straight up into the beautiful wild blue yonder! Up she went! Up she went! Up she went! Down she went! Down she went! Down she went! Splat.

Thus ended my RC days. The end.

im mainly a car guy, aircraft have a tendency to break more if crashed, which i suppose happens to both, but its easier for me to crash aircraft

not none of that rock crawler 5 mph bullsh!t either, i have one car i pulled the motor off a while back to switch to electric that did about 63 MPH with the nitro motor, they get squirly on dirt and gravel, and will shoot rocks quite the distance... Nitro is expensive tho, the last gallon i bought was over 30 dollars, electric, while expensive to start out (batteries, ESC's motors, ect), you can drive them more, and they dont make a mess, but the sound of those little gas motors sure is cool, especially at 35k RPM....

my old neighbor and good friend before we both moved away from each other, was really into the aircraft... even in a wheelchair... he got into an accident on a 3 wheeler and was paralyzed from the waist down, was a concept design engineer for Saleen then later went to the secret part of the Aerospace program at Boeing...

anyways, he used to build those giant either 1/5 or 1/4 scale prop planes like the P-51, 47, ect, buttttt, he also had a couple jets... one of them was a 1/4 if i remember right, F-18, completely and fully detailed as a Blue Angel... it was a twin turbine gas jet, that would reach speeds of well over 300 MPH... but it cost him well over 10k dollars for that thing... it was amazing...

another friend of mines pop, was really into the large scale helicopters... he had completed an Apache, 1/4 or 1/5 scale, and decided to test run it in the spare bedroom that he had that he had done time and time again with other choppers....

except this time, they were remodeling...

he started it up, and the painters plastic that was covering the window and wainscot, wasnt fully secure... well that powerful turbine, sucked that sh!t right off the wall, and straight into the turbine, and blew it up... he was devastated but, fixed it eventually....

i do like the aircraft i have, but i doubt ill buy a more expensive one, i have friends that have them so if i ever feel the need to fly, they let me, other than that, i enjoy cars and boats better...

Go with the dji Mavic, great high performance entry level easy to operate drone.