It lost a propeller, never to be found again, as it cartwheeled over the turf.
To prevent it from flying away, I brought it down quickly-too quickly. On my first try, the four propellers spun up, and the Phantom jumped into the air in a stiff breeze, which it seemed unable or unwilling to counteract. In any case, I happened to be heading on vacation to the Swedish countryside, so that's where I flew it.
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A new law passed last year will make it easier to get a license for commercial and government drone use by 2015. Outside major cities, the Federal Aviation Administration allows remote-control aircraft as long as they're flown for non-commercial purposes, stay below 400 feet (122 meters) and away from "real" aircraft. The Phantom would hurt if it crashed into you, and the spinning propeller blades could cause real damage to your eyes. The city parks don't allow flying machines of any kind without permits, and that's probably a good thing. So where to try this thing? In New York City, where I live, that's a tough question. It also expands the amount of mischief you can cause with them, from spying to egg-dropping. The military uses advanced FPV to keep drones on patrol over Afghanistan for hours, thousands of miles (kilometers) away from their "pilots." It vastly expands the range and usefulness of remote-controlled aircraft. That's when the user can see out of the drone's camera as it's flying, freeing the user to send the aircraft out of eyesight and making it easier to capture good video. The second revolution is "first-person view," or FPV. The Phantom uses a GPS chip to stay steady in the air, even in a wind, and can stay up for nearly ten minutes on a single charge of its battery, which uses the same energy-dense technology as smartphones. What's different this time around?įirst, the aircraft are much easier to fly, thanks to battery technology, electronics and GPS. Remote-control aircraft have been around for decades. The Phantom doesn't come with a built-in camera, but it does have a holder for a GoPro action camcorder, which is what I used. In any case, some drone enthusiasts consider the Phantom a major milestone.
The Phantom could be to drones what the Apple II was to computing more than three decades ago-offering one of the first complete, integrated PCs. This hasn't been the norm in the industry. Roughly a foot 12 inches (30 centimeters) in diameter, the four-propeller craft is sold as a complete unit with only minimal assembly required. The $700 Phantom, made by a Chinese company called DJI, is at the forefront of bringing drone technology to the masses. It wasn't a huge epiphany, but it was interesting to see a well-known place from a completely new angle.
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The video camera on the phantom also lets me see in a new way a patch of Swedish countryside that I've been to every year since I was a child. It's easy to see these agile, relatively stable aircraft being put to a number of uses, from aerial photography to package delivery-at least once the dangers can be managed and the legal issues worked through. I've been trying out a helicopter-type drone called the Phantom this summer.
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