Multirotor, multicopter and quadcopter discussion - The Drone thread

Best first time drone to buy for hiking, climbing, camping around Europe?

Think the Mini 3 looks a bit too much money for something I'll probably break knowing me
 
Really depends on what your end goal is for a drone.

Just taking a few pictures, little videos then anything semi decent will do. Want something a little more feature rich like motion tracking etc then its gonna cost a bit more (mini 3+ money), personally from experience its better to buy something good once, than having to buy multiple because the first were bad.

If you more interested in the video/photo capture aspects then a mini 3 will more than do the job, if your more interested in the flight/experience/exploration/cinematography side of things then maybe take a look at the DJI Avata.

As for the drones, I'd say the Avata was far more durable than the mini 3 and much better if your planning to do close proximity flights.
 
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Best first time drone to buy for hiking, climbing, camping around Europe?

Think the Mini 3 looks a bit too much money for something I'll probably break knowing me

Get a 2nd hand Air or Air 2. Both do tracking and both can be had much more cheaply than a Mini 3 Pro.
 
Get a 2nd hand Air or Air 2. Both do tracking and both can be had much more cheaply than a Mini 3 Pro.
only thing that worries me is 30fps 4k, is there a way to apply motion smoothing anyway to make it look more like 60fps?


EDIT: Oh wait sorry this is the maverik one and not the mini 2, I think the air 2 looks too big for my 10 day hikes I don't have much spare room in the backpack so size and weight means a lot to me
 
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Mini 2 is 30fps and no tracking. Still a fantastic drone and the image quality is excellent for what it is.
The Mini 3 Pro is on another level though. It's my go-to drone for pretty much any situation.
 
Mini 2 is 30fps and no tracking. Still a fantastic drone and the image quality is excellent for what it is.
The Mini 3 Pro is on another level though. It's my go-to drone for pretty much any situation.
thinking ill need that tracking for climbing though?

it will add extra danger getting the controller out mid-pitch I'd of thought (to the controller and drone not me)
 
Take a look at the skydio R2, not yet available in the UK but certainly something worth checking out and possibly importing if you have the means to do so.

No controller needed and its motion tracking is possibly the best in the business by a long long way.
 
I got an email reminding me my Drone Operator ID needs renewing. It's gone up to £10. There's 40 questions now for renewing Flyer ID, I think it was 19 before.
 
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People actually bothered with that rubbish o_O

Other than the professional grade mobile cameras, they are essentially toys, I don't need an operator ID for my RC cars or boats and the whole omg drones are dangerous is just complete nonsense.
Yes I did, no point in antagonising the situation in my eyes, though I do agree it is complete nonsense, local council started throwing GDPR at me for asking if I could fly over a local park for some video, got no response back when I asked if that applied to normal cameras and phones as well, completely ridiculous the amount of effort that has been put into controlling drones.
 
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People actually bothered with that rubbish o_O

Other than the professional grade mobile cameras, they are essentially toys, I don't need an operator ID for my RC cars or boats and the whole omg drones are dangerous is just complete nonsense.
I did, I even hold an A2 certification. Did it a couple of years ago.
 
Just did my 3rd flight with the Avata, and almost crapped myself whizzing above the ground at 32 mph :o

I take my hat off to those that do full manual at insane speeds.
 
People actually bothered with that rubbish o_O

Other than the professional grade mobile cameras, they are essentially toys, I don't need an operator ID for my RC cars or boats and the whole omg drones are dangerous is just complete nonsense.
RC cars and boats can't get a loss-of-signal flyaway and end up smashing into something like a moving car, a train or some kid's face.
Drones and RC aircraft simply present a greater risk than something that is surface-bound, and even 250g dropping on you from 400ft is gonna hurt... Operator ID is intended, among other things, to identify the accountable party.


The point is that, like cars, power tools and many other things, accidents happen and drones can be dangerous. Accountability and risk mitigation do help the situation.

Interesting reading:
 
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RC cars and boats can't get a loss-of-signal flyaway and end up smashing into something like a moving car, a train or some kid's face.
Drones and RC aircraft simply present a greater risk than something that is surface-bound, and even 250g dropping on you from 400ft is gonna hurt... Operator ID is intended, among other things, to identify the accountable party.


The point is that, like cars, power tools and many other things, accidents happen and drones can be dangerous. Accountability and risk mitigation do help the situation.

Interesting reading:

Those incidents are extremely rare, and the research you quoted while good on paper is not representative of the real world, someone who owns a mavic or phantom et. Is unlikely to be flying out like a nob. For one they don't want to damage their £1000+ drone.

The likes of drones found on ebay for 30 quid are absolutely harmless, if you look at the enthusiast grade drones then again they aren't going to be owned by the sort of people who would fly them irresponsibly. For a start you need a certain amount of intelligence just to get them working let alone fly.

Could a drone fall out of the sky and hit someone sure it can, as can a plane, bird or meteor for that matter.
Likely hood of it happening though, pretty damn slim.
 
Those incidents are extremely rare, and the research you quoted while good on paper is not representative of the real world, someone who owns a mavic or phantom et. Is unlikely to be flying out like a nob. For one they don't want to damage their £1000+ drone.

The likes of drones found on ebay for 30 quid are absolutely harmless, if you look at the enthusiast grade drones then again they aren't going to be owned by the sort of people who would fly them irresponsibly. For a start you need a certain amount of intelligence just to get them working let alone fly.

Could a drone fall out of the sky and hit someone sure it can, as can a plane, bird or meteor for that matter.
Likely hood of it happening though, pretty damn slim.

They're fairly rare... But I know of several commercial surveyors who've crashed their Phantom 4s directly into the front of oncoming trains, and about a dozen others whose drones all suffered failures resulting in them crashing into our customers' gardens. Luckily no-one I know has crashed something bigger like a Matrice 300... yet.

But the fact is that it still can and still does happen. It doesn't need to actually hurt a person or disable a vehicle in order to present a problem or result in an accident.
You'll find irresponsible bell-ends at all levels, as well as genuine accidents with properly responsible parties too. Drone size or cost is not a sufficient factor by which to legislate human behaviour.

We still need one law to cover everyone fairly, which is what they're aiming for.
I'm not aware of so many incidents with model aircraft before cheap, easily accessible drones became a thing either.
I'd certainly be in favour of every drone being registered and the requirement for proof of Flyer/Op ID before you could buy one. Maybe proof of some kind of training, even if it's just the DMARES or something slightly better. Home-built drones would be difficult to regulate like that, though. Same for drones having a transponder that broadcasts certain data, although I draw the line at anyone being able to ID the operator and locate their position. The US has taken that one too far.

They do, but only for people who fly responsibly and therein lies the issue.

Actually it helps there too - If you drive a car on the road, people will assume you're licenced and safe.
We need a culture where people assume the same about flying drones... but right now it's the opposite. Most people see a drone and assume you're a **** out to cause mischief and block runways or something. This is what led to that guy filming quite legitimately for an estate agent, getting his drone shot at by an irate neighbour, followed by that neighbour coming out and shoving a gun* in his face. The fact that pilots like him get hassled so often they routinely wear body cams is a big concern for me.


*It may have turned out to only be a G10 air pistol, but to most people it's still a gun in the face and he still broke several laws, while still hassling someone doing their perfectly legitimate job.
 
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Actually it helps there too - If you drive a car on the road, people will assume you're licenced and safe.
Only if you're an idiot lol :D But yes, I know what you mean and you are right, we need that sort of culture to be able to move away from the current drone = bad attitude that a large percentage of people have, though to be fair, I mostly get greeted with curiosity when people see me with one of my drones, I've not been flying for long but it's about a 70/30 split in favour of curiosity in my experience so far, not that much interaction on the whole though due to where I chose to fly.
 
Transition period extended until 1st Jan 2026 and C labels meaningless as of 1st Jan 2023, if you just bought a shiny new Mavic 3 Classic with a C1 label you have until the new year to use it in the open A1 category before it gets relegated to legacy rules and you become so lethal that you need to obtain special permissions lol.
 
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