Our drones are technically able to fly over several thousand feet high and fly 4+ miles away from their operator. However, we never exceed 400′ above ground level and don’t fly beyond the visual line of sight of the operator.

Before you think about buying a drone, please get and practice with a smaller toy drone first. Without this experience, you’re endangering yourself and others as crashes are guaranteed.

We sell several inexpensive (under $50) great practice/training drones in our shop that can take most crashes like a champ. Spare parts are readily available and it’s cheap and easy to repair if you should break something. Everything you learn while flying with one of these will be directly applicable to larger drones.

You will need/want at least four spare batteries and you can get multipacks from us for about $20-30. Beware, don’t buy a drone or batteries from Amazon or eBay as there are mostly crudely-made counterfeits and fakes on both sites.

Once you have your practice/training drone fully charge the batteries before use. The drone will calibrate itself as soon as you plug the battery in. So it’s imperative for a smooth and steady fight that it be done on a flat and level surface without tilting or moving the drone. That in itself can be a little tricky to do and at first, it might take a dozen or more attempts to finally get it right.

Practice with it inside at first and later outdoors (on a calm day) up to 20ft high. Never go higher as they’ll get caught in winds, you don’t feel on the ground, and it’ll be the last time you see it. Start flying close to yourself (10′ max) and slowly increase the distance you go as you gain experience. Try to stay away from walls and the ceiling as it’ll be drawn to them, sucking itself into any surface.

You’ll need to learn how to fly without accidentally bumping or crashing into objects, hitting the floor/ground, or being sucked into walls or the ceiling. Once you can do that and can easily fly around and in-between things like multiple objects, while maintaining orientation control (knowing which way it’s pointing/going at a distance), you’re ready to risk flying the more expensive drones. We’ve found that it takes at least 10-30 hours of flight time to fly with confidence and skill, rather than luck. Few can take to it quicker than others but don’t rush it and don’t get overconfident! It really does take this amount of practice to avoid costly crashes.

Once you’re ready for something better, you might want to get a FPV Racing Drone or a Photography Drone.

It varies greatly but it’s definitely a very costly undertaking to fly what we fly. Once you add up the cost of one drone and everything else needed to fly it, it can be as costly as a decent-sized boat. It’s also as big of a money pit!

The drone itself is such a very small piece of the puzzle and just the beginning of everything else that’s required. For example, many operators spend over $1,000 on just batteries each year!

There are some pretty inexpensive (sub $100) toy drones that are fun to fly and are perfect for beginners (or even pros for practice). Please see Where can I purchase a drone? for more information.

It’s a small Unmanned Aerial System (sUAS) or just a “drone”, for short. See our Fleet page for more information about each of our photographic/survey drones.

The following are some of the more popular usages for drones:

• Filming TV Shows/Movies and Internet videos
• Making art (e.g. landscape, nature, or wildlife photography and cinematography)
• Aerial photography of real estate or other property
• Journalism and news coverage
• Farming/Agriculture
• Environmental compliance, environmental studies, environmental research, counting/monitoring wildlife, etc.
• Surveying or inspecting a property, infrastructure, or agriculture
• Search and Rescue
• Law Enforcement/Firefighting/HAZMAT Response
• Possibly even food and parcel delivery in the future