First post of the super newb! Tell me what I should buy!

[Dannywiseass]

What selfie drone should I get? Oh wait that's stupid, I don't have any Drones, don't know poop about them. Never flew one.... ever. Please help my uneducated ass! I want to buy a drone. I want it for scouting paths and junk while I hike. So it needs to be fairly light. Fairly compact (read as foldable or reasonably backpackable). Decent camera, easy enough to learn how to fly it. Must be fairly quiet because I'm in the woods and I don't want it to scare off every animal within twenty miles. Some of these flight times seem really short( 20-30 min). I was looking for something pretty long (1-1.5 hrs) or at least with cheap enough Batteries I can afford a few. I looked at some of the DJI products but am so newb I have no idea if they are even any good, especially since some are 1500$ and some are like 35$ seams those are probably the knock off ones and most likely suck. Any help would be useful. Thank you.

 

[Ruby]

As a beiginner, you need to take care, fly it outside without anyone around you. wingsland s6 selfie drone is just $99, don't need to cut your arm and leg, and can be foldable, here is its picture.

 

[RENOV8R]

You won't find a craft with 1 hour flight time unless you want to lay out thousands of dollars. Heck, the Inspire 2 only has a 1/2 hour flight time, and it's up around 8 grand. I'd have a look at the DJI Spark, it checks off a lot of the boxes

 

[Dannywiseass]

Ill look at the Spark... thanks.... and that Selfie drone thing was a joke.... but that s6 drone shown? does it work like a regular drone or just hover like a dumb poop and take your picture?

 

[Dugdog47]

There are some cheap Chinese knock offs of the spark that look pretty good for the cheap $$.

 

[RENOV8R]

Ill look at the Spark... thanks.... and that Selfie drone thing was a joke.... but that s6 drone shown? does it work like a regular drone or just hover like a dumb poop and take your picture?

It's just a regular drone and is in fact quite sporty for the price. Of course like any drone in this price range, you're only going to get 8-10 minute flight times

 

[Dannywiseass]

Not to kill drone talk but I saw a light weight... all be it large... UAV style RC plane online too. This should check many boxes and while it wont hover, it does fly quite slow and stability…. I am thinking about it as well. Any experience ya'll have there would be nice.... I do have a bit of experience with RC planes.

 

[Dugdog47]

Naw man if it ain't got four props we don't want to hear about it lol just joking.

There are some guys here who post about planes, I think they can be built for very little $$.

 

[wafflejock]

You'll generally get better flight times and distance with a fixed wing but you're trading off tight control at low speeds and hovering to get the extra distance. You'll also need fpv gear and a transmitter that can go whatever distance you plan to fly out, if you're in thick vegetation it'll eat the signal right up.

 

[Dannywiseass]

Distance isn't really the concern... just flight time.... and lower speeds.... A drone would do better in tight spaces, I would think... but the flight times are just not there.... something about turning four props instead of one.

 

[wafflejock]

Yeah I think it's more to do with not getting any sort of lift action aside from the props pushing straight down, when you have a fixed wing you get lift by simply moving forward through the air due to the curve on the wing and angle that it deflects the air down as it moves forward so it's sort of double duty on the one motor also it isn't doing the spinning up and down motors to try and keep things level so that probably helps with efficiency. Basically the solution to getting longer flight times with quads is just bring more batteries and swap them out. The alternative is build a bigger quad that has bigger motors/props etc. to get better efficiency but that defeats all the portability aspects.

 

[Salty_McNulty]

I'm also a newbie and I got the holy stone hs700 for my first drone. Cheap enough that if it flies into the river I wont be crushed( $280). Has a 25 minute flight time which is pretty good from what ive read. Come with a hd camera...a knock off go pro...but does the same thing as one. Assembly is a breeze. Set up even easier. And its super quiet. Brushless motors and easy to use flight app.

 

[wafflejock]

Just looked it up says 20 minute max flight time with 2800mAh battery. I could believe hovering a few feet off the ground it could achieve that but put it through a few power loops or rolls and you'll eat up the battery a lot quicker. I've flown with a 2200mAh 3S before and would get somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 minutes but much more agile with a 1300mAh-1550mAh 4S (maybe 4 to 5 minutes acrobatic flying)

Looked again and seems like an okay package for the price but would be good to have real world flight times too.

 

[Alan_Hepburn]

My SJRC F11 gives me consistent flight times over 20 minutes per charge - I've got maybe 2 hours total flight time on it now and it's pretty easy to fly. I paid $149 for it if I recall...

 

[wafflejock]

Right just hovering with a 2200 or 2400mAh 3S or so 20min is probably doable in good conditions and not zipping around too much but the more elevation and direction changes the more power drained. Also bigger mAh batteries make the quad move more like a boat in the sky (drifting from inertia and lack of thrust to weight for aerial manuevers). It all depends what you're using it for sometimes this is a worthwhile trade off to make.

 

[Salty_McNulty]

Yeah I pretty much go straight up and then straight down. Work on cell towers so doing a triple double backflip while spinning sideways is the furthest thing from my needs. Got exactly 28 mins yesterday before it returned to me on a dying battery signal.