I always secretly wanted to pilot a drone and lucky me with my job of reporting what’s new and hot in technology for Women Love Tech last week my wish was heard.
I Piloted A Parrot Bebop 2 Drone And I Loved It
I was invited to a Parrot’s event presenting their new consumer drone: Bebop2. We went to a park for trying the new ‘toy’ – I’m with few tech journalist friends and the Sydney sun is shining. In my group I’m the only woman and I have zero experience of piloting a drone by gallantry or just for fun the boys let me try first – the instructor – Jim was lovely and explains in 2 minutes few piloting rules and how to use the remote control – I’m truly excited and nervous of not crashing the almost $1,000 drone! I had to strap the remote control mounted with a tablet around my neck. Like a video game one button is for taking off and landing, one for flying ahead or reversing, and the other one for right and left. To add more pressure to the experience, I had a passenger, meaning my friend wears a VR connected to the remote control and can see my flight like he is on board on the drone.
Good news, I didn’t crash the drone and I love piloting, of course at the beginning I had no idea of what I was doing but the instructor was by my side during the whole flight, the remote control was a bit heavy but easy to use. After few minutes of flying, I started to feel more comfortable and start flying higher and faster. I now understand boys with their toys I have to admit this is lots of fun and I can’t wait to review the experience. The boys with more experience could make the drone flipping by tapping the tablet on the remote control, how cool is this?
Few Drone Piloting Rules
- Fly of a minimum of 6km away of an airport
- Don’t fly over crowd, people and city
- Always keep your eyes on the drone
- Keep a safe distance with trees, birds and people
- Be familiar with drones regulations of your country
- Don’t fly over military areas
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Don’t fly in rain, snow, fog, strong wind or at night
About Parrot Bebop 2 Drone
Parrot, the expert and pioneer in consumer drones, unveils the Bebop 2, a new generation leisure quadricopter with unprecedented performance.
With true technical prowess, the Bebop 2 is compact, robust, stable and very light (500g). Equipped with the latest generation of sensors and technology, it boasts 25 minutes flight time with no equivalent!
- With impressive stability, power and manoeuvrability, even in extreme conditions, the Bebop 2 offers very easy-to-use piloting with a smartphone or a tablet via Wi-Fi.
- Its embedded fisheye camera, digitally stabilised on 3-axis, takes Full HD videos with perfect flow and impressive brightness.
- The Bebop 2 is compatible with the Skycontroller Black Edition, an optional RC-like controller providing an extended flight range (up to 2 Kilometres).
Good To Know
Bebop 2 is a powerful, robust, reliable robot with up to 25 minutes flight time!
To make the Bebop 2 the most advanced leisure drone on the market, Parrot engineers optimised the design of the quadrocopter as well as its software and hardware battery components.
The result is that the Bebop 2 is the most efficient 500g drone on the market, especially with it’s up to 25 minutes flight time. (Rechargeable time: 90minutes)
- On the propulsion side, the four three-blade propellers powered by four brushless outrunner engines, offering great manoeuvrability during high-speed flights.
- The Bebop 2 achieves bursts of speed up to 60km/h horizontally and 21km/h vertically.
It reaches its maximum speed in 14 seconds,
- brakes in 4.5 seconds and resists head winds up to 63km/h! It can reach an altitude of 100 metres in less than 20 seconds.
Technologically Reliable & Robust
Connected in Wi-Fi MIMO (2.4 GHz & 5 GHz) to the piloting smartphone/tablet, the Bebop 2 has a perfectly stable connection up to 300 metres.
In addition, numerous systems reinforce the safety of the flights: emergency cut-out feature of the engines, emergency cut-out feature of the propellers in the case of contact, limitation of the altitude and of the flight perimeter, automatic return home feature.
Price & Availability
Availability: Late March 2016
- Parrot Bebop 2 RRP: AU$899.99/NZ$949.00
- Parrot Bebop 2 + Parrot Skycontroller Black Edition RRP: AU$1,299.99/NZ$1,399.00
Pre-Sales from 03/03/2016 & In Store late March 2016. Available from Apple, Harvey Norman, JB HiFi, leading consumer electronic stores, hobby stores and photo stores.Discover the most amazing flights and beautiful images were taken by Parrot Bebop 2, here.
For more information, visit http://www.parrot.com
Would like to pilot a drone? Please share it in the comments.
