It looks like the new hotness in drone technology — which many of us associate with quadcopters — is wings. Parrot, the company most well-known for its AR Drone and various mini-drones, is bring an all-new entry into the drone space: the Disco fixed-wing drone.
If you’ve ever wanted to fly your own remote-control plane and haven’t gotten into the technology yet, this just might be your time.
The Parrot Disco is a consumer-level, airplane-looking drone that can fly for up to 45 minutes at speeds of a little under 50 miles per hour. There’s an amazing 14-megapixel camera that shoots in 1080p resolution at the front of the Disco, the same one in Parrot’s highly recommended Bebop 2 quadcopter.
https://youtu.be/imtqooJj0I4
You’ll be able to fly this baby from Parrot’s FreeFlight app, which works on your iPhone or iPad as well as other smartphones and tablets, although Parrot recommends its more professional $499 Skycontroller for best results (of course).
The main difference between this winged drone and a quadcopter is that the Disco must measure airspeed, something it does with a pitot tube, and it’s a little trickier to take off and land. Parrot promises that you’ll be able to shake the Disco and toss it into the air to take off, along with an automated landing system that should help newbies keep their fancy new drone with wings from crashing.
Speaking of pricing, Parrot gives no hints, but if the controller is $500, you have to assume this will at least be in the same price range as their more popular quadcopter drones, in the $1,500 range.
Rob LeFebvre is an Anchorage, Alaska-based writer and editor who has contributed to various tech, gaming and iOS sites, including 148Apps, Creative Screenwriting, Shelf-Awareness, VentureBeat, and Paste Magazine. Feel free to find Rob on Twitter @roblef, and send him a cookie once in a while; he’ll really appreciate it.
One response to “Parrot goes Disco and gives its new drone wings”
After owning Parrot’s Asteroid car receiver I will never buy anything they make again. It took 45 seconds to boot, it crashed constantly, there were apps for it that were advertised but didn’t exist, and the biggest kick in the stomach was for months they assured users that they were fixing the bugs – but not the bugs people were complaining about – the easy ones to fix. I held out for months on promises the serious bugs would be fixed. Eventually they stopped answering complaints in their forums.
There was a card in the box that it shipped in that said something like, “Do not return to the store! Call ***-***-****”. That should have been my warning right there. After 6 months, I went back to Fry’s Electronics and told the customer service person this, “I have been shopping here for 20 years and this is the worst POS I have bought. You are going to take this back or I’m never shopping here again.” They took it back.
If you ever receive a notice in the box that says to do not return it to the store, return it immediately.