14 DAY TRIAL // Making devices more intelligent, however misleading that term really is in reality, is one of the major focuses of all technology experts. Unfortunately, not all plans work out perfectly. A man from Arizona learned this the hard way.
By this point, you may or may not be familiar with flying drones. Machines of various sizes which use one of several means of taking flight.
The quadcopter design, with four propellers arrayed in an X or square formation, has proven to be one of the easiest to make and maneuver.
Mark Taylor, a man from Scottsdale, Arizona, recently bought such a drone, a particularly expensive model too, priced at $2,900 / €2,465.
Unfortunately, the DJI Inspire 1 drone did not conclude its flight in the video below on a positive note. Indeed, it didn't even start on a positive note, as the clip shows.
The drone doesn't know which way is up
One of the assets of the DJI Inspire 1 which other quadcopters don't possess is a limited ability to navigate itself. Which is to say, it can perform automatic takeoff and landing.
This means you only have to flick the controls once and the drone will take to the air independently. All in all, a very convenient concept.
Unfortunately for Mark Taylor, once his new drone was airborne, it decided that the nearby garage door was the right way up, so it charged right into it.
You can clearly see it in the video below, how it suddenly makes for it and ends up crashing head-on, then falling back to the ground. It even left a dent in the garage door, so we suppose the drone is reasonably tough if nothing else.
You can probably guess that none of it is indicative of Taylor's skill at remotely piloting drones like it.
Taylor had previously noticed that the drone tended to drift after auto-takeoff, and he wanted to capture that drift happening in order to get help form the DJI people. Obviously, he got more than he bargained for.
As it is, Taylor has had to put his plans on hold, which was to use the camera for real estate images from above.
The DJI Inspire 1 drone
The quadcopter weighs 6.5 pounds / 2.95 kilos, uses four propellers and can carry a 4K video recorder at fair height. For something priced at $2,900 / €2,465, being directionally-challenged is quite a concern. Fortunately, it's just a problem with auto-takeoff, so fully manual control has no issues.
