So You Want to Fly a Drone…

The Inspire 1: Newer, better, drone-ier

By The Editors
November 13, 2014 9:00 am

Men, we ask you: How can you not love drones?

After all, they belong to the same joyous taxonomic phylum of time-wasters as the RC car, the Nintendo Burger Time robot and that awesome vacuum cleaner thing your cat rides on.

And here, today, we present the finest drone yet devised for human entertainment:

The Inspire 1 drone, available for order today.

The Inspire comes from DJI, the company responsible for the industry’s bellwether, the Phantom 2.

Their new drone was designed for two things: ease of use and aerial photo/videography.

Just screw on the blades, charge it and fly.

You control the Inspire with a two-stick remote. Your friend controls the camera via a tablet app.

We took the Inspire out last week for a test spin. Images were great: it’s a 4K camera (an industry first), as opposed to the Phantom’s 1080p, with numerous filters and real-time HD video streaming.

You also can rotate the Inspire’s camera 360 degrees while the drone hovers in place.

There are 18 minutes of flight time and 1,000 feet of altitude to work with here. The Inspire automatically avoids illegal airspace (like airports) and returns “home” if it goes out of range.

Here’s to a new way of seeing things.

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