NYC Has a Drone Store Because 2016

RIP, Radio Shack

By The Editors
March 9, 2016 9:00 am

Drones are like the awkward-tween-nephew-turned-strapping-young-man of modern electronics:

They’ve grown up right before our eyes.

From micro to massive, sport to surveillance, your backyard to Benghazi, the world loves drones. And now, there’s a local store peddling all shapes and sizes: Brooklyn Drones NYC.

Roger Kapsalis, founder and resident drone advisor, was in finance until a year ago. That’s when he bought his first personal drone and dove in with both hands.

He took it apart. Ordered new parts. Fixed it himself after a small crash. Eventually, he built two other Aerial Photography and Video drones (APV) and took up aerial photography.

Next logical step: share his newfound drone obsession with the world.

Enter the opening of Brooklyn Drones. The premise: to create a resource, and a depot, for folks who share his love of tiny piloted things. The store will mostly sell hobby-grade models from DJI and Yuneec, but also offer the more advanced DJI Spread Wings series, Inspire Pro and Yuneec Tornado.

A bit of a drone connoisseur, Kapsalis will “only sell the higher-end brands that are best for APV.”

“I’ll be following the technology and only carry what I believe to be the best of them,” he says. “We’ll follow the VR/AR technology closely. Again, a community — rather than just selling boxes.”

The shop itself is fashioned after an art gallery, with an open invitation to customers to send in their best aerial shots for display. Additionally, you’ll find two 55” 4K TVs playing drone-captured videos 24/7.

Further down the pipeline: photography trips to the Catskills.

If you don’t know the difference between a Parrot Bebop 2 and an Inspire Pro RAW, no sweat. That’s what the store is there for. For the novices among us, they even have a repair shop in-house.

You’ll probably need it.

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