Dive in for the full story or to brush up your French! Don’t worry, a translated English transcript can be found below.

DJI Investigation | Frank’s school project changed his life and the world

One day in December 2005, a shipping container was stopped by customs at the Nagoya industrial port in Japan, while at the same time 200 Police officers conducted dozens of searches across the country. In the container were several autonomous helicopters like this one made by Yamaha, which was supposed to be delivered to a Chinese company a few days later. Japan then simply banned the export of unmanned flying vehicles to China for all Japanese companies. Why did they do that? We’ll come back to that later. But what I can tell you is that even today, this event is little known and considered unimportant by almost everyone on earth. I even doubt that the person we are going to talk about in this video, Tao Wang, who is 25 years old, is aware of it.

A few months later, in his university dormitory, he created a company that would turn the world upside down—a company that would go from a university room to one of the most coveted technologies in the world, from Hong Kong to Washington, from Dubaï to Ukraine. Let me tell you the story of Tao Wang. You don’t know him, and until a few months ago, neither did I. In fact, outside of China, very few people know him even by his Western name, Frank Wang. Yet he is one of the youngest, richest, and most powerful Chinese entrepreneurs in the world—and not a day goes by without us sometimes unknowingly witnessing the fruits of his work.

But before discussing his work, let’s talk about his beginnings. Tao Wang was born in 1980 in the Chinese city of Anju, to an engineer father and a teacher mother. However, the story we are talking about today begins in 1990, when Tao was 10 years old and his parents gifted him several volumes of a very popular comic in China called “Grandpa, Use Your Brain,” which tells the adventures of an old man teaching science to his two young grandchildren. In volume 8, the story takes place in a helicopter—and it would become Tao’s dream years later: to build and pilot helicopters.

Years later, while Tao was in high school and his grades were really not that great, his father proposed a deal: “Get your act together, bring me much better grades, and I’ll get you a radio-controlled helicopter.” We’re talking about the year 2000 or so, and these things cost a lot, so Tao was extremely determined. He worked very hard, and by the end of the year he was among the top students in his class. His father kept his promise and bought him a helicopter. The only problem was that at the time, piloting such a helicopter wasn’t something you learned in a few minutes—it required lots of practice. And so, after only a few minutes of flight, Tao ended up crashing his helicopter. Keep in mind that at that time, the controls were entirely manual: you had the main rotor, the tail rotor, and you had to figure it all out on your own. Moreover, to repair it, he had to send it all the way to Hong Kong, 1300 km from where he lived.

But Tao didn’t stop there. He contacted one of the workshops in Hong Kong to do a remote diagnostic to identify which parts were broken and which could be fixed. Then he went to see his father and said, “Can you buy me just the parts that are broken? I’ll fix the rest myself.” His father agreed to spend a bit of money; he wrote a check, and a few months later, Tao received the parts. It required fuel, oil, and mechanical pieces—it was really impressive for a 15-year-old to repair something like that. But Tao did not give up. He had the manual that came with the helicopter, which explained a lot, and from that single manual, he managed to get it airborne again. The problem remained, however: he didn’t really know how to fly it. This created an obsession that would last for 10 years—the obsession of making the controls of such a device much, much simpler. Not just improving the ergonomics to make the remote more comfortable, but making it as simple as playing a video game—that was all he demanded.

This obsession materialized in his mind as a flying device he imagined as a little gadget in your pocket that would follow your commands, record video, and accompany you everywhere—and he gave it a name.

In short, Tao now had a project, a goal, and that motivated him to get much better grades. So much so that a few years later, he entered Shanghai University where he was exposed to a huge dose of theory and very little practice. He eventually left the university and applied to some of the top American schools like MIT or Stanford. But Tao was eager, and well, MIT and Stanford are extremely competitive, so he was rejected and ended up feeling like an idiot. Then he applied to the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and they accepted him.

Once admitted, he asked for a grant to develop that famous, much simpler, and much better flying helicopter. The school agreed, but he needed to form a team. He recruited two classmates, and they had a budget equivalent to about €2000. They spent six months working together on the helicopter, but quite quickly his two teammates left, judging Tao to be too authoritarian and obsessive. Tao ended up doing the project alone, working on it for months, and at the end of the year, he presented the device to his professors as his final undergraduate project. He was very highly graded, and he reminded the examiners of the ambition of his project: to build the helicopter entirely from scratch, but more importantly, to automate part of the piloting so that when the controls were released, the helicopter would remain stable. The helicopter took off without any problems, ascended very steadily, and then Tao looked at his professors and let go of the controls. Tao was thrilled—it had been a year of hard work and it worked! But the helicopter abruptly stopped functioning and fell like a stone, crashing just a few meters from Tao and his contraption. It worked for a few seconds, so obviously the professors weren’t too excited about the project—they gave him a C, which wasn’t great, and this ultimately closed the door to places like Stanford and MIT for him.

We’ve all had moments in our lives when we can imagine what Tao must have felt at that moment—I’ve had a few, namely failure. But as is often the case in life, when there is a huge failure, there is also a ray of light. A professor from another department of the school, who had watched the exam from afar—this professor, Li Jig Zhang, came over to talk to him. In short, he said, “I find what you did with those radio-control commands and algorithms absolutely impressive, even if it crashed—you’re not just anyone.” Before being a professor, he was an entrepreneur and is highly respected in the world of robotics and computing; he even made his fortune in ’99 with his company Google Technology, which specialized in robotics. They talked for several hours, and at the end of the discussion, he gave Tao several pieces of advice:

1. Continue on this path and don’t give up—this is a really great idea with huge potential.
2. Aim for the international market; don’t limit yourself to China.
3. Set up shop in the Chengen district—you’ll be neighbors to the factories that produce the parts you need. But before all that, sign up for my classes, of course.

The very next day, Tao enrolled in his new mentor’s class, and at the same time, he scoured the classifieds to find a small workshop in Chengen. Chengen is a big city between mainland China and Hong Kong that produces a huge number of parts for model building, computing, high-tech, and photography—it is one of the most important high-tech factory cities in the world. In the end, he found an office through his uncle—small, dark, and cramped—but he didn’t have to pay rent, and that was very cool.

So, on November 6, 2006, Tao had just received the keys to his little workshop. He had already filled out the paperwork in his university dorm, the documents were signed, and the company name was already chosen: Da Chang Innovation. It’s a blend of Mandarin that could be translated as “beyond borders,” plus the English word “innovation.” More often called DJI or “Jee,” in good French.

It was time for Tao to recruit. Alongside his classes, Tao searched throughout China, identifying young profiles from big companies and top schools. He didn’t have much money to offer, but he leveraged the innovative nature of his project. In fact, he had one strong argument: he had placed third in the Robocon Asie Pacific robotics contest—an extremely important competition in Asia, especially among tech geeks. I didn’t fully understand the rules, so if someone feels like explaining in the comments, please go ahead! In the meantime, here is an excerpt from the 2006 edition where the Chinese team defeated the Thai team. In this pixelated jumble, you can see Tao—highlighted in orange—participating in that victory.

Thanks to that success, he managed to recruit three guys his age. The four of them worked intensively for two years, allowing DJI to build an increasingly vast and solid technical base. But one of the problems was that for Tao, DJI was his life, which was not necessarily the case for his three colleagues. For example, Tao was extremely meticulous about every detail and would often wake his partners in the middle of the night by phone to discuss technical subjects. And then, secondly, during those two years, they had to spend a lot of money on parts, prototypes, and equipment, while the company wasn’t bringing in enough money at all—the university grant, Tao’s family money, everything was drained. Gradually, the employees started to doubt, feeling underpaid and disrespected.

At the end of 2008, Tao had finished his courses with Li, and for several months he had been working full-time on DJI. Then, Lujuju left—he went to work for another autonomous vehicle manufacturer that was much more profitable and established than DJI—and a few months later, the same thing happened with his two other partners for the same reasons: 1) your company is not profitable, 2) you’re a psychopath, and 3) you’re about to shut down. They even took the opportunity to leak a large part of what was on DJI’s hard drives, so part of Tao’s work ended up in the hands of his competitors.

This was a new setback for Tao, who once again found himself alone and at risk of having to close his company if he didn’t find money soon. But before that, he went back to see his mentor, whom he hadn’t seen for a few months. During his lunch break between classes, they talked at length. Tao presented the technical progress he’d made as well as the difficulties he was facing with DJI. After that, Tao accompanied Li to his classroom and, before the class started, told him, “DJI is going to die. I need $100,000. That’s called guts.” Tao waited for his mentor’s answer for two hours outside the classroom, and once class ended, Li came over and said, “Listen, I’m going to inject $100,000 into DJI on two conditions: I want to be part of DJI—I’ll leave you free with all the technical stuff—but I want to have shares and a say in the company’s strategy, and I want us to go to Tibet together for the first autonomous flight of your prototype over the Everest.” Well, they didn’t fly over Everest, to tell you the truth—and I think they were far from it—but they did fly, and most importantly, they filmed it.

Thus, the first images captured by a DJI product were born. I know it wasn’t perfect—clearly, with the AI we have in 2024 it wouldn’t be considered amazing—but back in 2009, it was incredible. And Tao took a photo like that without knowing what would be the starting point of one of the most breathtaking technological and entrepreneurial successes in human history—and I promise you, I’m not exaggerating.

A few months later, we are in 2010. A new chapter begins, and it starts very well: the bank account of DJI is filled because there was a little transfer of $100,000, and he now has his mentor as a partner, which was probably the best thing that could have happened to him. While Tao was working to perfect his prototype—testing the piloting algorithms, the controls, etc.—Li was, on his side, seeking good profiles among his students to bring into DJI. Both of them worked tirelessly for months, and on April 28, 2010, they officially commercialized the very first DJI product. It wasn’t a helicopter; it was a control module—a product that you install in your helicopter that allows you to have that stability and ease of piloting that would become DJI’s trademark. It quickly exploded in popularity among model aviation enthusiasts and aerial videographers. Finally, DJI started generating money, and it never stopped after that.

This was also the occasion for DJI to move to a new location. Here’s a look at the new workshop with a flying device. At the same time, Li began recruiting someone for marketing. Tao then turned to a childhood friend, SWI, to present the project, and he immediately said yes. Only a few weeks after joining the company, SWI sold his apartment to buy a 14% share in DJI—a very, very smart move, as it would eventually make him a billionaire.

Meanwhile, Tao realized that the helicopter format was becoming a bit limiting and that to go further, he would need to move to a multirotor configuration—that is, several rotors of the same size on the same axis. He went all in on that direction, with several prototypes and a whole lot of new innovations now possible: the “WayPoint,” which allowed the aircraft to be piloted by GPS coordinates; the “Atti” mode, which allowed it to remain stable even indoors; further improvements in stability even with wind or unbalanced weight; the “Return to Home” feature that made the aircraft return autonomously to its takeoff point in case of signal loss; an emergency automatic landing when the battery was low; and even a boomerang-style takeoff that made it look as if Tao were playfully tossing his drone. In short, DJI was in the process of inventing the drone as we know it today.

Between 2010 and 2011, DJI filed 50 patents. Does that seem like a lot? To me, yes, but here’s a brief overview of the following years. In 2012, the first real DJI drones were released: the S800 and the F330. They were two different drones—they didn’t look the same, didn’t weigh the same, and weren’t priced the same—but both were designed to carry a camera, creating a new branch of aerial photography. There were already companies mounting cameras on small radio-controlled helicopters, but it was not at all the same atmosphere—it was heavy and cumbersome, the device weighed 60–70 kg, and piloting it required extensive know-how. DJI arrived with a simpler, lighter, battery-powered product that was easy to use, stable, and not overly expensive.

Tao then started taking his best plane tickets and attending innovation trade shows in the États-Unis, where drones were beginning to attract some attention, to present his products. But DJI wasn’t the only player; there were other brands, notably a French brand called Parrot. Parrot is a French company that, since its creation in 1994, has been focused on innovative technologies, and since 2008–2009, it has been involved in the drone sector. In 2010, they released the Parrot Air Drone, which is piloted from your smartphone and practically created the market for fun, easy-to-use drones. I mention this not only because it’s a French company I have long admired for being ahead of its time, but also because at that moment in history Parrot was one of the few companies in the world that had grasped the immense potential of the drone market, which would explode in the coming years.

By the way, a fun fact: one of the founders of Parrot is named Henri Sedoux—and he’s also the father of Sedoux. During a trade show, Tao met Colin Gin—a guy who is both a social media star and a luxury home photographer. They hit it off so well that a few months later, Tao entrusted him with the American market under the company name—an impressive gesture considering how possessive Tao can be about his company. He gave Colin 48% of the new branch, and Colin did a fantastic job; he threw himself into presentations, interviews, and built genuine hype. And since his content was in English, it wasn’t limited to the States—it spread worldwide. The result? The Phantom sold very, very well. Yet, curiously, things did not go exactly as one might expect between DJI and Colin Gin. Following disagreements, Tao and his team wanted to buy back Colin’s shares in DJI North America in exchange for a rather paltry amount—about 0.3%, which, as Colin says, is not much. He makes it clear that he feels he contributed a lot to the success and has absolutely no intention of selling his shares. This corporate standoff between Tao and Colin eventually led to the firing of the entire North American branch—including Colin—on New Year’s Eve 2014. If this story is true, it reveals two things about DJI and Tao Wang: a rather inhuman management of human resources and complete opacity about almost everything.

But that’s not all. A few weeks later, Colin filed a lawsuit for wrongful termination, and the case was settled amicably with a multi-million-dollar check. The year 2014 was a turning point for the drone world. The market was exploding—the sales had multiplied by five between 2013 and 2014, which is huge—and many investors were eager to catch up, with money pouring into the sector. Among the brands benefiting the most were 3DR Robotics, an American drone company that had raised a lot of money and was set to compete with DJI and Parrot. And guess who joined them very recently? Colin. (A side note: it was around this time that DJI was in discussions with GoPro about a collaboration that ultimately did not materialize. Not much is known about it except that it did not end well, with Tao later saying that, in short, GoPro did not respect them enough.)

The following year, 2014, Tao kept busy and presented the Inspire—a drone dedicated to professional aerial photography. I won’t go into all the drone models—I’m not the best person to talk about their specifics—but we must talk a little about the Inspire. The Inspire is a drone that has everything. In the following years, it would become the high-end workhorse for audiovisual productions—whether for music videos, fiction, advertising, or documentaries—by offering an all-in-one drone with a high-quality integrated camera. It’s an iconic model in DJI’s work. Also in 2014, the Ronin was released. The Ronin is a stabilized gimbal—a platform on which you mount your camera—and it has three axes that pivot to counteract vibrations and movements during filming. It is important to note that I’m not claiming to be a pioneer with this tool since a U.S. company called Freefly had released a similar product the previous year. However, the difference is that the Ronin costs much less, even if it isn’t exactly the same. It came to compete with the Steadicam—a system that required a lot of knowledge and skill—whereas the stabilized gimbals allowed for very beautiful shots quite easily. Once again, DJI would become a huge player in the stabilizer market by simplifying the process and creating smaller, more powerful, more manageable, and simpler gimbals than the competition. Today, it’s almost impossible to find a production that doesn’t use a stabilizer—often DJI’s stabilizers.

By January 2015, Tao Wang was pleased—the sales kept increasing every day. In a few months, he would present his new model, and Wang Feng—a Chinese rockstar—would propose to the very famous actress Zhang Ziyi using a Phantom 2 to deliver the ring. It was a great year for Tao until one morning on January 26, when he was awakened by a call from one of his partners telling him to turn on the TV and tune in to one of the American news channels:

“City drone was flying at a low altitude—it went down!” A DJI Phantom had crashed in the garden of the Maison Blanche, one of the most heavily guarded buildings in the world. The investigation moved quickly. A White House employee, after having a few drinks on Sunday night, had launched his drone from his apartment for a flight over the White House, and it malfunctioned. And who did it crash onto first? The Secret Service. This incident allowed the Americans—and eventually part of the world—to discover the name DJI. The American administration demanded answers from the company, and under the mounting pressure, Tao finally spoke. He then addressed the Western press confidently, “I don’t think it’s a big deal—it’s a minor incident.” If he can be so arrogant, it’s because he already has a solution—and he has already started implementing it in China. It’s called Geo-fencing. Basically, DJI programs all its drones with GPS coordinates for areas in the world where flight is restricted or even impossible—in these cases, what we call “no fly zones,” areas where you simply cannot fly. Eventually, DJI would set up no-fly zones on all sensitive locations worldwide, such as nuclear plants, prisons, airports, and many other sites. And so, one week later, boom, no one could fly a DJI drone near the White House. This event shined a spotlight on drones, having a double effect: on the one hand, it was an incredible boost for drones in general, and particularly for DJI—for example, when Obama later expressed his concerns about this technology. It was also the first collective realization of what could be done with a drone, and above all, the complete legal gray area surrounding the subject.

But for Tao, 2015 was not limited to that—in fact, it was the year he became a billionaire. He even graced the cover of Forbes Asia under the title “The Drone Billionaire,” and he also became a member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). We won’t go into detail about the CCP because that isn’t the point of the video. But if you’re not too familiar, basically it’s the only real political party in China—a tremendously powerful party. In reality, even the word “party” doesn’t quite capture what the CCP is from our perspective: it’s an omnipresent political ecosystem in China that you must deal with daily when you are a citizen—and even more so when you are a business leader. Not everyone is a member of the CCP; roughly 8% of the population are members, and being a party member as a company boss in China often signals that you collaborate with and support the party’s policies.

So, in 2015, Tao was a billionaire, a CCP member, and about to present his latest drone. You might remember the rivalry with Parrot and 3DR Robotics. That rivalry would never be as pronounced again as it was then. At that time, Parrot presented its Parrot Bebop, 3DR Robotics released its 3DR Solo, and DJI came out with its Phantom 3, all within a few months of each other. The results? By the end of 2016, 3DR had sold 25,000 3DR Solos, Parrot had sold 90 Bebops, and DJI had sold 500,000 Phantom 3s—almost five times as many as Parrot and 3DR combined. Tao Wang had won.

Just as an aside, a new player in the drone world arrived a bit later: GoPro with its GoPro Karma. Although quite ingenious, it didn’t sell more than the 3DR Solo; in fact, it would be GoPro’s first and last drone. We are now in early 2016. DJI dominated 70% of the global market, made $1.5 billion in revenue in 2016—a figure that would double in 2017—and now had 14,000 employees worldwide. There was only one thing missing for Tao—a single thing: that is for you to subscribe to this channel. So, what are you waiting for, Tao? Hurry up!

And as if to add insult to injury, just when all these sales figures were starting to come in, he presented his absolute banger—a foldable, ultra-stable, robust drone packed with sensors that can fly for 20 minutes over long distances for just over $1000. In the blink of an eye, six years had passed. Six years—it’s crazy, it’s unbelievable.

There is a sort of fairy tale here: 20 years earlier, a prototype called the Mavic Pro existed. Its promise was a drone that anyone could pilot—and that was the beginning of the summer of 2017. Twelve million Americans were in front of their televisions watching the Emmy Awards, Better Call Saul, Game of Thrones, Ninja Warrior—and many of the productions nominated had used DJI drones during filming. It is no coincidence, then, that the ceremony awarded the brand the “Emmy Award” for the greatest technological innovation of the year—an absolute coronation for Tao Wang. However, it wasn’t long after that, far from Los Angeles, that the characteristic sound of DJI drones was heard. It wasn’t the signal that a filming was taking place nearby, but rather that it was time to run.

The Islamic State was using DJI drones, rigged with explosives, to carry out attacks. The international press then made big headlines about DJI. DJI quickly reacted—not only condemning any malicious use of their drones (which is logical), but going further with a radical solution you now know as Geo-fencing. It became impossible to launch a DJI drone in zones where the Islamic State was carrying out attacks in Iraq and Syria—a very effective solution that allowed DJI to show a strong stance to the international community.

At the same time, DJI’s expansion continued. Beyond the consumer market, it started to impact the professional civilian sector: not only videographers and enthusiasts, but also firefighters, rescuers, and technicians around the world were equipping themselves with DJI drones. Even on the black market, with drug traffickers using them to smuggle drugs, and for bombarding rival cartels—as seen in this video in the jungle where a drone is eventually shot at. Political opponents also seized them. In 2018, during an assassination attempt against Maduro, the dictatorial president of Venezuela, three DJI M600 drones—each carrying a kilo of explosives—were used during a speech. Although the attack caused injuries, Maduro came out unscathed.

Conventional armies, like the Israeli army for example, bought Mavics and M600s equipped with night vision cameras for surveillance, notably over the Gaza Strip. The U.S. Army also made a habit of including DJI drones in their equipment. However, an internal Pentagon investigation concluded that the data sent and received by DJI drones was not secure enough and that there was a major risk of leakage. This led, in August 2017, to a complete ban on using or purchasing DJI drones by the entire U.S. military. Let’s be clear: for years, DJI has denied all these accusations, consistently affirming that the use of their drones is perfectly secure. Later, several states even banned DJI from various public services that would have used them, and eventually, every federal service was prohibited from using a DJI drone. In other words, in one year DJI was banned from a considerable number of services in the U.S.—the world’s leading power and a key potential market for DJI.

But then, three years later, 90% of the drones used in the United States in services such as surveillance, Recherche et sauvetage, or firefighting are DJI drones. In fact, it’s absolutely crazy—despite the ban, DJI’s dominance in these sectors is even more pronounced than in the consumer market, where purchasing DJI drones is still allowed.

As for the military, it took years before there wasn’t a single DJI drone among the ranks, simply because no Western drone offers such a complete product for that price. I think you understand: DJI seems unstoppable. The company now employs thousands of people worldwide and continues to be at the forefront of innovation. In 2018, DJI filed nearly 3,000 patents—that’s a lot. By comparison, its most serious competitor, Parrot, filed around thirty patents at the same time. For comparison, Tesla filed 350 patents that year—almost 10 times fewer than DJI. Also in 2018, DJI acquired Hasselblad, a prestigious Swedish camera manufacturer known for its iconic cameras from the Apollo program. DJI acquiring the camera that once symbolized American aeronautical genius was a significant move during a time of American mistrust towards the brand, even as U.S. agencies were struggling to let go of their DJI drones.

It must be admitted that the symbolism is amazing. Nothing seems able to stop DJI’s expansion. By the end of 2019, DJI represented nearly 77% of the global drone market. Meanwhile, Tao Wang and the company continued to release more and more specialized drones—such as the Agras MG-1P for agriculture, the DJI Matrice 200 or M200 for research and rescue, and the Mavic Enterprise series, which offers various tools for infrastructure monitoring and also for surveilling you and me. And it can be said that the timing was impeccable: lockdown, lockdown, lockdown—the lockdown of millions of inhabitants in quarantine, long supermarket lines, lockdowns all over the world—and all the images you have just seen, which are undoubtedly familiar to you, were filmed by DJI drones.

But that’s not all. A tragic event would further spotlight them. On February 24, 2022, Russie invaded Ukraine and bombed strategic points in the country. Putin declared that the operation would last only a few days. The military advanced very quickly—so much so that American officers announced the fall of Kherson in the coming days. Yet, one of the world’s most powerful armies slowed down, the conflict stagnated, U.S. support, European support, Ukrainian strategy, weather… But not only Ukrainian civilians like you and me were hacking drones and turning them into weapons—they developed 3D-printed systems to drop bombs using a Mavic. Note that although the following images are not graphic, they depict war and may shock some viewers: some Russian soldiers are shown, for example, surrendering, or another appears to say goodbye to his opponents shortly before being killed by a kamikaze drone. In Ukraine, it’s not only DJI’s consumer drones that are used; there are also Drones FPV, which are much more rudimentary, usually homemade and cheaper than DJI drones, and that can go very, very fast. FPV drones are used by attaching an explosive charge and crashing into the enemy—hence the name “kamikaze drone.” They can surprise the enemy and reach targets in very tight spaces, such as when the enemy believes he’s protected inside a bunker or in a moving vehicle—leading to setups reminiscent of Mad Max to protect themselves. They can even track a soldier, providing images we thought were only possible in science fiction. Here, a soldier is seen running as he tosses a bag at the drone attempting to kill him.

The downside of these FPV drones is that they require a certain level of skill to pilot, as they are completely manual—unlike DJI drones, as you know. They also have much shorter battery life and limited range. FPV pilots in Ukraine are particularly appreciated and sought after for their skills; many of them were originally just drone enthusiasts who found a very important place in the army during the Russian invasion. So these two types of drones—DJI drones and FPV drones—coexist on the battlefield, sometimes even complementing each other, as here where the Mavic carries a repeater to extend the FPV drone’s signal range, or here where it provides enemy coordinates to another pilot, filling the sky with flying devices. Some even intercept collisions with fighter jets, and others recover damaged drones from the battlefield so that they are not captured by the enemy.

Let me be clear: I repeat, DJI firmly condemns everything I’ve just described. Officially, DJI does not want its drones used for anything other than leisure or civilian professional purposes. Yet remember Geo-fencing in 2017 following the Islamic State attacks, or even in 2015 with the White House incident. DJI would never have done that in Ukraine—I found no trace anywhere of such a measure. And to be completely frank, I was utterly stunned to see that Geo-fencing in Ukraine only affected airports, as in any other country—here is Paris, here is Rome, here is Berlin—and here is the Ukrainian front. One can hack a DJI drone to bypass Geo-fencing, but 1) it doesn’t work on all models, 2) it is not perfectly reliable and can lead to complications, and 3) it requires expertise and, most often, these services are paid. So although there are ways to bypass DJI’s Geo-fencing, it remains cumbersome, doesn’t always work, and creating a no-fly zone over all of Ukraine would undoubtedly reduce the malicious use of DJI drones. It’s important that I tell you this: I’m not taking a side; what I’m pointing out is the contradiction between DJI’s public condemnations of malicious use of its drones and, on the other hand, their reaction— or lack thereof—in Ukraine compared to the White House or the Islamic State incidents. No Geo-fencing decisions were implemented in Ukraine.

And it doesn’t stop there. Even more troubling, a few months after the start of the war, DJI quietly stopped selling its “aeroscope”—a product priced at €60,000 that was used to detect the position of nearby DJI drones as well as their pilots. It was one of the only solutions available on the market to effectively protect against DJI drones. The company later justified this by saying that the product had been designed for Americans, and that after so many sanctions and intimidation measures, they were fed up and decided to stop selling it. Perhaps that is true, or perhaps there is no link with the war in Ukraine—it is entirely possible—but it coincided with many requests from Ukraine for DJI to stop all Aeroscope services in Ukraine. Following that, DJI simply stopped selling the Aeroscope to anyone on earth.

Now, the question I asked myself is: what does this new market—the war in Ukraine—represent for DJI? In other words, is it significant for DJI, or is it an insignificant fraction of their activity? It’s not easy to know, but we have some clues. Ukrainian President Zelenskyy has spoken of a need for 100,000 to 120,000 drones per month, all types combined. Then, the Ukrainian Prime Minister indicated in 2023 that they needed to produce many more drones domestically, adding that the Ukrainian army would purchase, according to SD, 60% of the Mavics sold by DJI. That figure is important because it is one of the only, if not the only, data point that allows us to estimate the market that the war in Ukraine represents for DJI. The problem is that DJI hasn’t disclosed any sales figures for years now—they don’t say how many drones they sell, which models sell the most, or even break down revenue by model. So we have to do some guesswork to have an idea of what 60% of the Mavic sales by DJI represent.

According to Statista, about 5 million consumer drones were sold worldwide in 2020—a figure that increases every year. To be cautious, for 2023, let’s start with that figure of 5 million, and we know that DJI sells 70–80% of the world’s consumer drones. Seventy percent of 5 million means that DJI would have sold at least 3.5 million consumer drones in 2023. And here it gets trickier, since neither DJI nor its dealers disclose the proportion of Mavics sold. Frankly, I spent about ten hours looking for something—anything—that would give us an indication of the number of Mavics sold. The only thing I have to show you is a sales document from a Chinese chain store (similar to La Fnac (or Best Buy in the US)) from 2021 that clearly illustrates the huge success of the Mavic, since at that time, the nine drones sold in their store were all Mavics. So, if I’m being completely honest, the latest DJI models—the DJI Air 3S and Mini 4 Pro—are no longer labeled as Mavic, which complicates things further, as it’s then hard to know whether the Ukrainian Prime Minister’s figure includes those models or not.

So, considering that Mavics have long dominated the market and remain extremely popular, let’s assume that at least one out of every three drones sold by DJI is a Mavic. I would have liked to provide a more precise figure, but we’ll go with that assumption: 30% of the 3.5 million DJI consumer drones sold in 2023 would be Mavics, which gives 1 million Mavics sold in that year. If we assume that 60% of these are purchased by the Ukrainian army, that would be 600,000 Mavics. With an average price of over €1000, that represents roughly €600 million in hypothetical revenue for DJI from the war in Ukraine, just from the Ukrainian side—since the Russians also use DJI drones. This estimate is imperfect, but the figures I present are consistent with other indicators such as the official drone requirements of the Ukrainian army, the estimated drone losses due to Russian jamming (over 10,000 per month), or even punctual statements from geopolitical experts like Dominique Trinan during debates about the Ukrainian front. Currently, there are 2000 drone operators daily, each using five drones because theirs get destroyed—so that’s 10,000 drones per day. Over the year, that amounts to between 3 to 4 million drones consumed. Obviously, DJI is assumed to sell 60% of its Mavics to the Ukrainian army, and at the same time, it is entirely true because the company has ceased all transactions in Ukraine and Russia. What happens is that some European countries supply DJI drones to Ukraine, as well as Ukrainian citizens who are regularly encouraged to buy them in neighboring countries and bring them to the soldiers, who then send thank-you videos for each purchase.

So, as you can see, it is likely that a significant number of DJI drones end up on the Ukrainian front. This is simply because DJI drones communicate with DJI servers, and you will see that this is a point of major concern today. DJI drones are equipped with cameras, sonar, radar, infrared sensors, microphones, GPS, and they collect a huge amount of information about the terrain—information that, for a long time, was not encrypted, meaning it could be intercepted and read by anyone, and also that it could be exploited by DJI at the end of the chain. But since May 2024, DJI finally has the users’ data. Unfortunately, the problem is not entirely solved because now DJI reportedly provides USB decryption keys on a case-by-case basis to security groups equipped with drone detection hardware, so they can decrypt this data—the risk being that DJI chooses who is allowed to decrypt or not the sky around us in terms of using drone data, and perhaps the Chinese government as well. The issue remains: yes, everything is encrypted, but the company holds the decryption key. In an interview in early 2024, one of DJI’s American representatives gave an ambiguous answer regarding this destabilizing argument. DJI regularly presents audits—in other words, analyses by organizations presented as independent—that claim there is no evidence of data leakage on their servers. However, these audits have been challenged, notably by Henri Sedoux—you may recall, the founder of Parrot—in an interview. We looked at DJI’s audits and we think they are extremely superficial and merely “convenience audits.” We examined how DJI’s software is built; it’s obfuscated, and in certain conditions, DJI has full control of the drone and can load any software it wants without the user knowing. Extremely serious things can happen. When you use a DJI drone, you do not know which data is being sent to China, but we are certain that something is hidden and that sensitive data is being transmitted.”

This is only a short excerpt, but I strongly encourage you to watch the full video—it’s fascinating. I’ll put the link in the description. I have a hard time believing, purely personally, that DJI and the CCP do not use this enormous mass of data—which represents extremely valuable data, especially with the advent of artificial intelligence that could very well synthesize this information to decipher the strategies of various parties in Ukraine, or even play a crucial intelligence role in a conflict of this magnitude. If I say this, it’s because a few weeks after the conflict, DJI was accused of sharing data on Ukrainian positions with Russia—an accusation that DJI immediately denied.

We’ve now covered quite a few points about the war in Ukraine and the use of DJI drones, but there is one last one. At the time when DJI was banning the sale of its products in Russia and Ukraine, the company was introducing new drones whose design might seem particularly suited for armed conflict. But before talking about that, I must mention a little about Xi Jinping, the Chinese president. Since 2015, Xi Jinping has set the goal for his country of achieving military, technological, and economic domination by the 100th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China in 2049, and he has introduced a strategy of military-civil fusion—a strategy that consists of having China’s major tech companies work closely with the People’s Liberation Army so that their products are as useful in civilian life as they are for the military. In short, all major Chinese companies’ products must be as useful for you and me as they are for a soldier. On this subject, China is very secretive, particularly when it comes to armaments and military innovation—as is the case for all great powers. However, as early as 2017, a journalist present at the 2nd World Drone Salon in Shenzhen, a city known for DJI, reported in the local press—according to industry experts—that the military-civil fusion in the drone industry was inevitable and that technological advances play a key role.

Let me be clear: no concrete evidence exists regarding DJI’s participation in this program, but DJI’s products can often be seen from both military and civilian perspectives. For example, the Mavic 3 Enterprise and the 30T, both released since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, come with thermal cameras, 200x zoom, and night vision. They can even display coordinates on screen when you point at an object, which can be super useful for many things—notably for guiding artillery. These models were immediately adopted by soldiers, who even customized them for greater autonomy, more robust drones intended for the agricultural sector that could, for example, carry a wounded soldier to safety, drop heavy explosive charges, or be equipped with heavy weapons, as seen here. Recently, DJI also introduced its DJI Avata series—a FPV drone with extremely simplified controls thanks to a new remote that allows you to pilot the drone just by tilting your hand. It’s an absolutely amazing drone for fun, for shooting cinematic footage—and it could make kamikaze drones more accessible to untrained soldiers.

For instance, the French company Abot now presents a whole range of equipment for the Avata 2 dedicated to intervention groups, like the BRI. They themselves say that all this is linked to the new remote that allows any operator in an intervention unit to pilot easily and without any training.

I repeat: nothing clearly proves that DJI participates in military-civil fusion in China. However, we do see companies emerging that illustrate the terrible potential of this sector in armaments, particularly in the United States. As I write this video, Feloni and Aerospace have presented two drone models that look very much like the Mavic but would be equipped on one side with an explosive charge and on the other with a 5.56mm bullet-firing weapon, along with thermal cameras, night vision, and 40 minutes of flight autonomy. Yes, it’s terrifying—and here the inspiration from DJI’s drones is obvious. Proof that Tao, regardless of his wishes, has already marked the history of armaments.

Now the question I ask myself is: what comes next?

“Aniper, that little bang is enough to penetrate the hull and destroy the nuclear contents. Nuclear is obsolete—take out your entire enemy virtually risk free. Just target him, release the … and rest easy.”

What you just saw is a short science-fiction film from 2017 produced by an association aimed at raising awareness about the dangers of autonomous weapons. At the time, we could reassure ourselves by thinking that the technology was not yet mature enough to allow something like that one day. That’s what I thought back then. Whether it was the miniaturization, artificial intelligence, camera quality, or piloting algorithms, today such a drone is technically within reach. The big drawback then—and still today—is battery life. Even now, drones rarely fly more than about 30 minutes on a single battery, even those much larger drones that can carry heavier batteries. Now, imagine an autonomous drone that can fly for hours or even days. I was skeptical, but that is no longer really the case since Betavolt, a Chinese company, presented its “nuclear battery” the size of a one-cent coin that can deliver power for 50 years. Imagine a conflict where the sky is saturated with autonomous drones that search relentlessly for the enemy day and night for 50 years.

Why am I telling you all this? Because I believe that if there is one company today capable of producing a drone like that technologically, it is DJI. I even think there are many factors that could push them to do so. You remember the beginning of the video about the Japanese search in 2005 on Yamaha autonomous helicopters—if Japanese police were that worried about seeing their products sent to China, it was because even in 2005, Japanese intelligence services claimed to have evidence that the People’s Liberation Army was arming its soldiers, notably along the border with Inde. And yet, ironically, 20 years later, those devices are completely obsolete, and Japan is very far behind China in the field of drones, especially considering Xi Jinping’s strategy of military-civil fusion, the innovation displayed at arms fairs in China, and the fact that China’s military budget increases every year. It is imaginable that DJI and the CCP might collaborate in creating a weapon like this. I’m not saying it exists—I’m not even saying it’s probable—I’m just saying that we have every right to be afraid. No international law limits the construction and use of autonomous weapons; drones like these can very well be legally designed, and as for Tao Wang—Tao hasn’t spoken publicly since 2017. The thoughts of DJI’s CEO are even more secretive than the construction of their drones. His childhood passion for model aviation is now a distant memory as he sits atop DJI’s twin towers, 200 meters high, far from his old 20-square-meter workshop where it all began. A detail that I find meaningful is that on the door of his office is written a phrase that could be translated as “Use your brain without your feelings.” Young Tao, who had simply dreamed of piloting a radio-controlled helicopter with ease, went on to mark the history of his country, of model aviation, but also that of war—and perhaps a part of our future.

I just finished watching the editing and I realize it makes you kind of want to “fly away” yourself. I am truly sorry if it affected you. I have one last piece of information: I sent an email to DJI’s communications department with plenty of questions, leaving them the opportunity to respond regarding this video, and they did not reply before the video ended.

I’d like to talk a little about the background of this documentary. First, I’m not an expert in drones or weapons; my job is to tell stories with a camera—most often true stories, which we call documentaries or reports—and I’d like to share some footage I’ve shot with DJI drones and stabilizers over the past years. For nearly 10 years, DJI has found a special place among the tools that accompany me in filming, and just under a year ago I bought the DJI Avata 2, which I mentioned in this video, and I realized that I didn’t know anything about this company, even though I’ve been a loyal customer. And it was precisely by investigating—first a little bit, then every day for weeks—that I was struck by the same vertigo that you probably felt during this video. It was a shock for me because I love DJI’s products, especially the drones. The first one I used was the Phantom 2, then the 3, then the 4, then the Mavic 1, then the Mavic 2, then the Avata—as I told you—and these drones have allowed me to capture fantastic footage in sometimes very challenging shooting conditions. It is sometimes difficult to explain the relationship between an artisan and his tool, but I truly have a lot of love for DJI drones over the years.

Now, DJI’s products give me the means to pursue my ambitions anywhere and anytime, and beyond capturing beautiful shots, they capture shots that tell a story—stories I could not have told with my main camera. Discovering that these flying cameras I love so much hide a very dark side really hit me hard, and it was precisely that shock that made me want to make this little documentary and launch this YouTube channel. It took me about a year to make this video—not only because I wanted it to be good and because it was a new challenge for me to speak like this, but also because I have other projects on the side. What took the longest was the investigation into DJI, because the company is very secretive and it took me weeks of work to gather everything you saw. In fact, there is still a bit that I couldn’t cover in the video and that I will put in the comments for those of you who are curious.

All this to say that I hope you really enjoyed it, and that one of the things that drives me to come on YouTube is the ability to exchange with the people who watch what I do—something that is not possible on television. So if you liked it, or if you didn’t like it, if you have questions, if you have things to say or clarify—especially if you want to debate—express yourself in the comments. I would really enjoy reading and replying to you. And if you want more formats like this, like the video and subscribe—I have several documentary ideas that could follow. I’ve been thinking about it for several months, if it appeals to you and if enough of you subscribe because, well, it’s a lot of work. I’m really excited—take care, and I hope to see you soon.

Drones After Dark with Kyle Nordfors

Bobby Ouyang: So, season five, we’re back again. We’re back because Louis was texting me about all the drama, and he couldn’t just keep it to ourselves. It has to be shared—all the drama that’s going on. We also have our special guest, Kyle Nordfors is here, friend of the pod. He’s been going to quite a few conferences and also joining in on the drama still.

Luis Figueiredo: I know. Where do we start? Yeah, Greg, Kyle, you got anything new?

Kyle Nordfors: Um, well, yeah, I guess we could start right off with the Drone Responders Conference that just happened over the last couple days. I got home this morning, in fact, so it ended yesterday. I had to wake up at 3:00 AM East Coast time to drive the three hours up to Washington, DC, to catch the 7:30 AM flight to Salt Lake City—which would’ve been 1:00 AM our time out here, Mountain Time. So it’s been a long day for me, but all in all, the Drone Responders Conference was actually very good.

I understand some of the original speakers had to back out, so DJ Smith had to pull one for the team. He was on a few more panels than he originally planned, and he just absolutely crushed it. That man is a wealth of information and an amazing advocate for the industry—particularly for the SLTT community. He’s out there advocating as hard as he can and doing an absolute great job.

Of course, the big topic was DFR [Drone First Responder], and all the different vendors had a DFR program or platform of some sort—some more functional and operational than others. You had all the main players there. One player in particular showed up with their DFR product in the bed of a truck, which they claim it’s designed to do. It had a ratchet strap around the enclosure as they drove around. Wow, kind of kills the purpose of the whole DFR—or security strap, I don’t know. It was hilarious when we saw that picture. But by and large, it was a smooth, good conference where a lot of people exchanged a lot of ideas.

The dinners were great. I was able to go to dinner with the Flock team and hang out with Brett Conda, John McBride, Fritz Reber, and they had Elk Grove out there with them—their first big agency that’s running their system. Huge agency.

[00:04:00]

Bobby Ouyang: Nate Lang. Shout out to Lieutenant Lang.

Kyle Nordfors: Yeah, yep. It was just a good time. The evening after-party, the social event, was great. So there really wasn’t any drama, any real situation at this particular conference. Drones did not crash like at previous conferences.

Luis Figueiredo: Yeah.

Kyle Nordfors: We’ll get to that. But it was good, real good. I had a real good conversation with a gentleman named Dave—I don’t want to give away too much ‘cause I think we need to keep it on the down low with the project I’ll tell you guys about later. We got a really good game plan to try—it’s gonna be a disruptive thing in Recherche et sauvetage, at least, the things we were talking about. Pretty exciting stuff, all in all. As far as new equipment, not really. It was just more DFR talk and progressing with DFR.

The presentation I had, I talked about heavy-lift drones and how to implement them in public safety. I had a bunch of videos of us using the FlyCart 30. We’ve been flying that around with search and rescue, mostly delivering litter medical kits and the like—pulling, let’s say, a mountain biker who crashes, has a femur sticking out of their skin, and the bike is just totaled. Instead of leaving that on the mountain or having one of our ground crews try to carry it off, we can lift that mountain bike off with the FlyCart, which just saves time and energy and ensures our ground teams can get home quicker and safer. Just all good stuff, really, from the Drone Responders Conference.

[00:06:00]

Luis Figueiredo: Are you excited about the rumored Matrice 400 coming out?

Kyle Nordfors: Yes, I don’t know much about it, but the 350 was a good incremental step from the 300, and the H30T is such a powerhouse of a payload. I don’t know if with the 400 they’re gonna have an updated version of the H30T, but quite simply, nothing compares to it in the industry. The H30T is absolutely amazing as far as the total package goes, and for the price point. Do you have any more details on it? Have you heard, have you seen?

Luis Figueiredo: The only thing I’ve heard so far is it’s gonna be able to carry a heavier payload. I think the max weight is 20 pounds or over 20 pounds, something like that. So it’s gonna be a good medium between what the M350 carries now and what the FlyCart carries. It’s gonna have a smaller footprint than the FlyCart but slightly bigger than the M350—probably somewhere in between. I’m sure it’s not gonna be crappy, right? Like any other DJI product. We’re gonna get it, and we’re gonna be like, yep, it’s exactly what we expected.

Kyle Nordfors: And it’s gonna work.

Luis Figueiredo: Yep. But back to the conference—is there a reason why some of those people pulled out, like the speakers?

Kyle Nordfors: No, I just overheard a conversation with DJ, and he was telling us that’s why he was getting up on stage so much. I do know of one particular gentleman who had to back out—his wife just had a child, so he needed to stay behind with his wife.

Luis Figueiredo: Valid excuse.

Kyle Nordfors: Yeah. It was items like that—not any drama or anything else, just family issues. So DJ took one for the team and got up on stage a lot more than he was planning on. He did great.

[00:08:00]

Bobby Ouyang: Kyle’s right—DJ’s a powerhouse. So that was a drama-less conference, Louis. Do you wanna say something?

Luis Figueiredo: No, I was gonna say, Kyle mentioned Flock—they had a big announcement today, right? They raised, what, like 200-something million? I saw they were all posting about it. I guess they’re gonna build their own facility or something—an R&D facility?

Kyle Nordfors: In Géorgie, right? Yeah, they have a facility. I was talking to Raul a couple weeks ago, and that guy has big plans and big goals for Flock in the direction they’re going. They’re even building their own drones. My understanding is they’re not quite ready for prime time yet, but maybe I shouldn’t have said that—I don’t know. They have really big plans, and they have a powerhouse team too. Their lineup at that company is—Raul is really stacking the deck in his favor with who he has employed right now. It’s gonna be fun to see how far they go, and truthfully, I’m cheering for them.

Bobby Ouyang: Yeah, Flock has a powerhouse team as a whole. I was watching a few interviews with Garrett Langley, and he was talking about how every single time he got on a plane, you could almost guarantee $40,000 in annual recurring revenue just from meeting with agencies. He said that based on how many cameras they install and how many crimes they solve, they can predict how much more sales they’d be getting as a result of it. The way the entire organization runs is really fascinating because he has his Chief Revenue Officer whose entire job is just to hire salespeople—that’s it. Building this incredible sales organization, hundreds and hundreds of people in sales getting hired every single year. It’s very well-run, and they hire some really fantastic people.

[00:10:00]

Luis Figueiredo: Listen, they have a good product, right? Especially when it comes to the LPR [License Plate Recognition] system. As a user of both Flock and Motorola’s Vigilant, I think Motorola’s done what they do with a lot of companies they buy—don’t invest too much into them, and the technology stays the same. Flock came in and identified areas where Motorola wasn’t doing well. Their cameras can go up everywhere—I was just at Home Depot last week in my town, and there are Flock cameras all over the parking lot. So I guess now they’re doing private too, not just public safety agencies and cities—they’re doing commercial accounts. Their interface could be a little better, but it’s an easy-to-use product. They simplified the installation of cameras—the solar panel ones can be put up anywhere. The only advantage Motorola has at the moment is they have the contract with repo companies and those companies driving around all the time, getting license plate hits, while Flock is more stationary cameras. But it’s a great product—I’m not gonna sit here and talk crap about Flock because of Axiom. It’s a good product.

Bobby Ouyang: Well, you’re talking about DFR with the repo companies. One really interesting drone-in-the-box solution I was talking about with the CEO of a parking ticket company—instead of using fixed stationary cameras to detect if a vehicle’s parked in a spot too long, like at a baseball field where you can only park 15 minutes or something—they’re looking at putting drones in boxes and doing patrols of the area. It’ll detect whether a vehicle’s there, and if another drone comes over 15 minutes later and it’s still there, it’ll take a picture of the license plate.

[00:12:00]

Kyle Nordfors: That’s a great system. Before I say something, I wanna say hi to Tom. I just saw that he stayed up late—he’s a hero. Hey, Tom, I’m actually excited to hang out with you in Manchester. We’ve got the UK Robotics Conference coming up next month in Manchester, England, and Tom’s gonna be coming over to help teach all of us low folk how to fly FPV for real. I’m excited to get to know Tom a little better and learn from the master.

But I think one way Flock has an advantage over other companies is because they sell to private companies like Lowe’s, Home Depot, or Costco with their cameras. You can envision that being at construction sites with their DFR program—technically, that’d be a drone-in-the-box system, but they could easily convert that into something a commercial company would want. Substations, railroads, a whole bunch of different programs where it’s a bigger system that Axon probably wouldn’t do.

Bobby Ouyang: Yeah, it’s also their interesting go-to-market strategy. Typically, as a startup, suppose we’re fixing to hit $10 million in annual recurring revenue this year—halfway through the year, we’d talk to some investors, raise $20 million to scale up and grow even faster. What Flock did in the early days is they’d only raise a couple million dollars, even though they were doing a lot more in revenue, just to test something out for two or three months. They knew they had a good product, they knew they were gonna dominate the market—it was just a matter of how and what’s the fastest way to do it. They tried multiple go-to-market motions, multiple product motions, and a lot of them failed. But because they didn’t raise that huge amount of money, their failures didn’t hurt as much—it didn’t shut down the company as a whole. It’s really fascinating.

[00:14:00]

Luis Figueiredo: Yeah, but enough of Flock—Rahul’s living his Miami Vice days right now. I heard he got a white Ferrari and he’s wearing Hawaiian shirts—I don’t know. Let him enjoy it.

Kyle Nordfors: Rahul, you need to send us that picture.

Luis Figueiredo: I’m sure AI can generate it if he doesn’t wanna share. So you didn’t get any Air Force Ones or any kind of new socks at the conference?

Kyle Nordfors: No, but I was close, and I think I still might get some of those socks. Skydio does have some employees who are still ethical and good people and haven’t sold their soul yet. I was able to spend time with one of their employees—I don’t wanna rat this person out. I requested those socks because I don’t want that particular employee to get lectured for talking to me or letting me buy them a drink.

Luis Figueiredo: Or they’ll block you.

Kyle Nordfors: That’s the Skydio way, right? They block you as soon as you have any intellectual conversation or debate their premise—they cower and block you because every single one of their stances can be countered. It’s childish. But hopefully I’ll get a pair of those socks—it’ll be as comical as them posting it from their actual Skydio account. Their Chief Marketing Officer attacked me personally, never even met me, and tried to come after me. I thought it was beautiful.

[00:16:00]

Luis Figueiredo: My days of getting socks from Skydio are done—I don’t think they’re gonna give me socks again after what I put their last socks through. The sneakers are pretty cool, though. What’s the story about—

Kyle Nordfors: They wanted to participate and have more items made in Chine. They wanted more than just their batteries made in China.

Luis Figueiredo: The way I perceived the message on those socks initially—I started, maybe I read too much into it, but I don’t think I did—was “Don’t fuck with Skydio.” They’re not a consumer company anymore—you can’t walk into a Best Buy and buy a Skydio drone. They’re making drones for public safety. I took that message personally, like, is that a shot at public safety, at law enforcement? Are they telling us, “Don’t fuck with us because no matter what you do, we’re still gonna shovel a shitty product down your throat”? That’s how I saw it. DroneXL’s Hyatt made a really good article explaining his thoughts behind it. I can see now that maybe that could’ve been the message, but I still took it extremely personally. I think it’s a direct shot at everybody—like us—who speak up against them. We do it all the time, call them out, to the point where they block us. Their employees still troll my posts, but Adam Bry and a few others have blocked me. I saw that and thought, this is a direct shot at public safety.

[00:18:00]

Bobby Ouyang: Right now, they’re probably not gonna go out of business. I think all the legislation worked out for them. In previous seasons, we talked about how Skydio wasn’t gonna be around anymore, but it seems like they found their product motion—ban DJI and scale it out.

Luis Figueiredo: I think they’re still around now because after they lost that $100 million Army contract, it seemed like almost simultaneously Axon was like, “Hey, Skydio, here’s a lifeline.” That’s what it seems like—it happened at the same time. If it wasn’t for Rick Smith—the guy who wanted to put a taser on a drone, and I think they did a sick 360 on one too—I don’t know if Skydio would be around for another year or two. Their burn rate’s way too high, especially when they’re spending money on fancy socks and sneakers. By the way, we have to do something about the “Skydio” name—those first three letters, “Sky.” Can we rename it “Eyebrows” or something? Get rid of the “Sky.”

Bobby Ouyang: That sounds like an old porno website. Oh my gosh.

Kyle Nordfors: It’s really too bad we have a US-based company—I shudder even calling them an American company because they don’t act like Americans—that sources Chinese parts for their drones. Everybody’s aware of that. It’s the misconception: “Oh, it’s an American-made drone,” but a lot of the components are Chinese—even the batteries. They’re shipping out X10s with one battery because they couldn’t source any more.

[00:20:00]

Luis Figueiredo: Sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off.

Kyle Nordfors: No, you’re fine—it’s a valid point. What’s sad to me is this was probably our best opportunity to have a solid product, and they come out claiming they’re here to help public safety, but all their actions fall short. Rather than innovating to make a good product, they’re spending money on foolish items, lobbying efforts, and cutting our legs out from underneath us instead of being there for public safety. If they just took the higher road and said, “Hey, we’re a US-based company trying to do the right thing—please give our product a try, we’re here to support you, we’ll do whatever we can to make sure you’re successful,” and ignored DJI or Teal, just did their thing and provided the best product with open hands and a solid heart, law enforcement and public safety across the country would support them 100%. They’d say, “Absolutely, we’ll help you develop your product, we’ll buy your products when we have the money, we’ll talk to our city council or county commissioners to justify paying a little extra to support the American company.” But instead, our cries and needs are falling on the deaf ears of their executive staff, and all they seem to care about, from our perspective, is making money. The people who are going to suffer are those we’re trying to serve.

I’ll still stand by this—it’s factual: when I have an X10 side-by-side with my Matrice 30, Dragonfish, or any Teal products, the Skydio product falls short. It does not make it up the mountain, cannot get there.

[00:22:00]

Luis Figueiredo: It’s not even a fair comparison. Put it up against an M30? You’d have to compare it to a Mavic 2 Enterprise or a Mavic 3—that’d be more fair. I don’t think the X10, even years from now, will compare to what an M30 is now.

Kyle Nordfors: Oh yeah, let’s not even try to compare it to the Matrice 4—the Matrice 4TD with its IP rating knocks it out of the water. Look at a company like ACSL from Japon—they’re trucking along, doing their best, reaching out, bringing public safety and other professionals over to Tokyo, saying, “Tell us what you want, what you need, be brutally honest.” Their engineers are right there taking notes, configuring, so the next drone they come out with is exactly what we need and want. They’re trying to meet our demand, rather than multiple US-based companies trying to tell us what we need—and telling the warfighter what they need. I’ve trained with SF groups, NSW groups, been with them in training scenarios, and what the two biggest US-based companies have is not what the warfighters want or need. Regardless of what the generals or big guys negotiating contracts say, the men and women on the frontline don’t want that product because it’s useless to them. It’s not reliable—we know it’s not reliable, we know they crash. NIST has all the data comparing it with actual numbers and proof that it’s an inferior product. It’s just too bad.

[00:24:00]

Luis Figueiredo: Even on the federal level, federal agencies can only buy Skydio, Parrot, Teal—I don’t hear much about BRINC. Those are the three brands they can buy. Their academies have drone training programs—they send agents to fly drones out of their offices. Do you know what they’re training these guys on? DJI Minis, Mavics, Mavic 2s, Mavic 3s. They’re training federal agents on DJI products, then sending them back to their field offices to use Skydio, Teal, Parrot—some are getting set up with Skydio X10s. But the way they’re setting up these accounts, the field offices can’t log in. It’s crazy—they sell the equipment, then it’s like, “Hey, you’re on your own, figure it out.” Not only are they shoving equipment down their throats, there’s no support—they’re left on their own.

Bobby Ouyang: It’s incredibly predatory upsells too. One of our earlier customers from 2021 was forced to buy Skydio—they got sold Skydio 3D Scan, which just allows the camera to point upwards, fly, and take pictures. It doesn’t make the 3D scan itself. They were sold that because their chiefs saw the presentation, were wowed by it—no live demo, just a slide deck. Their chiefs didn’t know they were already in a multi-year contract with us, so they threw away almost $5,000 in the first year doing nothing, and Skydio did nothing to help them.

[00:26:00]

Luis Figueiredo: We know why they don’t do live demos—their success rate is extremely low. But even with their sales approach now, what’s scary is they have Axon support—huge in public safety. For departments putting up resistance, they’re like, “We’ll give you free equipment, trade up on your new Axon contract when you renew.” Some departments are being bypassed—they go to city officials: “We can save you money if you trade up your equipment.” By the time the department hears about it, city council or the mayor is telling them, “This is what you have to do.” At that point, it’s either no drone program or go with what they’re told. It’s scary—they’ve got Axon’s muscle now. By the way, Kyle, the next person I’m trying to get on my block list is Axon’s CEO, Rick Smith. At some point, he’s gonna be fed up with me tagging him on everything.

Kyle Nordfors: It’ll be interesting to see if he’s fed up with you tagging him or with customer complaints because the aircraft simply isn’t working. When we get into these conversations online—Facebook, LinkedIn, other forums—people with a different perspective strawman my argument to slap it down easier. The cognitive dissonance they operate in is fascinating. At the end of the day, I sincerely don’t care about the name on the aircraft I’m flying—Boeing, Airbus, Skydio, BRINC, DJI, Teal—I don’t care. What I care about is the ability to save lives. As a search and rescue volunteer, I show up when the call comes and want to deploy the aircraft to save lives. That’s it.

[00:30:00]

When people take backhanded, backdoor deals, lobbying to force me into using an inferior product that impedes my ability to save lives, it becomes personal. Some people are still alive because of this technology, because of the drones I used—they’ve become family friends. When you’re lobbying for something that takes away Premiers intervenants‘ ability to save lives, that’s unethical, immoral. If you’re placing sales and return on investment for your investors over that, you should go to jail—it’s criminal, you’ll have blood on your hands. In states like Florida and Tennessee, where Skydio’s lobbying efforts have been successful, I wish we could document how many lives have been placed in danger because of that. It’s impossible to quantify, but I wish we could. It’s so incredibly frustrating—lives are on the line. That’s the only basis for my argument: I want to save lives, and the current products from American manufacturers—I can’t call them American because their actions are anti-American—don’t do that.

Luis Figueiredo: I agree. The same people troll my posts all the time—one guy who looks like he’s wearing transition lenses always says, “Well, DJI lobbies too.” I’m like, dude, one is lobbying to get rid of a competitor, the other’s lobbying to stay in business—they’re not lobbying to get rid of Skydio, just to sell their equipment. People swear I get paid by DJI—I think you’ve been accused of that too, right? Being on the take or something. It’s not like that. I could complain about DJI—tons of stuff I don’t agree with. It might be a cultural thing or whatever. They give us drones like the M200 and up with hot-swap batteries—Bobby, don’t worry, I’m not going where you think with Autel. The 200 series, 300, 350, M30—they got us used to hot-swapping, then with the Matrice 4TD, they took that feature away. Their response is, “You can power cycle and put a new battery in in 20 or 25 seconds.” I’m like, yeah, but I don’t want to do that—I want to pop the battery out, drone stays on, and it’s up in five seconds. I’ve gotten used to that. Hot-swapping’s the best feature ever for a drone—when you’re searching or on an op, you want to land and have it back up in five seconds.

[00:34:00]

But one of my favorite DJI stories is how they empowered BRINC’s existence. Years ago, when the Mavic Mini came out, I told DJI engineers, “Why don’t you make an enterprise Mini? Everybody’s asking for it.” If Tom’s still awake watching this, what he’s doing now is what DJI should’ve done years ago. Imagine BRINC trying to raise money for their Lemur drone, and investors ask, “Is there any competitor doing this?” BRINC says no, because there wasn’t—they had the first interior drone, the Lemur. If DJI had made an enterprise Mini with a small thermal sensor, lights, something like that, BRINC wouldn’t be as powerful now—they wouldn’t keep raising money because DJI would’ve given public safety what they needed. I have a lot of complaints about DJI—every chance I get, I give them shit, just like everyone else. They’re too big a company, too many layers—they put out a good product and think, “This is what public safety needs,” but they don’t hear our opinions much because they’re disconnected from boots on the ground.

Bobby Ouyang: What’d you call them, Louis? Chinese 25-year-olds?

Luis Figueiredo: Dude, I think the issue with DJI is their average employee age is mid-20s. They can be great engineers, but—

Bobby Ouyang: Wait, Louis, I used to be a Chinese 25-year-old. I think we met when I was a Chinese 25-year-old, right?

Luis Figueiredo: Not to mention NASA—remember how bad that was?

Kyle Nordfors: NASA in the ‘60s, launching rockets—all kids 25 to 28 years old.

Luis Figueiredo: Don’t get me wrong—I’m not saying—now I’m gonna piss off a bunch of 25-year-olds. What I’m trying to say is they don’t have the experience. They’re disconnected from boots on the ground. Kyle, do you think a 25-year-old engineer in China building DJI drones knows what you need for search and rescue?

[00:38:00]

Kyle Nordfors: No, but I don’t think they’re the ones making the decisions either. They send people over here—Freda comes over, she’s amazing, she listens to us. We talk about how big DJI is, but they’re not as big as we think—as far as—

Luis Figueiredo: You have one guy making all the decisions.

Kyle Nordfors: Yeah, it’s kind of a pyramid—everything goes to the top, the top makes the decision. Vic just logged in, and we’d be remiss—we’re focused on public safety and how terrible this lobbying is for public safety, but what about him? The hundreds of thousands of small businesses out there—photographers, roof inspectors, real estate photographers, agriculture pilots—it’d be catastrophic not only to the drone industry but to our economy at large. Imagine if farmers can’t do pinpoint accuracy drone use with sprays—herbicides, pesticides—they use multispectral drones first, then spray drones. If they can’t do that, food prices will increase significantly. All this lobbying is shortsighted, poorly thought out, only there to make money for certain investors in US-based drone companies—every other argument falls short or is pointless.

[00:40:00]

Luis Figueiredo: Another thing that pisses me off—Florida’s a lost cause—but what bothers me is when I see comments and pictures of guys like, “Got my Skydio drone, can’t wait to fly,” and I see where they’re located. We’re our own biggest enemy because of stupid decisions. If you’re in a state like Florida or parts of Tennessee—or where legislation’s being proposed—and there’s no law saying you have to buy non-Chinese drones, why the hell are you supporting companies like Skydio that are lobbying? All that does is hurt everybody else. Your cool picture holding that Skydio drone—“I got it for free on my Axon renewal”—you’re hurting every other cop, firefighter depending on the drones they use. You probably have no knowledge about the technology—if you did, you’d say, “No, I’m not buying this.” We can blame the fearmongering—Skydio’s second part of their campaign. I get calls all the time from departments in my state: “We heard we can’t buy Chinese drones.” I’m like, “What? Who told you that?” “Axon was here, renewing our contract—they said pretty soon all our DJI drones are gonna get grounded, we need American-made drones.” I’m like, “That’s bullshit, don’t fall for that.” I feel like I’m doing more damage control weekly with calls like that. These guys should know better—we’re not doing a good job educating.

Kyle Nordfors: There’s an additional part—certain former lieutenants and captains retired from public safety jobs now work for these US-based companies. They’ve sold their souls, selling out law enforcement and public safety across the country. Some of these guys posting are lobbying Skydio for their post-retirement job—positioning themselves as fanboys. To get a job at Skydio, you have to drink the Kool-Aid, wear the socks, act like an infant—you can’t question the narrative.

[00:44:00]

Luis Figueiredo: To me, those dudes have zero credibility—I don’t care who you work for now or that you sold your soul. You got your department to buy Skydio in states with no ban, then retired and started working for them—some have moved to other companies. Good dudes, except one who confronted me at the Police Chiefs Conference a few months ago. No credibility—you can talk about drones, say whatever, be on panels—to me, you’re a lost cause. You’re doing it to people in your own profession. It’s like telling cops, “You can’t buy Glocks or SIGs anymore, you have to buy Hi-Point”—some crappy gun manufacturer—then going to work for them, pimping that shitty gun to your colleagues. That says something about a person’s character.

Bobby Ouyang: Let’s look at the ramifications of the DJI ban in certain states. Florida’s banned DJI for a couple years now—in the early days, we heard of sheriff’s offices still flying DJI drones because sheriffs there are like kings of the county. But last week, I was listening to a webinar or podcast in the morning, and they were talking about how some of these sheriff’s offices are now forced to switch because the state’s cracking down. They’re not gonna win against their competitors with the way things are going.

Luis Figueiredo: I think they’re so cocky right now that shit like this—the mailer, the socks—they think they’re untouchable. Is the company being poorly run? I don’t get it. They’re wasting too much money on non-drone innovation, and it seems like nobody cares about it.

[00:53:00]

Kyle Nordfors: They’ve pivoted how they’re advertising and selling their equipment. Originally, they tried marketing to us—operators, program managers—and we quickly learned how awful it is, how it compares. If we had the X10 seven years ago, we’d have loved it. But compared to current technology, it’s just not that awesome. So they’ve pivoted away from us, teaming up with Axon, going after chiefs, city council members, county commissioners, police chiefs, saying, “You already have an Axon budget—depending on your agency, a few million dollars—what’s an additional $200,000 to your $4 million budget? It’s nothing. Let’s package it, toss it all in.” The chiefs are woefully unaware of how terrible the subscriptions are, everything they have to get to make this device work—if it decides to work, as long as it doesn’t crash.

Bobby Ouyang: I’ll say it again this season: it’s cheaper for Skydio to spend money on marketing and lobbying than on engineering to build a good product. That’s why they’re doing this—it’s working for them.

Luis Figueiredo: Speaking of crashes, wasn’t there an incident in Burnet, Texas, a few weeks ago with a Skydio drone?

Bobby Ouyang: I don’t know, man.

Kyle Nordfors: I don’t go to that conference. Their pilots were flying without strobes on first and had to be told—they weren’t flying with beacons, and someone asked if they had a waiver to fly without them. They stumbled and turned their beacons on, but yeah, one crashed. I wasn’t there, didn’t witness it personally, but there’s video of it happening. We’re just pointing out their hypocrisy. If they weren’t so hypocritical, if they just had a humble heart and were trying to do the right thing—not coming out with stupid socks—they get in their own way. If they sincerely tried their best and asked us for help, we’d do it. I was a beta and alpha tester for Skydio back in the day, worked with some guys still there. They couldn’t take the hard truths—like with the S2 during COVID, they’d send me updates to convert it to an interior drone system. I’d fly it around, give them the hard truths, and if they didn’t like it, they’d dump you rather than listen. They’re taking the easy road.

[00:56:00]

Luis Figueiredo: I felt for a second like during the summer there was a cry for help. You got the same cry, right? Then it went away. There was an outreach we both received—like maybe they’re trying to get our feedback on what they’re doing wrong, squash a few things. Then it disappeared—no follow-up, at least on my end. What about yours?

Kyle Nordfors: No, it was dropped as soon as you provided anything. They ignored you—especially if it was, “You need improvement here.” All they wanted to hear was, “This is awesome, you’re the best, we love you.” If you said, “It’s weak in low-light scenarios,” they didn’t want to hear it.

Bobby Ouyang: Skydio doesn’t hire dumb people—you don’t become a unicorn by hiring dumb people. They’re doing something similar to what Flock did—try a bunch of experiments, see what works. In this case, lobbying away public safety’s ability to use DJI or Autel drones is working for them.

Luis Figueiredo: Dude, it’s still lobbying. It seems like we’re picking on Skydio too much and not giving BRINC enough attention. It’s a lot of smoke and mirrors—I say that all the time. Lobbying, marketing, tactics—but BRINC’s doing the same shit. It’s worse for them—they’re hiding repeaters inside houses at demos. They bring agencies in, “We’re gonna fly the Lemur through the house,” and everyone’s like, “Holy shit, BRINC’s improved, it can fly through and not disconnect.” Little do they know they’re hiding repeaters for these demos—that’s the smoke and mirrors. I tell everyone, do your due diligence—if they really want you to buy it, they should have no problem giving it to you to test first. But they’ll never do that. Have you heard about the repeater story, Kyle?

[00:59:00]

Kyle Nordfors: Yes, I’m very aware of the situation where it happened—I know the individual who hid the repeaters. It comes back to honesty—if they’d just be honest, shoot us straight, say, “Yeah, our product’s not perfect, it might need improvement, can you help us?” and put it through its paces with us, we as Americans could grow and learn together. Instead, they’re forcing us to use an inferior product. What gets me is the guys pushing this—former law enforcement—know it’s inferior. They’re hiding repeaters, crashing drones during demos, but still pushing it because they want to make money for themselves, everybody else be damned. It’s shockingly bad. But there are American companies doing the right thing—couple from the Bay Area. Ascent Aero Systems just announced a new drone at the TIC conference in Texas—purchased by Robinson Helicopter. I’ve flown Robinsons—they have an amazing product, stood the test of time. They’re not lobbying, not doing shenanigans—they’re NDA-compliant, quietly doing their thing. Their prices are higher than public safety can afford right now, but they just came out with a new product I’m excited for. I hope to get my hands on one—fantastic quick-deploy, flies in all weather, great ISR vehicle. No zoom or thermal, but great for accident reconstruction, small, compact, sub-250 grams, coaxial design, flies a long time. Price is higher, but expected with an American company. They’re trying to do the right thing—those companies need to be promoted and celebrated.

[01:02:00]

Luis Figueiredo: I agree—the biggest issue with those companies is the price point. They’re out of our reach. Hopefully someday they’ll be more affordable, but at the moment, they’re priced out of our league.

Kyle Nordfors: With participation, it’ll take one or two agencies or private companies to purchase the first stock, prove the use case, start manufacturing in mass to bring the price down. If they showed up with a humble heart, the American community would help. If it’s an inspection-style drone that’s NDA-compliant, hundreds of private companies would rather use Ascent Aero Systems over Skydio or BRINC for all the reasons you wouldn’t want their products. An honest company trying could make their way easily, especially with a giant like Robinson backing them.

Luis Figueiredo: What’s Uniform Sierra? That’s Duncan’s company, right? Flock just bought it. Duncan came to see me a few years ago—he had this interior drone, a competitor to the Lemur. A college kid—just graduated or still in college—with classmates, brought me this drone. We flew it, and I’m like, “Dude, your drone’s better than the Lemur, and you did this in a dorm room with school funding.” I’m glad Flock saw the potential and bought them—imagine what they’ll come out with now. Going back to BRINC—some department on social media was promoting, “We just signed on with BRINC for DFR, leading technology, we’re gonna be the first beach doing it—”

Bobby Ouyang: Long Beach Police Department.

Luis Figueiredo: Could’ve been. I commented, “Congrats on spending money on a private something”—forget what I said. They were bragging about it. I’m thinking, you bought a product that’s not even tested yet. I don’t think anyone’s actively using their responder platform—they have that great marketing video with Vegas PD, but people are gonna have to wait a year for it. Imagine the issues when it’s delivered, and they’re bragging on social media. At what point does someone say, “Think about what you just posted—you bought an untested, innovative DFR system”? There’s nothing innovative about BRINC’s system—or Skydio’s. NYPD has Skydio docks—they’re not even working yet. In controlled environments, demo flights, sure—but it pisses me off when trolls on my posts give opinions, and you click their profile—they’re not in public safety, don’t fly drones. We depend on this equipment daily—hit the power button, adrenaline’s going, we’re on a call, we need it to go up and perform. We’re credible—we use it, know what we’re talking about. They’re like, “Data’s being sent to China”—Skydio drones haven’t been tested to the extent we use DJI or Autel. If you’re using Skydio and can prove me wrong, reach out—but you’re not doing hundreds of thousands of flights like us. Last year, we did over 6,500 DFR flights—no way an X10 could do that. Half would be down—they don’t perform in wind, rain. I’ve seen videos of a garden hose on an X10—it freaks out, can’t handle normal water pressure. NYPD can market it because they’re the biggest agency in the world, but it’s not gonna work for them.

[01:08:00]

Kyle Nordfors: One thing I think’s gonna happen with Axon—their customer support lines will be flooded: “How do I make this thing work with the Samsung Galaxy tablet in the controller? How do I get it to take off?” I’m pledging this now—if Skydio, BRINC, any lobbying company stopped today and said, “We won’t lobby anymore, we just want to help public safety, will you help us?”—yes, absolutely. I’d be first in line to help, promote, develop their product. My only thing is we need the best equipment to save lives—we can’t be forced to use an inferior product risking American lives. That’s what’s stopping me from being their biggest fangirl.

Bobby Ouyang: Kyle, since you’re on the show, will you help make Skydio better for search and rescue?

Kyle Nordfors: Absolutely—I’ve been begging to get our agency on it. With the Olympics in 2034 here in Utah, there’s a lot of 3D mapping needed for downhill slopes, the Utah Olympic Winter Sports Park—bobsled, all that. We’re using the FlyCart to establish a use case for the Olympics. Skydio would be awesome to help with that. At the latest conference, Vic Moss had a brilliant idea—sit down with reps from CSI, fire rescue, search and rescue, law enforcement, without naming names or being political—just, “What’s your current fleet? Chinese or US-manufactured?” Every time, it was Chinese-based—randomly pulled people. We asked, “Why’d you choose that fleet? What’d happen if you were forced to switch to US offerings?” Every one said their program would fold—no way to justify spending $200,000 a year on a drone program with US drones. These were medium-sized fleets—not Texas DPS or Elizabeth City with hundreds of drones—just four or five. Vic’s gonna put that together eloquently to show local politicians the damage to public safety. He’ll add small business owners—inspectors, surveyors, photographers—what would they do? Only the biggest companies could afford functional US offerings.

[01:14:00]

Vic and I had an interesting conversation with a big nationwide rental company’s UAS head—they’re looking at docks. Draganfly was there with a trailer—imagine a Dock 3 on that, rentable to construction companies, surveyors, plug-and-play. He said, “Yeah, but we’re storm chasers, operate with FEMA, so we have to use American.” We said, “The federal government uses DJI—I’ve worked with DOD, they use DJI, despite what people say.” That’s the direction he’s heading—the money they’ll drop to accommodate basic emergency services, then hope it works and doesn’t crash like Skydio did during Helene in North Carolina and Texas.

Luis Figueiredo: If I was Skydio, I’d be nervous. Selling X10s standalone—it might work, might crash, whatever. But pivoting to DFR, selling to cities as an emergency response tool—“Hit a button, it goes to shots fired, fire calls”—you’re selling this force multiplier to agencies with hiring issues, small departments, high response times. Now it’s not gonna happen—we know it’s not. It’s gonna be bad—they can’t hide under Axon’s coverage. Someone’s gotta answer for this. Adam’s under pressure—at some point, they’ll ask him to step down. You’re selling this idea to cities, and it’s not delivering—not initially, because it’s nightmares.

Kyle Nordfors: It all comes back to money—it makes me sick, sad.

Luis Figueiredo: You set up a DFR program—one launch location, $125,000 to $150,000 a year—that’s what agencies are paying. It’s not cheap. That’s why the shift happened in DFR. A year and a half ago, we’d be talking Motorola Cape, Paladin, DroneSense getting their feet wet—not Skydio, Flock, BRINC. They didn’t exist in DFR conversations. Why’d they shift so quick? Money. Sell one launch location for $125,000-$150,000 a year with one dock—less X10s to sell standalone. Get one contract, convince the next department.

[01:18:00]

Bobby Ouyang: It’s not hard convincing departments with massive understaffing—additional budget goes to officers, not docks.

Luis Figueiredo: But you sell them on that idea—they’re buying into it, like that department bragging about BRINC’s DFR solution: “We can’t wait to supplement patrol functions.” Then they’ll get it—“Holy shit, this isn’t working half the time.” Horror stories about Axiom, everyone’s had problems—it’s tech, glitches happen—but the extent of issues from Skydio systems, selling this idea—it’s like, come on, you’re responsible for this.

Kyle Nordfors: The DFR model has a capacity—it won’t be as widespread as manufacturers think. Many agencies’ territories aren’t set up for it to be effective—counties, sheriff’s offices. We’ll reach DFR 2.0 capacity quick with agencies that can afford it. The next big money’s gonna be drone docks in police cruisers—off a canine switch, launch during a traffic stop. If a chase ensues, you’ve got eyes on—officer hits a button, signals the station, another officer flies it, crew resource management. More agencies could accommodate that—smaller drones in cruisers, once funding comes down.

[01:21:00]

Luis Figueiredo: Absolutely. Going back to departments ecstatic about equipment—today, legislation in Texas proposed banning DJI drones. Same day—Skydio lobbying—Texas DPS posts pictures with X10s, bragging about American-made drones. Sounds planned—day it’s proposed, pictures pop up. Texas, Connecticut—two weeks ago, Connecticut had an anti-China drone ban on the governor’s desk. Issues in Georgia too—am I missing any?

Kyle Nordfors: Vic would know the skinny on that. There’s Origin, north of you, Lewis—makes boots, jiujitsu gear, bringing manufacturing back to the US. They’re an example of how US-based companies should behave—be better, perform better than the competition. Sadly, in the drone industry, we’ve got intellectual dishonesty, manipulating, spying, hiding repeaters—a swarm of dishonesty, lying to politicians, unproven narratives. On LinkedIn, this clown said the reason we don’t have evidence of DJI spying is it’s suppressed by an AUVSI board member.

Luis Figueiredo: That’s some deep drone-state shit. Wouldn’t AUVSI put it out if they had it?

Bobby Ouyang: No, DJI’s lobbying AUVSI too—they’re taking from both sides.

Luis Figueiredo: Nah, not Michael Robbins—we know his thoughts on the drone industry.

Kyle Nordfors: The sad thing with him—his op-eds are verifiably untrue, and he’s telling politicians that. Does he even fly drones? Never seen him fly, never spoken knowledgeably on operations—just politics.

[01:25:00]

Bobby Ouyang: He has a lobbying firm, Intrepid—co-founder—while doing AUVSI. Skydio, BRINC basically.

Luis Figueiredo: Has Skydio or BRINC hired his consulting firm? Follow the money—there’s a paper trail.

Kyle Nordfors: BRINC and Skydio are big AUVSI donors. Robbins worked for the Airline Pilots Association—my union—before AUVSI. He’s been a politician in this industry the whole time. If we were worried about Chinese spying, we’d ditch our Chinese-made computers, laptops, cell phones, Alexas, Googles—but it’s just drones. TikTok.

LIRE LA SUITE : La vérité dévoilée : La véritable position d'AUVSI sur l'interdiction des drones DJI

Luis Figueiredo: Even drone detection—DJI stopped selling Aeroscope in the US years ago, but current radio-based, remote ID detection systems are based on the Aeroscope framework. Sensors from Aerial Armor—now DDX, part of Axon—majority of that infrastructure’s DJI Aeroscope stuff. Years ago, they claimed data was going to China—mitigated by AWS servers in the US, and the fearmongering went away. These systems are at airports, critical infrastructure—oil and gas, refineries—anything with remote ID detection. They forgot about it—until Skydio or BRINC goes into drone detection, then it’ll be, “Current systems have dormant DJI spy stuff, they’ll hit the switch.”

[01:28:00]

Kyle Nordfors: That highlights the intellectual dishonesty—with counter-UAS at critical infrastructure and airports, SLTT isn’t empowered to act, no airspace restrictions above it. Manipulating politicians into thinking banning drones from a country solves it is complete BS—it solves nothing. In aviation, we don’t need to reinvent the wheel—Congress needs to define critical infrastructure, set restricted areas, make it illegal to fly over it. Right now, any Joe Schmo can legally fly any drone, take pictures of critical infrastructure, and send it to whoever.

Luis Figueiredo: DJI got shit for geofencing—“Why’s DJI controlling the NAS?” They got rid of it—“They did it before the inauguration, Super Bowl—what’re they up to?” Damned if they do, damned if they don’t. I had a two-day counter-UAS class two weeks ago—point was, you can’t rely on the FAA to enforce critical infrastructure. They’re good at making public safety jump through hoops for drone programs, but enforcement? Nothing. Municipalities can’t enforce airspace, but they can enforce flying within critical infrastructure—schools, police departments, jails. Create city ordinances—not deterring bad actors, but the guy flying near an Airport for cool plane pics. If it crashes into a plane, show up—“City ordinance, here’s your ticket.” In New Jersey, at the Meadowlands—Giant Stadium, FIFA World Cup final—state police had issues with tailgaters flying drones. They’d say, “You can’t fly,”—that’s it. They got the municipality to pass an ordinance—now they can ticket, “You can’t fly here,” second or third time, tag the drone for safekeeping.

[01:32:00]

Kyle Nordfors: It’s not your jurisdiction—even safe flying isn’t. Same problem national parks have—you can launch outside and fly in. A regulation’s a good start, then take it to the FAA—“We’ve done this, still have an issue, need airspace help”—negotiate restrictions for more penalties.

Bobby Ouyang: As an airline pilot, FAA regs are written in blood—until something goes down, nothing changes. Not proactive, unfortunately.

Kyle Nordfors: That’s how regs come about. At Drone Responders, LETA conferences, we talk aviation safety culture—bridge the gap between drone pilots and manned aviation for safer skies. Shocking how little the average drone pilot—107 or not—knows about the National Airspace System. In North Carolina, operating with manned aircraft, we need to speak the same language. Drone pilots must tell helicopter pilots altitude in MSL—not AGL, not ASL—or it’s meaningless. Educate ourselves, others, to operate safely with reliable equipment.

[01:36:00]

Bobby Ouyang: Well said, Kyle. On that note, we’ll wrap it up for this episode with pilot and search-and-rescue extraordinaire, Kyle Nordfors. Thanks for joining, everyone.

Kyle Nordfors: Thanks, guys. Good seeing you.

Bobby Ouyang: Thanks, Kyle. And we are no longer live.

Delayed Video Plans and Key Features

I’ve been meaning to make this video for a couple of days since the update dropped a while ago. The standout feature they’ve introduced is exciting, though it comes with a caveat I’ll reveal shortly. One major addition is the ability to use the Pocket 3 as a webcam or for live streaming in D-Log M. This offers more dynamic range and greater control over the look. I don’t typically use it this way, but it’s a handy option if you do. The feature I’m most thrilled about, however, requires a quick trip over here to show you.

Exploring the New 40 mm Mode

The highlight I’m eager to try is the new 40 mm mode. It lets you zoom in with a crop that promises better image quality. What’s coolest is that you can still zoom further. My big questions were: How does it stack up against the regular 2x zoom? And can you zoom beyond 40 mm to something like an 80 mm field of view? Right now, you’re seeing the standard field of view. Switching to 40 mm tightens the focal length significantly.

It looks pretty neat. The downside? It doesn’t support ActiveTrack, so I can’t track myself moving around. You’re locked into the shot you frame. But how does it compare to a 2x crop on the regular camera? Here’s a side-by-side with two Pocket 3s—yes, I own two, thanks to an unfortunate incident. On one side, you’ve got the 2x crop using the joystick; on the other, the new 40 mm mode.

Medium Telephoto Mode Comparison

DJI calls it “Medium Telephoto” mode. How do they look? I’m curious: Does the background change when I get close to the camera? It’s hard to tell on these tiny screens, but with Medium Telephoto mode, you can zoom even further. So, on one side, it’s a 2x crop; on the other, it’s 40 mm mode with an additional 2x crop, still in 4K. I don’t fully grasp how DJI pulls this off, but how does it look? And up close, what about the details and out-of-focus background?

For reference, the normal field of view is 20 mm. I need to wrap this up—the tide’s coming in, and I’ll get wet soon. But check out the zoom range difference. It’s incredible how far you can now zoom on the Pocket 3 with decent quality. Cropping in 400% like this loses sharpness, but the new mode holds up better. If you’re enjoying this, consider subscribing. I test gear in Alaska‘s harshest conditions and share tips and tutorials.

Quality Insights and Limitations

I’m not sure how DJI does it, but it’s impressive. There’s some quality loss—side by side, the 2x in regular 4K mode might edge out the 40 mm mode slightly. Yet, getting an extra 2x on top of Medium Telephoto mode to reach what feels like 80 mm is wild. It starts to degrade, but for a 4x crop, it’s still decent. Well done, DJI!

A couple of limitations: As mentioned, ActiveTrack doesn’t work in this mode, so no dynamic movement tracking. Depth-wise, it doesn’t mimic a true 40 mm or 80 mm lens on a full-frame camera with shallow depth of field—it’s a bit different but still looks good. Also, it’s restricted to normal mode; D-Log M and HLG aren’t options here.

Focus Breathing Compensation

DJI also added focus breathing compensation. Normally, focusing on something close shifts the frame’s edges noticeably. With this feature, the change is far less pronounced—likely a slight crop, but much subtler than before. It’s not perfect, but for such a tiny camera, it’s a shock they’ve packed this in. It’s not on par with a big mirrorless camera like a Sony or Canon, but it’s a huge improvement. Compare the two: one camera shifts a lot, the other barely does. It’s a small but nice touch.

Wrapping Up and What’s Next

Watch my next video for 18 months of near-daily Pocket 3 use, what killed my original one, and more. Got questions? Drop them in the comments or join my live stream, most Wednesdays at 4:00 p.m. Alaska time, 8:00 p.m. Eastern. See you in the next one. Cheers!

Why ND Filters Are Important

ND filters are important because you want to get proper motion blur. I made a whole video about it—it’ll be linked up in the corner ici—but if you don’t get proper motion blur, it’s not going to look like we expect it to with our eyes. For example, if you’re doing this, you want to be able to see that your hands or fingers are blurry. It’s not right now because I’m shooting on a camera with a really high shutter speed since it’s so bright. Essentially, if you’re moving fast and you want the stuff in motion to feel like it’s moving quickly without a stuttery effect, ND filters will fix that for you.

They’ll also help you get proper exposure or allow you to do long-exposure photography if that’s your goal. For instance, with a proper shutter setting and ISO setting—say ISO 100, the lowest you can go, and a shutter speed of two times my frame rate, in this case, 1/60—the footage is completely blown out. It’s just white because I’m in a snowy area with a lot of bright sunlight. But if I put on the 64 and 128 combination filter, you can see the exposure is absolutely perfect, giving us that nice motion blur.

Motion Blur Examples and Preferences

Here’s an example of some footage without motion blur, and next to it, you can see footage with motion blur. Every movie you’ve ever seen and the way we process imagery—motion blur is the correct way. Now, I’m not saying you have to do it that way; you can do whatever you want. But to get your footage to look the way it should and the way it would if a professional drone pilot like me shot it, having motion blur is important—unless you’re doing VFX. If you want to know more about that, you’ll want to watch that other video.

Landing Pads for Practicality

I hand-launch and hand-takeoff with my drone a lot because sometimes that’s just the most practical thing. But one accessory I use very often when I’m out in dirty areas like this—snow, sand, mud, or anything similar—is a landing pad. While there are some really cheap ones on Amazon that sort of work, this one by Hoodman is by far the best I’ve found. It’s heavy enough that it won’t be blown away by the drone when you’re taking off and landing, which is a real problem with the cheap ones. It’s also waterproof, made from some great material, and it opens up and folds down really easily. It’s got a green side and an orange side. Hey, real quick—if you’re enjoying or getting value out of this video, consider subscribing. I go out and test and compare equipment in the most real-world conditions I can find here in Alaska, where I live, and I give you tips and tutorials on how to use it.

Extended Sticks for Precision with the DJI Air 3S Drone

Another thing I don’t use all the time but do use a lot are these extended sticks. All this stuff will be linked in the description. Sometimes I just run with the regular DJI sticks, but these extended sticks make a big difference. You can see the height difference between these two is huge. Because you have longer travel here versus shorter travel with the regular ones, it gives you more precise control over what the drone is doing. Especially if you’re a pinch controller like I am, it enables you to make bigger movements while having the drone respond less, so you can be more precise when trying to do really technical, complicated shots. I find the longer sticks help me quite a bit when I’m focused on flying a drone precisely and well. A lot of times, I just roll with the regular DJI sticks because they’re in the controller and I always have them with me. Occasionally, if I’m just doing something like Active Track, I’ll take off and use my thumbs to get the drone where I want it without even putting the sticks in. But if you’re going to do anything long and precise, these sticks will help quite a bit.

Screen Protectors for the DJI RC2

While we’re on the subject of controllers, if you got your Air 3S with the nice DJI RC2, which I absolutely love, I highly recommend getting a screen protector for it. It takes very little—like dropping something on it just the right way or having something fall on it—to crack the screen. A good screen protector is super inexpensive on Amazon and will save your controller screen if something hits it a little too hard or in just the wrong spot. They’re like 10 bucks, cost almost nothing, and are super worth it to make sure your controller screen is protected.

Keeping Batteries Warm in Cold Weather

If you operate in cold areas like I am today—where it’s single digits and quite cold, even though it looks nice—you’ve got to keep your drone batteries and controller battery warm. I use these Zippo electric hand warmers. They’re rechargeable and have a little USB out if you need to emergency charge something. I run them on the lowest setting to keep batteries and the drone warm while I’m hiking or out and about. This keeps my batteries warm so when I’m ready to fly, both the controller and the drone are warm enough to fly without needing to hover for a while to heat up.

Power Banks for Extra Juice

Another thing I take with me a lot to recharge controller batteries or the drone battery are these Anker power banks. They have a couple of USB-C outs, and I use these things a ton. There’s a larger and a smaller version—this is the 20,000 mAh one, and the 27,000 mAh one is also very good. Both will be linked in the description. You can recharge a drone battery with this or get a little more battery life out of your drone or controller if you need to. These go with me everywhere because they’re super valuable, especially when I’m limited on how many batteries or things I can take with me.

Conclusion

Next, you’re going to watch this video right here. I’ll see you over there. As always, if you have questions, you can ask me in the comments below or join my livestream, which happens most Wednesday nights at 4:00 p.m. Alaska time, 8:00 p.m. Eastern—at least when I’m not out in a place like this and have to hike a bunch of miles to get home. I’ll see you again soon in the next one. Cheers!

Drone Tip 1: Adjust Gain and Expo Settings

Now, I figured there was no better topic to kick off this series with than the Gain and Expo settings. This is my first tip to share with you, and it’s probably one of the most important things I could tell someone flying a drone: adjust the settings within the Gain and Expo section. It really does affect how the drone flies. If you think it’s too fast or too slow, you can go in there and tweak every parameter to change how the drone yaws, moves, and how the gimbal pitches up and down. You can completely alter the feel of your drone to make it smoother and more cinematic or faster and more responsive.

This tip teeters on the edge of being something quick I can tell you to do—go change your Gain and Expo settings—but it also requires a little more in-depth explanation due to all the different settings in that section. I’ve actually made a full video on my Gain and Expo settings, where I walk through what all the options mean. I’ll leave that link in the top corner and in the description. For this first tip, I urge you to adjust those Gain and Expo settings. I couldn’t think of a better way to start this series than with this key advice: change the way your drone flies.

Drone Tip 2: Set Signal Lost Action Properly

This next tip is all about flight safety, and I think it’s something often overlooked by people flying for fun or work. It comes down to what happens when the connection between your drone and controller is lost. So, my second tip is to make sure your Signal Lost Action is set properly before every flight.

To give you an idea of where this is in the settings—since I think a lot of people overlook it—open the live view in the Fly application, press the three dots in the top right corner, and under the Safety section (the first menu), scroll to the bottom. Tap on Advanced Safety Settings, and under Signal Lost, ensure it’s set to Return to Home, Descend, or Hover.

I always tell people that Return to Home is the way to go. If your drone is, say, 1,000 feet away and you lose connection, you don’t want it to just hover there—you want it to fly back to you and land safely so you can figure out what went wrong. But if you’re flying indoors, you’ll probably want to switch to Land ou Hover, because you don’t want the drone trying to return home inside and hitting the ceiling. Instead, you want it to land or hover in place so you can grab it wherever it’s flying.

Here’s a funny story: One day, I was flying inside a massive warehouse under construction for work. The next day, I went to take photos of an office building for sale but didn’t change my Signal Lost Action, which was set to Land. As I flew up and over some trees, the drone lost signal and landed right in the parking lot. I was wondering why it wasn’t returning home, then remembered I hadn’t adjusted the setting. I had to drive around to get it—thankfully, it was a Saturday, and the parking lot was empty. That could’ve been avoided if I’d checked my Signal Lost Action beforehand.

Drone Tip 3: Use Auto Exposure Bracketing for Photos

My next tip is for those of you who want to take still images with your drone. Whether you prefer photos over video or you’re a dual threat doing both, if you’re taking photographs, make sure you always use the Auto Exposure Bracket function in the shooting modes. When you press the shutter button, your drone’s camera will take multiple photos at different exposure levels of the same frame, which has lots of benefits.

For example, I can leave my drone’s camera on automatic exposure mode so I don’t have to worry about it. Think about everything involved in flying a drone—it’s way more complicated than using a camera on the ground. You’ve got to fly the drone, handle airspace safety, watch for manned aircraft, fly safely, check battery levels, ensure you have enough power to return home, and frame your shot properly. With so much to manage, the last thing I want to do is adjust shutter speed or ISO. I’d rather let the camera do the work and pick the best exposure from the bracketed shots when I’m at my computer.

Plus, screens on controllers or phones can be too dim or bright to judge exposure accurately. Sure, I could use the exposure value or histogram, but I find that when I try to nail the exposure perfectly, I’m usually off due to factors like the sun, colors, and screen brightness. I’d rather have five images to choose from in a controlled environment at my office. Often, when I photograph something bright from the ground, even with bracketing, the initial image is off, so I use a darker one. Overall, bracketing makes editing easier and gives you better-looking photos.

Drone Tip 4: Fly from Your Car in Cold Weather

This next tip is something I’ve done since I started flying drones, and I’ve used it a lot recently because of the cold weather here in Philadelphia: fly from your car. There’s nothing better than reaching over to your passenger seat, grabbing your drone, lowering your window, taking off from your hand, rolling the window up, and sitting in the warmth.

It’s almost impossible to get a good Drone Video or a smooth shot on the sticks when your hands are freezing or you’re wearing bulky gloves. The car is best for me because I can control the climate, plug in my controller for nearly infinite power, and see the screen better. I mentioned earlier how sunlight makes exposure hard to judge—well, in the car, I can see the screen clearly. Plus, I’ve got a good visual line of sight out the windows.

If you can’t get your car close enough to where you’re flying, I’d also suggest investing in fingerless gloves. I’ve got a pair with magnets that fold over to cover my fingers like mittens, but when I fly, I can expose my fingers for precise control on the sticks. That’s been a game-changer this season. I’ve seen people use pouches around their waist for the controller, which could work too, but your body will still get cold without enough layers or gear. For me, the car is the best spot to fly my drone.

Drone Tip 5: Use Squarespace for Your Drone Business

Moving on, our fifth tip comes courtesy of this video’s sponsor, Squarespace. As you know, Squarespace has been a great sponsor of the channel for the past couple of years, and I truly feel I couldn’t run my business without them. I wanted to take you through the back end of my website to show you how I’ve set it up.

What’s great is that with Squarespace, I started with a template and customized it exactly how I wanted. I’ve got a homepage, an about page, a contact page, and I list all the services I offer as an aerial photographer and videographer. It’s a one-stop shop for anyone who wants to hire me—they can see what I’m about, contact me, and check my work to see if I’m a good fit.

Recently, I added a print section to my Squarespace site to sell prints of shots I’ve taken in Philadelphia—like images from the Eagles’ Super Bowl parade and cool color splash photos of city landmarks. This has been a great extra revenue stream, letting me sell my work. Squarespace also offers business tools like invoicing, so I can manage everything in one place—sell prints, share info, invoice clients—without needing another service. Big thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring this video and helping me showcase my work online for over five years.

Drone Tip 6: Bring Enough Batteries and Portable Power

Tip number six is all about power. You want to ensure you have enough battery power to fly as long as you need. Drones are pretty power-hungry, so I always say four batteries are the sweet spot: three for the charging hub and one in the drone. It’s handy for travel and gives you enough juice for a good amount of flying during the day.

But if you’re away from an outlet with no extra power, you’re stuck with those four batteries. That’s why I bring portable power. I’ve got two Anker batteries in my backpack. One’s a powerhouse with 27,650 mAh, featuring one USB-A port and two USB-C ports, with 250 watts of output. I can charge multiple drone batteries at full speed or even my 16-inch MacBook Pro fully once. It’s great for extra flying or charging devices like controllers if they’re low.

Les second battery is smaller, with less capacity and power, but it has two built-in USB-C cables—one extends like a ripcord, and the other doubles as a handle. It also has a USB-A and USB-C port on the side. It’s super convenient—I can grab it and go without extra cables. I keep it in my sweatshirt pocket to charge my controller while flying. Both batteries are awesome, and I’d say always have backup power for your drones and other devices you bring.

Drone Tip 7: Pack Extra Propellers

In the same vein as bringing extra batteries—drone or portable—I’d also recommend bringing extra propellers. My next tip is to pack as many propellers as you can fit in your backpack’s small pockets.

I’ve been on jobs 2 to 3 hours from home, crashed my drone with no major damage, but nicked a propeller and couldn’t fly because it broke. If I’d brought spares, I could’ve swapped it out and kept going. This raises a bigger point: if you’re doing this for work, maybe carry a second drone—I do. But if you’re traveling with just a backpack and one drone, propellers are a common failure point. Without extras, if one breaks, you’re grounded—a silly reason to miss out on aerial shots. So, pack extra propellers—they’re vital.

Drone Tip 8: Use Grid Lines and Center Point for Framing

To me, the key to a good photo or video clip is proper framing. I take pride in angling my photos and videos so everything is lined up perfectly and symmetrically, making the frame pleasing—whether it’s a skyline, building, moving train, or boat. It has to look good to be enjoyable to watch or view.

To line everything up perfectly, turn on your Center Point and grid lines on your controller. In the Fly app, tap the three dots in the top right, go to the Camera section, and scroll down. Enable the Center Point and grid lines. You can add a diagonal line too, but I find it annoying and obstructive, so I stick with the grid and Center Point. This ensures I frame shots perfectly and create great-looking images every time.

Drone Tip 9: Use Vision Assist for Safety

For our 9th tip: use Vision Assist. I’m bookending this video with two of the most important tips I can offer drone pilots. First was adjusting Gain and Expo settings, and now Vision Assist—one of the best features DJI has added to their drones.

I’ve made videos about Vision Assist before, diving deeper into it for different drones. In short, it’s a pop-up that lets you see through the drone’s obstacle avoidance cameras. As I move side to side, it shows what’s in the direction I’m flying. It’s great because if I’m moving laterally and can’t see ahead through the main camera, I get a preview via Vision Assist.

Flying older drones without it feels like I’m blind. During an orbit shot, if I can’t see to the side, I worry about hitting something and cut my shot short to check. Vision Assist is a game-changer. For more info, I’ll link my full videos in the top corner and description.

Wrapping Up The Drone Tips

That wraps up our first tips video! I want to continue this drone tips series, building a playlist of tips to help you get better at flying your drone, taking photos and videos, and growing your business—we’ll dive into that more in future episodes. Thanks for watching, and I’ll talk to you later. Peace!

Note: Tip 10: is watch more of my videos and keep reading DroneXL. 😉

OriginalDobo Shows the Mailer’s Hidden Features

In his video, OriginalDobo showcases the Skydio mailer’s impressive tech: a 720p display, volume controls, and a rechargeable battery lasting up to nine months. But the real shocker, as he points out, is the built-in 5G AT&T SIM card that enabled Skydio to monitor the device’s location and usage without recipients’ consent. “This is data harvesting on a whole another level,” OriginalDobo says, stunned by the mailer’s ability to track whether it was moved to a recipient’s home or another sensitive spot. Ken notes that one law enforcement agency, wary of the device, even tore out the SIM card to stop the tracking.

Law Enforcement Fires Back in Video Comments

OriginalDobo’s video doesn’t just critique Skydio—it amplifies the voices of law enforcement officials caught off guard by the mailer. One of the comments from an LEO (Law Enforcement Officer) drone operator reads:

“As an LEO drone operator, I cannot stand this. I haven’t encountered this mailer myself but my department had meetings with Skydio and their reps came out to put their product on display. They had some impressive obstacle avoidance but honestly nothing that a drone a 10th of its price point wouldn’t have. And I have heard nothing good about their support after the initial purchase.”

This officer’s frustration, highlighted by OriginalDobo, underscores a growing distrust of Skydio’s tactics. An additional comment from Vic Moss, who was attending the Drone Responders Conference, adds even fuel to the fire:

“Skydio also didn’t include the normal warning and agreement sticker on the outside of the package. Agencies here are NOT happy about this. I also had a cop friend tell me their Chief secretary didn’t know what it was and threw it away.”

These reactions, in response to OriginalDobo’s pointed video, reveal a tangible impact: some agencies are rejecting the Skydio mailer outright, confused or angered by the lack of transparency.

Privacy Takes Center Stage in OriginalDobo’s Critique

OriginalDobo doesn’t hold back on the privacy implications, calling Skydio’s move a “marketing blunder” and pointing out the irony of a privacy-focused company engaging in such practices.

“If this was a Chinese company like DJI, there would be an absolute uproar,” he argues in the video, a sentiment that we at DroneXL see as a sharp jab at Skydio’s double standards. Ken also questions the legality of Skydio’s tracking, noting the absence of opt-in consent or a user agreement—key ethical missteps that could breach privacy laws depending on jurisdiction.

Industry Ripples: Skydio’s Strategy Under Fire

OriginalDobo’s video also takes a swipe at Skydio’s market position, and DroneXL sees this as a pivotal moment for the Le sUAS bleu drone maker. Known as the go-to American alternative to DJI for government clients, Skydio has leaned on Blue sUAS certification and legislative lobbying to secure its edge. But OriginalDobo warns that this incident could backfire, especially as law enforcement—Skydio’s core audience—expresses discontent.

DroneXL agrees that OriginalDobo’s commentary raises valid questions: can Skydio maintain its credibility when its actions alienate the very agencies it courts?

OriginalDobo wraps up his video with a call to action, urging viewers to confront Skydio about its practices—a move DroneXL views as a rallying cry for accountability. Reporting on this video, DroneXL sees a broader lesson for the Industrie des drones: cutting-edge marketing can’t come at the expense of CONFIANCE. Skydio’s mailer misstep may push regulators and companies alike to tighten standards around data use.

If you’ve been wondering whether to buy the DJI Mic 2, the DJI Mic Mini, or the Hollyland M2, this is the video for you. Let’s test and compare these wireless systems to see which one might be right for you. There are links to everything in the description below. I purchased all these units myself—no one sent them to me—so take that for what it’s worth. If you’d like to support the channel, there are affiliate links in the description that help me create more content like this.

Testing the DJI Mic Mini

To start, this is the sound of the DJI Mic Mini. You can see it clipped right here. There’s a little wind, so I’ve put the fuzzy windscreen on. I’ll do the same with the Hollyland and the DJI Mic 2. How does it sound? From what I’ve heard, the DJI Mic Mini sounds really good. I like it—it’s clear, clean, and has a nice sound to complement your voice. It also has noise reduction, which we’ll test in a bit.

Testing the Hollyland M2 System

This is the sound of the Hollyland M2 system, which actually surprised me. It sounds clean, clear, and crisp—pretty natural. Maybe it doesn’t have quite as much low end as the DJI systems, but it sounds great overall. I was shocked. I resisted getting these for a long time, and now I regret that because they’re really fantastic. We’ll test how they sound inside clothing soon and share tips to improve the audio in that setup.

Testing the DJI Mic 2

Next, we have the DJI Mic 2, which also sounds great but isn’t as clear. It doesn’t have as much high frequency as the Mic Mini or the Hollyland, which surprised me since it’s a larger system. But how far do these systems reach, especially the Mic Mini and Hollyland? The DJI Mic 2 has internal recording, a huge advantage for professional work in certain situations.

Range and Signal Testing: DJI Mic Mini

This is the Mic Mini now. Obviously, these are the best conditions you’ll find—there’s almost no interference around me. A big factor is what happens when you turn your body and place it between the microphone and the camera. In my experience, you can go far as long as there’s nothing between you and the camera—you’ll get a great signal. The issue arises when you put your body or other objects between the camera and the microphone. Right now, I’m about six or seven feet from the camera. Let’s turn around, start walking away, and see how far we get.

Usually, I notice drops pretty quickly when the body is between the microphone and the camera. The body attenuates RF signals well and fast. But how quickly does it reacquire the signal when you turn back? In my experience, the DJI system links back up super fast.

Range and Signal Testing: Hollyland M2

Now, let’s switch to the Hollyland M2 system. Like most of these small systems, it performs great at a distance. I’m about 200 or 300 feet away, and all these systems do well with no interference. The big difference is what happens when you put a body or something between the transmitter and receiver. I’m six or seven feet away now—let’s start walking and see how it does. You usually get drops early; it’s just part of how these work.

I’m really impressed with these mini systems. They’re small, easy to hide, and sound way better than you’d expect.

Range and Signal Testing: DJI Mic 2

Now, the DJI Mic 2. Just like the others, the big question is what happens when you put a body or something between the receiver and transmitter. Let’s find out. I’m at 10 feet—now I’ll start walking away. The Mic 2’s big advantage is its 32-bit internal recording. This means you can adjust volume after the fact and won’t lose audio. For professional work with clients, this can save the day—it has for me. Were there drops? I have backups since everything was recorded internally, so I always have the audio. But how did the transmission do?

Like the other systems, distance isn’t a big issue. I’ve gone well over a thousand feet with this system, and as long as there’s a direct line of sight to the camera, it works fine. Without a lapel, it’s larger and harder to hide. It looks nice in the sun, though it’s still cold out here.

DJI Ecosystem Advantage

A huge advantage of the DJI Mic Mini and Mic 2 over others is their direct connection to the Pocket 3, Action 5, or Action 4. Right now, you’re hearing the DJI Mic 2 through a lapel mic straight into the Pocket 3. It’s a super easy, fantastic way to get audio into a camera without an extra receiver. The Hollyland does USB-C out directly to audio too, but it’s seamless with DJI cameras.

If you’re enjoying this video, consider subscribing. I test equipment in real-world conditions here in Alaska and share tips and tutorials.

Testing Inside Clothing: DJI Mic 2

A big question is how these sound when mounted out of sight, like under clothing. The DJI Mic 2 is under my shirt and jacket now. If I move, it’s pretty good—surprising, actually. It’s mounted where it can’t move, which is key. If it’s on a shirt with a jacket over it, two moving pieces of clothing can cause issues. Now it’s on my shirt outside, with the jacket over it. Movement creates noise because the shirt and jacket shift against each other.

Testing Inside Clothing: DJI Mic Mini

Let’s try the DJI Mic Mini inside my shirt pocket with the jacket over it. If I move a lot, how’s that sound? Now, the Hollyland M2 is outside my shirt but inside my jacket. Movement causes rustling because the fabrics move independently. If you tape them together or fix the Hollyland to both, it reduces the issue. Now it’s in my shirt pocket—how does that sound? There’s some rustle, maybe a bit more, but taping it with double-sided tape on both sides eliminates a lot of that.

Using a Lapel with DJI Mic 2

Another advantage of the DJI Mic 2 is its 1/8-inch jack for a lapel. You’re hearing it now without one, and now with a lapel hidden in my hat. It sounds different—better. The mic stays in place even if you turn, keeping the sound consistent. This is a high-end Sanken COS-11D, a few hundred dollars, and I use it a lot professionally.

Noise Reduction Testing

I don’t often advocate for built-in noise reduction, but all three units have it, so let’s hear it. You’ll get better results in post with more powerful tools, but if you just shoot and post without editing, here’s how they sound.

DJI Mic 2 Noise Reduction

This is the DJI Mic 2 with no noise reduction, driving at 60 mph. Now with noise reduction on—not my favorite, but it works in a pinch.

DJI Mic Mini Noise Reduction

This is the DJI Mic Mini with no noise reduction at 60 mph. Now with strong mode noise reduction—basic does little. How’s that sound with the same noise?

Hollyland M2 Noise Reduction

This is the Hollyland M2 with no noise reduction, same conditions. Now with noise reduction on—it’s impressive for built-in, but post-production is still best.

For fun, here’s no noise reduction again, then post-processed with iZotope RX9. It’s better, though I didn’t fine-tune it. Good audio engineers can do wonders, but it costs money and time. Do you want to spend on software or just post quickly?

Specific Features and Considerations

Now that you’ve heard the differences in sound, range, and interference, let’s cover specifics. The DJI Mic 2 lets you plug in a lapel—I use a COS-11D with it into a Pocket 3 for most YouTube videos. Battery life is about 6 hours, with 18 hours total via the case. It’s $350, with 32-bit internal recording as a backup. For Sony shooters, the multifunction hot shoe interface goes digitally into the camera—no wires. The touchscreen transmitter is quick and easy, with a knob for adjustments.

DJI Mic Mini Features

The DJI Mic Mini is tiny—one of the newest systems. It’s easy to hide and links wirelessly to Action 4, Action 5, or Pocket 3. It’s $170 for the set, or $50 for a transmitter (white or black). It has the longest battery life: 11.5 hours for transmitters, 10.5 hours for the receiver, with a 5-minute charge for another hour and 48 hours total via the case. A disadvantage is it doesn’t work with the multifunction hot shoe yet, though a Mise à jour du micrologiciel hints at future support. DJI, please make one for Canon too! Controls are limited—volume only—other settings need the DJI Mimo app.

Both DJI systems pair via Bluetooth to phones or GoPros, but bandwidth limits quality, making it sound crunchy—not the mics’ fault.

Hollyland M2 Features

The Hollyland Lark M2 surprised me at $120. It has a charging case and 10 hours of transmission time. The transmitters are tiny and lightweight, great for hiding. It comes with accessories like magnetic clips and necklaces, though the wind muff is huge. There’s an 8-inch cable for cameras and a USB-C adapter for phones or Action 5 Pro. The receiver is the smallest camera-mounted one. It pairs automatically and works well.

Recommendations

I bought all these myself—they’re fantastic. It depends on your needs. For professional work, the DJI Mic 2 is ideal with its lapel option and backup recording—it’s saved me on big shoots. If you use DJI Pocket 3, Action 4, or Action 5, the Mic Mini is my favorite—small, lightweight, with 1,300-foot range (Mic 2 has 800 feet, Hollyland 1,000 feet). It’s great for YouTube on a budget. For smartphones or USB-C cameras like Insta360, the Mic Mini or Hollyland works. On a tight budget, the Hollyland M2 is fantastic.

Watch the next video linked here. Ask questions in the comments or join my livestream most Wednesday nights at 4:00 p.m. Alaska time (8:00 p.m. Eastern) for more discussion. See you in the next one—cheers!

Hi everyone, welcome to another video in my Above and Beyond series. In this installment, you’ll learn the effects of some of the most crucial drone settings and strategies you should know to create stunning aerial videos. Hi everyone, welcome back to the channel. This series, which I call “Above and Beyond,” is designed to assist those just starting in the drone hobby or for those struggling to maximize their drone’s potential. Perhaps you’ve owned your drone for a while and feel frustrated because you can’t achieve the results you want.

Purpose of the Series

My goal is to ensure you walk away with knowledge or skills that enhance your drone-flying experience. I want you to use your drones effectively. Determining the best drone movement settings can be overwhelming, especially for newcomers. I last did a tutorial on drone settings when the Mavic 2 Pro was released, so this video is long overdue.

Understanding Drone Settings

As I present these numbers, I want you to understand the effect each setting has on your drone. I won’t dictate exact numbers to use because I hope you’ll discover what works best for you through practice. Fly your drone and figure out what suits you—like, “This works best for me.” You need to decide what looks best for you through trial and error. I’m not giving you a fish here; I’m teaching you how to fish. While I’ll offer recommendations on some settings, you must ultimately decide what’s best for you and each flying situation.

Even though every drone differs slightly, the settings’ effects remain consistent. What I’m showing you will apply to multiple DJI drones. Today, I’m using the A3S, but much of this applies to most recent DJI models. To access the settings we’re discussing, click the three dots in the upper right-hand corner, then select “Control.”

Gain and Expo Tuning

You’ll see a setting called “Gain and Expo Tuning.” Click on that. Hopefully, you can see this on the screen. At the top, you’ll find three options: Cine, Normal, and Sport mode. Having three modes lets you quickly toggle between them and instantly apply your preferred settings. Yes, Cine mode is designed for slow cinematic movements, but you can customize it however you want—same for Normal and Sport modes. Adjust these settings to your liking. You can tweak just one aspect to differentiate it from the other two modes. While the baseline numbers vary slightly, the differences aren’t drastic.

Exploring Normal Mode Settings

Let’s click on Normal mode and Révision each setting. The first ones are straightforward: Max Horizontal Speed, Max Ascent Speed, and Max Descent Speed. Typically, you’ll want these set to their maximum. They affect how your drone flies forward, backward, and sideways (horizontal speed), as well as how quickly it climbs or descends in altitude (ascent and descent speeds). Let’s get the A3S airborne, and I’ll demonstrate what’s happening.

Alright, let’s move over there a bit to reduce the noise. Let me check my screen—there we go. As you may know, DJI eliminated geo zones. Thank goodness! I’m thrilled about this. There’s been some controversy, but living in a geo zone area, I had to unlock it every time I flew. Now I don’t, and I’m so happy about that change. That’s a topic for another video, but let’s get up in the air. I’ll ensure we’re above the tree line and revisit the settings.

Maximum Speeds Demonstration

Max Horizontal Speed is set to 33.6, though this varies by drone. These are the maximum speeds your drone can achieve with obstacle avoidance enabled. Let’s test it at 33.6 in Normal mode. Flying straight ahead over the railroad tracks, we’re hitting about 32 mph. Moving sideways, we’re at around 30 mph after gaining some altitude for safety. For Max Ascent Speed, pushing the left stick up, we reach about 13 mph. For descent, it’s around -3 mph—the negative indicates downward movement, though it’s not as fast as the ascent.

These settings are self-explanatory, but I wanted to demonstrate them. You can adjust them based on your needs. Why change them? The stick input for horizontal, ascent, and descent speeds depends on how far you push the stick. You can fly slower by using partial stick movement, but if you want full stick input to limit the drone to a specific speed—like matching a train’s pace without active tracking—you can set it accordingly. Hold the stick, and it won’t exceed that speed. Generally, you’ll keep these at maximum.

Maximum Angular Velocity

Now, Maximum Angular Velocity. Mine’s set high at 75 degrees per second, determining how fast the drone yaws left or right with the left stick. Let’s test it. At 75 degrees, it’s quick—perhaps too fast. I recommend around 60 degrees per second, though it varies by preference. At 20 degrees per second, it’s slow. At 90 degrees, it’s very fast—ideal if you need rapid yawing. I settle around 60 degrees for balance.

Yaw Smoothness

Next, Yaw Smoothness controls how quickly yaw engages and disengages. At one, it stops instantly—sharp starts and stops. At 100, it’s gradual, continuing to roll after releasing the stick. I set mine to 40, offering a slight drift I can edit out. Most pilots prefer 20–30, but adjust to your taste.

Brake Sensitivity

Brake Sensitivity, ranging from 10 to 150, affects how abruptly the drone stops when releasing the pitch stick. At 10, it coasts too much for my liking. At 150, it stops more suddenly. I set mine to 40 for a balanced coast. Adjust based on your flying style.

Expo Settings

Now, Expo settings—often confusing—govern stick sensitivity. At 0.9 yaw sensitivity, the drone reacts instantly to slight touches, as shown on the graph. At 0.1, there’s a delay, requiring more stick movement. I set yaw at 0.3, pitch and roll at 0.25. At 0, it’s hypersensitive; at 0.9, it’s sluggish. I aim for balance—slight motion before movement begins.

Gimbal Tilt Speed

Maximum Control Speed adjusts gimbal tilt speed, from 1 to 100 degrees per second. At 100, it’s too fast. At 1, it’s barely noticeable. I recommend 15–20 degrees per second, with tilt smoothness at 15 for a gradual stop. Reset settings if needed via “Reset Current Settings.”

That covers Gain and Expo Tuning. I hope this clarifies these settings. Questions? Leave them in the comments. Next video, I’ll cover additional drone and camera settings for more control and better video projects. Thanks for watching—I appreciate your patience with my recent content gap due to poor weather. I’m thrilled to be back in my element. Hope you’re enjoying good weather too. Fly safe and smart!

Why the DJI Neo Stands Out

The DJI Neo has become extremely popular for a couple of different reasons. First of all, this is an inexpensive drone that’s affordable for a lot of people, especially if you want to get into the hobby but don’t want to invest a lot of money. It comes in around the $200 mark, and you’re actually getting quite a bit of tech for that price. On top of that, I think a lot of people are really drawn to it for its flexibility.

Flexible Flight Options

It can be connected to one of the DJI controllers, such as the RC2 or RCN3. In that configuration, you have a more traditional drone flight with more precision and better range, allowing you to capture nice cinematic footage. But the big thing that a lot of people like is that it can be flown completely autonomously without a controller. That makes it super easy to deploy—you can take it out of your pocket, power it on, set what mode or intelligent flight feature you’d like, and it’ll take off from the palm of your hand, perform the intelligent flight task, and then come right back to you, landing in the palm of your hand.

Perfect for Casual Content Creation

If you’re a person who’s just capturing a little bit of B-roll or some content for your vlog or social media channels, there’s nothing easier than deploying a drone like this. You don’t have to connect a controller; you can just put it up, grab some interesting shots, and then continue on. For me, that’s what makes it so appealing. Quite often, when I’m out hiking or on an e-bike, I just want to capture a little bit of footage. Bringing a drone like this along with me is really easy. It does an incredible job when it comes to tracking and following, and you don’t have to worry about having a controller or what to do with it.

Tracking Made Simple

If you want to do tracking, you basically just hit a button, and it’s going to automatically start tracking you. Now, the image quality of the content captured on the DJI Neo is nowhere near the quality of something like the Mavic 3, Air 3, or even the Mini 4 Pro. That’s probably been one of the biggest complaints with it for some people. That’ll be very limiting for some, and for others, it’s not going to matter so much, especially if it’s just being used for social media.

Image Quality Considerations

If image quality is your top priority, there are definitely better options on the market—something like the Mini 4 Pro, which is another nice compact drone, or even the new DJI Flip, which has a lot of similar features to the Neo but offers much better video quality. But going back to the tracking, I think that’s probably one of my favorite features of the Neo. It’s just such an easy drone to get tracking footage with, whether you’re hiking or on an e-bike. It doesn’t fly super fast, but usually, it’s fast enough to get some interesting shots.

Durability and Ease of Use

What I really like about it is that I can put this up and have it start tracking me without the anxiety of having a more traditional drone track you—especially when you’re in something like a wooded area with a lot of trees and branches that can sometimes cause a drone to crash. When I’m hiking through a forest or on my e-bike, I very rarely track myself with an Air 3 or Mavic 3. Although they do an excellent job, there’s always that chance of a “ghost branch” that the obstacle avoidance can’t see. Those drones tend to crash if they hit a branch, and they’re quite a bit more fragile. So, for me, I just tend not to capture the content I want because I’m afraid of damaging my equipment.

With something like the Neo, though, due to its low cost, there’s not so much anxiety about damaging expensive equipment. Thanks to its ducted design, chances are when it does run into a tree or hits a branch, it’s just going to push on through. On top of that, it has an extremely robust build, and due to its light weight, if it does crash down to the ground, the chances of it being damaged are very minimal. I have crashed mine numerous times—I’ve flown it into things—and have not done any damage to it.

Confidence in Simplicity

When you take away that anxiety, you’re more apt to use it. I think for a lot of people, just because of its simplicity, durability, and the CONFIANCE you have when it’s following you, you tend to use it more because you’re not quite so worried about damaging it. Now, that’s for me, anyway—I can’t speak for everybody—but I just have a lot of faith in it when it comes to tracking. It doesn’t have obstacle avoidance like a more traditional drone, but it does a pretty good job at tracking as long as you’re avoiding obstacles for the most part. It will avoid obstacles as well.

FPV and Versatile Features

Being able to fly it autonomously or with a controller is a great feature, but on top of that, we have the option of connecting it to DJI Goggles—either the Goggles N3 or Goggles 3. We can then use something like the DJI FPV3 controller or the Motion 3 controller, and now we have a drone fully capable of FPV flight. In fact, you can fly the DJI Neo in full manual mode if that’s something you wish to do. Obviously, it doesn’t have as much power as a traditional FPV drone or even the Avata 2, but for cruising through a forest or doing some intricate movements, it’s more than capable.

On top of that, it actually supports Easy Acro. So, if you don’t want to fly in full manual mode but still want to do some complex aerial maneuvers, it’s fully capable of doing flips, rolls, and even drifting. It’s a lot of fun and can help you get some really interesting shots. So, between manual flight with a controller, autonomous flight without a controller, the ability to connect it to a smartphone and use the smartphone as a virtual controller, and the ability to fly FPV-style, this is definitely one of the most versatile drones that DJI makes.

A Great Value Drone

For $200, you’re getting a lot of tech packed into it. You get all the safety features that come standard on most DJI drones, plus the incredible flight experience that we’ve become accustomed to with all DJI drones. For a lot of people, this is going to make the perfect travel drone to capture all their adventures while they’re out traveling. It’s extremely lightweight and fits in the smallest packs, so you don’t have to worry about being burdened with a lot of equipment. It’s just enough to get the shots you want to capture—whether it’s a smooth cinematic shot or an autonomous shot to get some interesting perspectives.

Réflexions finales

I’m really happy that DJI has introduced this new category of drone. We’ve seen them expand that even further with the DJI Flip. It’s going to be really interesting to see what they do with it in the future. Well, folks, those are my thoughts on the DJI Neo. I would love to hear what you think of it and what your user experience has been with it—let me know down in the comments. Want to thank you for taking the time to watch this video. Hopefully, you enjoyed it and found it valuable. Thanks a lot, and we’ll see you in the next one!

Setting Up for Auto-Editing

I’m demonstrating this on an iPad, but it works identically on phones, supporting both Android and iOS devices. The DJI Fly app is a robust editing tool—intuitive and feature-rich. Even if you use a controller like the DJI RC2 with the Fly app built in, downloading it to a mobile device is recommended for editing. To start, tap the “Create” button at the bottom. You’ll notice editing must be done in portrait mode on the device. You can output footage in 16:9 or 9:16, but on an iPad, it remains portrait. Launching the editor brings you to a screen with “New Project” and “One-Tap Edit” options. “New Project” is for timeline editing, as shown in my prior video.

Exploring One-Tap Edit

Today, we’re focusing on “One-Tap Edit.” There are two auto-editing methods: the “One-Tap Edit” button or pre-made templates—I’ll show both. Starting with “One-Tap Edit,” it displays all footage on your device. Footage must be in an album to be used. For example, iPhone footage isn’t automatically in an album, but transferring from a drone or action camera places it in the DJI album. Switch albums by tapping at the top, select one with your footage, and access your videos. Next, pick clips for your auto-edit. I’ll select a few here—it recommends at least five clips for optimal results. I’ve chosen eight.

Previewing and Customizing Clips

Before moving on, tap the expanding icon at a video’s top to preview it full screen and decide if it’s worth including. You can also add highlight markers to flag specific moments for the auto-edit. This is optional—the DJI Fly app analyzes footage to pick highlights—but it’s key if you want certain segments included. Markers appear at the bottom; tap “X” to remove accidental ones. Reorder clips by dragging them to set their sequence. Once clips are chosen, hit “Next.” The app analyzes the files to find the best parts, taking a few minutes—up to five—based on footage volume. My 20-30 minutes of footage was cut to one minute and four seconds. Preview it with added music and tweak as needed.

Fine-Tuning Your Auto-Edit

You can customize more. Set the aspect ratio—default is 16:9, ideal for platforms like YouTube—or switch to 9:16. To adjust audio, choose from templates like “Aerial” or “Nature” at the bottom and preview the new theme. Fine-tune music by tapping “Music,” then “More” for the full library. Under “Edit,” view all clips in the auto-edit. Reorder by tapping and dragging, then confirm. Select a clip, tap “Extract” to see its source, and adjust start/stop points or speed. Crop it to zoom in, or replace it from the gallery. Delete unwanted clips, or add text and effects—like “Drone Video“—and adjust its duration.

Converting to Timeline and Exporting

For greater control, convert the auto-edit to a timeline via “Edit More.” This offers a familiar timeline with standard tools. Set resolution (720p to 4K) and frame rate (30 to 60 FPS), then tap “Export” to save to your camera roll. The Fly app provides sharing options for social media, or you can share manually from your Photos app. On the main page, unfinished edits save to the “Drafts” folder. Tap a draft—like ours—to adjust and re-export.

Using Pre-Made Templates

Alternatively, use pre-made templates like “Hiking Adventure.” Preview it—it requires 15 clips for a 25.1-second edit. Tap “Use,” fill slots with clips (I was one short), and remove extras if desired. Hit “Next” to analyze and generate the edit, then refine it as before.

Conclusion

That’s a quick overview of auto-editing with the DJI Fly app! It’s perfect for those short on time or uninterested in complex editing, producing shareable clips for social media, family, or friends. It lets you focus on flying and capturing with drones like the Mini 4 Pro or DJI Neo. Hope you found this video valuable—give it a thumbs up if you did; it’s much appreciated. Thanks for watching, and see you in the next one!

Tracking Modes of the HoverAir X1 Pro

There are essentially three core ways the HoverAir X1 Pro can track you. The first is to simply use the drone by itself—no additional things, just a drone. Tap, and it follows you. Simple, right? That’s the way we’re going to use it.

You can also use your phone to control additional settings and get a bit of a preview, or you can use the beacon to effectively do the same thing. I’ll cover all those in my full Révision, but for the gauntlet, we’re just going with the clean, simple version of just the drone itself. For the mode I’m using, I’m opting for the new cycling mode in narrow. There are two options: narrow means it’s going to follow the exact path and not take any shortcuts, versus open, which might smooth things a bit more and take shortcuts. We don’t want that—we don’t want to hit a tree. Off we go!

Tree Tunnel Stage

As you can see from a height standpoint, it’s not that high right now—it’s just a couple of meters above me. Everything in the tree tunnel should be good so far. Still, this is where I kill a lot of drones, especially bigger ones. Smaller drones tend to do a better job of this for whatever reason. I think it’s because smaller drones just know not to do stupid things, whereas bigger drones often go off and do dumb stuff like going up into the trees, swinging out to the left and right, and all the things that kill drones. Right now, my speed is about 28 km/h, so roughly 15–20 mph or something like that. So far, so good. We’re going to make a turn up here to the left in just a moment. We’ll bring the speed up a little bit—we’re about 30 km/h now, so 20 mph. It’s definitely a little higher than I would have preferred, but so far, so good. It’s only got another 100 meters before we turn off and make it into the next stage—the transitionary stage—a stage that has downed a lot of drones for no good reason whatsoever.

Transitionary Stage Challenges

Let’s see how we do. Sometimes with people over here, we may have to reset things a little bit. Yep, we’re going to make an adjustment to the stage. What I’m going to do here is wait for the people to move out of the way. Hey, future me from the tree section right here—if you’re finding this video interesting or useful, just watch it all the way through. That’s the only thing the YouTube gods care about these days, and it would mean quite a bit to me and the channel (which is, I guess, just me). Thanks for watching! Here we go—off we go, and then to the right into the transitionary phase. This transition also takes down a lot of drones for some reason. They’ll hit one of those two signs right there, and my tire is feeling a little flat all of a sudden. Okay, so we’re going to have to go off-roading up here to get around this dog walker. We’ll go over here—easy peasy stuff—but the DJI Flip managed to hit that tree over there just an hour ago. Something that shouldn’t be all that difficult to follow here, but sometimes drones do weird things. I’ll get myself back on the path up here, and we’ll transition into the high-speed section.

High-Speed Section

Here we go in three, two, one—yeah, we’re off! Okay, we’re going to slowly bring it up to about 40 km/h or so. Right now, we’re at 30 km/h, so 20 mph, going through 33, 35, 38, and we’ll bring it up to 40 now—41, 42. It starts slowing down because we’ve got people up here, and I know from past testing that 44 km/h is the limit on this road. Back on the course here, you can see it’s following me with no problems at all. That said, I’m going to fast-forward through all this because, honestly, it’s a little bit boring and repetitive. Instead, we’re going to jump ahead to some of the more exciting and complicated stuff.

System Errors and Dolly Tracking Mode

“Bottom camera communication failure, please restart the device. System error, please restart your device.” This is one of the problems with the HoverAir—it always has a lot of excuses, errors, and random things that happen for no obvious reason. So, we’ll try again. Okay, next step—we’re going to put it in Dolly tracking mode. Dolly tracking means it should stay in front of us and film from ahead before it might eventually fall behind. We’ll see how well it works out here. There’s a little bit of a breeze, but it’s really not too much, to be honest. I’m going to start off a little slow here because speed is definitely a factor in Dolly track mode. But watch what happens as I get going a little faster. It’s doing really good right—whoa! Dude, what are you doing, little buddy? Trying to kill me? It’s doing really good right now—up until the very moment I say that. Every time I give these drones a compliment, they go off the rails. Okay, you can see it’s on this little flip—it’s going to follow me now. So at this point, it’s basically just tracking from behind. For fun, if I slow back down again, let’s see what happens. We’ll transition back to Dolly track—slow down a bunch. Let’s see—will it make that transition? No, it will not.

Deep Dark Woods Challenge

Up here is the start of the deep dark woods. I’m going to put it into follow-flat-mid mode, and let’s give this a roll. There we go—it’s in mid. I put it on flat for the altitude, so it should stay basically below my head, which means it should be safe. If I can cycle through it, it can follow through it into the woods. Now, this little branch here could be a problem right there. We’ll see how it handles that—it doesn’t even blink, it just goes straight through. By the way, at this point, the DJI Flip had crashed three times in the last 40 meters. So yeah, we’re going to go this way. We’re going to start yolo-ing through here, and it’s going to get incrementally more difficult as I keep riding—both for me, maybe the mud, but also the route itself. We may make it even more challenging if we need to. If this thing doesn’t easily crash into something, we’ll just add more and more complexity to it.

Increasing Complexity

So, we’ll go over here—a little soft in there. This is too easy—we’re going to go somewhere else. Hang tight! Let’s see if we can do it right. It’s done it running, so let’s see if it can do it while cycling. We’ll go slow at first—don’t worry. This is hilarious—this is a true test of how well it can follow directions on my precise path using that narrow mode, and this is definitely impressive. There we go—good job! Now we’ve got the next section across the street here. We’re going to pick up speed a little bit, just for fun. I appreciate that they put down some new bark on this—it makes it a little easier to go faster right now, no mud. Here comes a sharp turn—will it cut the corner and find death? This tree right here could be tricky—oh, easy peasy, mac and cheesy! It’s got this.

Pushing the Limits On The HoverAir X1 Pro

We’re going to go backwards a lot faster though—because why not? Easy again, demonstrating this thing is absolutely the king when it comes to tracking. Even the Skydio couldn’t pull off that kind of stuff—it would’ve been caught up by its minimum thresholds on either side. But now we’re going to pick up the pace a little bit, and this is where following directions is even more critical so it doesn’t try to shortcut anything. This probably doesn’t look super fast, but it’s trying to get its best shot—me too! There we go, back across into the arguably tighter section, I think. Certainly the more complex section. Oh, this is amazing—come on, you can do it! You’ve got like 30 meters left. That’s tricky—tricky for me on a bike. There we go—can it do it? 10 meters left—did it clear it out? That is astonishing—easily, by far, the best tracking drone out there, period.

Réflexions finales

Oh, it even came towards me—yeah, I’m talking about you! Good job, little buddy—high five! There we go—good job. That is amazing. Now, the thing is, tracking is only one piece of a drone—especially if that drone ends up in multiple pieces. In terms of whether or not to buy this drone, I’ll have a full review coming up that covers all the other pieces. While this thing is amazing at tracking like this, it’s not super awesome at most other things. So, this is really a drone you want for tracking more than anything else, versus the DJI world, where it’s the best for everything else but so-so—and getting better—at tracking. So again, a separate video on this as a general drone, including some of the quirks you saw earlier, like it wouldn’t take off and gave random error messages—all that kind of stuff. But in terms of the gauntlet, this thing reigns supreme.

A Little Secret

Here’s a little secret: this is actually the second time it’s done this. I did this a couple of months ago and never finished editing it. I’m happy to say: one, it’s still the same drone, still alive, with a couple more scratches; and two, it did exactly the same thing as the first time around, but even better. The first time, I didn’t do this on the bike—I just ran it—but now it nailed it on the bike, and that is super cool. So anyways, there you go. Thanks for watching, and have a good one!

Industry Pioneer and Public Safety Visionary Passes Away

A sad first story: industry pioneer and public safety visionary Romeo Durscher has sadly passed away this week. Romeo was a pioneer of drones for public safety with the mantra “Des drones pour le bien.” He worked for DJI as their Director of Public Safety Integration, where he led and assisted departments in getting started with drones. In 2018, the Camp Fire in California destroyed an entire town. Romeo led 15 drone teams to create high-definition maps of over 177,000 acres in the days that followed the incident. He said, “After Santa Rosa, I thought I’d seen it all; then came Paradise. It’s beyond what one could imagine.” This was just one of the many ways Romeo helped cultivate drones in the public safety world.

Romeo then moved on from DJI to Auterion, where he pushed to ensure that public safety could use the best tools possible for their mission. Earlier this year, Romeo was given the Law Enforcement Drone Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award. He was also named one of the 25 most influential people in the drone industry and received the Golden Medal from the Estonian Chamber of Commerce. Haye from DroneXL.co put it best:

“Romeo Durscher’s passing leaves a big void, but his vision soars on. The drone industry stands at a crossroads, poised for growth yet challenged by regulation and ethics. Romeo showed us the way—technology must serve a purpose, not profit alone.”

Texas Bill Proposes Drone Shot Downs Over Private Property

Next up, a Texas bill would allow drones to be shot down if they’re flown over private property. There are several issues with this bill, as you can imagine, starting with 18 USC 32. This law protects civil aircraft both in the air and on the ground.

It states, “Whoever willfully sets fire to, damages, destroys, disables, or wrecks any aircraft in the special aircraft jurisdiction of the États-Unis or any civil aircraft used, operated, or employed in interstate, overseas, or foreign air commerce” is in violation.

We also know how poor people are at identifying aircraft, with several of the New Jersey “drones” actually being airliners and smaller aircraft. Not to mention, what goes up must come down. So, if you’re in Texas, please reach out to your state legislature and let them know this is a really bad idea.

DJI Mavic 4 Leaks Reveal Innovative Features

Finally, DJI Mavic 4 leaks: DroneXL.co and Jasper Ellens are reporting a new rumor that the Mavic 4 will be able to roll the gimbal up to 180° in both directions. You heard that right—roll! That’s kind of interesting and not something we’ve seen on any drone so far, other than the Inspire series. This would mean you could take native vertical shots with all lenses and even have the ability to record videos upside down. This could make for some quite interesting footage, I think. We’ll have to wait and see.

We’ll see you on Monday for the live next week. There will be no Friday live as we are getting ready to move into our new building. New sets and new looks are coming out very soon. Have a great week!

Flying fpv is the kind of activity that only the brave at heart can stand and will try to repeat after their first flight.

Imagine being a normal human being with a standard style of living. Like waking up, meditate, entering Facebook, going to the gym, doing some business, eating, playing with your dog or with your kids, watching some Netflix and going to sleep. Normal. Being normal is good. But at one point in your life you decide it’s time to add some adrenaline to your life. But it’s not adrenaline, it’s adrenaline with Red Bull concentrate and ketamine.

You have the urge to fly a sharp beast that goes up to 120 mph (or more) with a remote control so sensitive that if you move one stick one millimeter in the wrong direction for a fraction of a second, you can destroy your whole inversion. Or injure you or someone else very bad.

So, why do some pilots choose the path of crazy speed and hard maneuvers?

I don’t know the exact reason, I just want to tell you that I am one of those drone pilots.

An FPV drone is a man-made weird species of mechanical bird. It consists of a chassis, an electronic speed controller or ESC, flight controllers, antenna, camera, motors and the controller. Of course you’ll also need the FPV goggles. Those goggles consist of two (sometimes one) little monitors that stand right before your eyes and make you feel as if you were inside the drone. 

You control them in a slightly different way than you flew stabilized drones. The left stick is a throttle, (and what a throttle, that stick will be your nightmare for the first few weeks flying these little demons) and the right stick is to choose where to send your drone. And that’s all. Grab this little Formula 1 aircraft and try not to crash at full speed against your car’s door.

Or your neighbor’s dog

Or your mom’s window

Or your next door friend kids

CONFIANCE me: It’s not easy

But once you start getting used to the throttle (lying on the floor in a fetal position crying is one of the side effects of fighting that damm throttle) and you learn how to actually take off, you have to learn, again, how to fly.

And there’s the beat. Once again. You wanna know another fun thing about Drones FPV?

Their battery

An FPV drone battery can last between 3 and 7 minutes. A large one will last 20 minutes. Hey, this is not the Boston marathon. Especially if you develop an aggressive style of flight.

So, what are we going to do if we want our money to last?

Step number one: THE CONTROLLER

Get a DJI FPV Controller (don’t kill me now guys, I have flown analog for some time, and we are trying to help new pilots here, and as you and I know, the DJI path is the one with less resistance) Any DJI FPV Controller (new or used) will help you, the 1st, 2nd or 3rd generation. At this moment, as we are going to use simulators, the generation doesn’t matter. Later on, the generation of the controller will determine which system will we use to fly our FPV drones.

A couple bucks later, a package arrives at your front door. Never in your life have you been more excited than now.

If you live in a pirate-porch free area, even better. Rush to the door, and there it is, your brand new (or slightly used) FPV RC. Look at it, Precious Piece of Plastic. He even has his mother’s eyes! Plug it on a charger and jump to your computer. In the meantime, look for a small 1.5 mm Hexagonal Socket Wrench, you will need it later!

Step number two: THE SIMULATOR

Go to steam and download the installer, create your account and in the search bar write down: Liftoff FPV.

I have to insist on that none of my articles nor YouTube videos are sponsored by any brand (I wish), so in this moment my recommendation for this simulator is simple: I have a lot of hours logged on this one and plain simple, for me, it’s the more realistic one of the ones I have installed and use on a regular basis. Why? Because of its realism regarding accidents.

It’s simple, you crash = your propellers break and you have to reset the scenario. That’s something that other simulators won’t have (yet).

I think that the price is around $15. Sometimes you can get it cheaper, or in a combo with the mini drones add-on. You just need the base game. Install it, and get a GOOD DATA CABLE with the USB-C end. I play on Mac (I never thought of ANYONE saying that sentence, but after the release of Mac “M” processors, everything changed, nowadays you can actually play very decently on a Mac).

I have to insist on the data cable because I don’t want you to be frustrated (as your nice author on his first 50 times trying to connect the controller). My Mac Mini absolutely refused to connect to the controller if I used a USB-C to USB-C cable. So I tried with another cable. And another. Then, I started looking at old DJI boxes. And I found this DJI-branded cable,

USB-A to USB-C and VOILÁ! The controller appeared on the simulator as a C5 Controller.

After that the simulator will help you in the process of doing the configuration of the controller. Some advice that will make your life (and flights) easier is to configure the “reset” command, to the C1 button on the controller.

Step number three: HERE COMES THE BOOM!

FPV controller: check

Liftoff installed and controller configured: check

I hope you will be a very, very patient person. I wasn’t. But in my case, my first time flying was with an analog 5” quad. And It took me at least two weeks to learn how to take off (unlike DJI’s GPS-stabilized drones we are used to). Did I tell you that almost three or four times I brought the drone back to me? So, one of the main advantages of learning how to fly with a simulator is that your nose/ears/eyes/hands integrity is not at risk at all.

So the best you can do is to get used to grabbing the sticks like a pinch, breathe deep, and start very, very slow.

You have to just keep practicing. After at least 4-5 hours in the simulator you should be able to take off and fly at the same altitude without skyrocketing or crashing to the ground. Now you have one foot closer to the Drone Valhalla, where the real pilots live: the manual territory.

Step number four: MONEY SAVED

When I started flying FPV, the DJI FPV Drone didn’t exist. And yeah, there were simulators back then, it was just that I didn’t know how to use them or connect to them. And the expenses from EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I crashed the drone. It was $25, $60 and a couple of times $100. So if I knew that I could just buy the RC and spend a lot of hours there previously to just crash in real life, I could have saved some useful cash.

So, what are you waiting for? I want to see your flights!

Did you like this article? Do you already fly on a simulator?  Let me know in the comments!

A Closer Look at the BRINC Contract

The $2.17 million agreement with Seattle-based Brinc Drones Inc. covers the acquisition of seven drones, along with the infrastructure and services needed to deploy them effectively. This includes charging stations strategically placed across the city, operational software, maintenance, and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approval processes. BRINC, a company founded by 24-year-old CEO Blake Resnick, offered Newport Beach a 30% discount off the list price, reducing the financial burden of this high-tech investment. The contract also includes provisions for equipment upgrades in years three and five, ensuring the fleet remains state-of-the-art.

Six of the drones are BRINC’s Responder model, touted by Resnick as “the world’s first purpose-built 911 response drone.” These units are designed to integrate with computer-aided dispatch systems, enabling them to launch from a citywide network of recharging stations within seconds of a 911 call.

“We grab that GPS coordinate and automatically dispatch an aircraft to that location,” Resnick explained during the council meeting, emphasizing a response time measured in “tens of seconds.”

The seventh drone, a smaller, more agile model, is tailored for SWAT operations and crisis negotiations, boasting features like night vision, thermal imaging, and real-time 3D mapping capabilities.

Technical Breakdown of the Drone Fleet

The Responder drones form the backbone of Newport Beach’s DFR program. Five of these will be stationed at key locations to provide rapid coverage across the city’s 25 square miles, operated by civilian detectives from the newly opened Crime Information Center (CIC). A sixth Responder will support patrol officers directly. Each drone is equipped with live-feed cameras, offering real-time surveillance without exposing officers to immediate risk. With a flight time of approximately 40 minutes—based on similar models like the BRINC Responder showcased in 2024—these drones rely on their charging “nests” to maintain operational readiness.

The seventh drone, likely a variant of BRINC’s LEMUR 2, brings specialized capabilities to the table. Its compact design allows it to navigate confined spaces, such as building interiors, making it ideal for tactical scenarios. The inclusion of thermal imaging and LiDAR-based 3D mapping—technologies proven in BRINC’s prior deployments—enables precise reconnaissance, potentially de-escalating high-stakes situations like barricades or hostage crises. These specs align with BRINC’s focus on purpose-built UAS for public safety, a niche it has carved out since Resnick founded the company in 2017 following the Las Vegas mass shooting.

Strategic Deployment and Operational Impact

Newport Beach’s drone program builds on a foundation of recent tech upgrades at the Newport Beach Police Department (NBPD). The CIC, launched in January 2025, serves as the nerve center for this initiative, staffed by three civilian detectives who will oversee drone operations alongside data from 69 automated license plate readers (ALPRs) installed in October 2024. This integration reflects a broader trend of law enforcement leveraging technology to enhance efficiency, a strategy already validated by trailblazers like Chula Vista, California, where DFR programs resolved 25% of calls without officer dispatch.

The five Responder drones will be prepositioned to ensure a two-minute response time to any corner of Newport Beach, a capability that could prove transformative in emergencies like burglaries, missing persons searches, or wildfires. Posts on X from the NBPD on February 26, 2025, highlighted this goal, noting the program’s potential to “improve response times, increase situational awareness, and assist in fire and rescue efforts.” Meanwhile, the tactical drone’s maneuverability offers a safer alternative to sending officers into volatile situations, a point underscored by Chief Dave Miner during a January 31 community update.

Industry Context and Market Implications

Newport Beach’s adoption of BRINC’s technology reflects a surging demand for DFR programs across the U.S. Agencies in cities like Hawthorne, California, and Schenectady, New York (en anglais), have also partnered with BRINC, attracted by its all-in-one ecosystem—hardware, software, and training bundled into a single package. The company’s Responder drone, unveiled in May 2024, has positioned it as a direct competitor to firms like Skydio and DJI, though BRINC’s emphasis on American manufacturing aligns with growing regulatory scrutiny of Chinese-made UAS. Recent moves to ban DJI drones in government use, likely influenced Newport Beach’s choice of a National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)-compliant provider.

This contract also signals BRINC’s rising market clout. With over 600 public safety agencies already using its products and more than $80 million in funding from investors like OpenAI’s Sam Altman, the company is scaling rapidly. For Newport Beach, the discounted $2.17 million deal—equivalent to roughly $435,000 per year—offers a cost-effective entry into DFR compared to developing an in-house program, though it’s not without risks. The reliance on a single vendor could limit flexibility if BRINC’s technology fails to evolve with the market.

Regulatory and Infrastructure Considerations

Deploying drones in Newport Beach isn’t just a matter of flipping a switch. The city lies almost entirely within John Wayne Airport‘s airspace, requiring NBPD to secure FAA waivers for beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) operations—a hurdle other agencies, like Redmond, Washington, overcame in 2024 with FAA approval. BRINC’s contract includes FAA coordination, but the process could delay full deployment beyond the projected 90-day timeline post-approval.

Infrastructure poses another challenge. The charging stations, or “nests,” must be installed on rooftops with reliable power and cellular connectivity, a task complicated by Newport Beach’s coastal environment and dense urban layout. While BRINC’s Responder Station is designed for autonomy, ensuring airspace deconfliction with commercial traffic and recreational drones will demand robust software integration, likely via BRINC’s LiveOps platform.

A High-Stakes Bet on Drone-Driven Safety

Newport Beach’s $2.17 million investment in BRINC’s Technologie des drones heralds a new era for its police force, blending rapid response with tactical precision. If successful, the program could set a benchmark for mid-sized cities, proving that UAS can bridge staffing gaps and enhance public safety without breaking the bank. Yet, the initiative isn’t without scrutiny—privacy advocates may question the expansion of aerial surveillance, and technical hiccups could test the NBPD’s reliance on a fledgling vendor.

Looking ahead, this move could ripple through the Industrie des drones, accelerating DFR adoption as agencies weigh cost, capability, and compliance. For now, Newport Beach stands at the forefront of a shift that’s redefining first response—one drone at a time.

DroneXL’s Take

The NBPD’s leap into DFR aligns with a critical pivot in public safety tech, but its success hinges on execution. BRINC’s Responder offers impressive specs, but real-world performance—especially in a coastal city with airspace constraints—will be the true test. If the NBPD can navigate regulatory and logistical hurdles, this could become a model for others. Still, the single-vendor approach raises a red flag; diversification might mitigate risks in this fast-evolving field.

Photo courtesy of the city of Newport Beach / YouTube

The Dock 2 featured a smaller form factor and dramatically simplified the experience. A brand-new drone, the Matrice 3D and 3TD, was developed with fixed arms that sat high above the drone to ensure a seamless dock landing experience with no moving parts necessary. It would just slot itself into place and begin charging from the inductive plate on the bottom. After that massive redesign, DJI has found a winning formula as the DJI Dock 3 builds upon what they’ve learned with the Dock 2, making it a more robust system that can operate in colder winters, hotter summers, and windier conditions.

Design and Features of Dock 3

You can tell right away that the design of the Dock 3 is similar, with a slightly larger form factor at 55 kg compared to the 34 kg of the Dock 2. The drone that goes inside, the Matrice 4D, has a similar-style airframe but is also larger to fit the bigger dock and features a payload that resembles the Matrice 4T. The actual maximum takeoff weight has a slight variance, with the M3D allowing for up to 1.61 kg and the M4D allowing for up to 2.05 kg. The differences between the Dock 2 and Dock 3 show just how robust DJI has made this new system, with a wider range of operating temperatures from -30°C to +50°C, a better ingress protection rating for the dock at IP56, and the ability to land in higher wind speeds at 12 m/s.

Performance Enhancements

Faster charging times and improved electronic components make this a more reliable dock that can be used in more scenarios. The Matrice 4D and 4T, on the other hand, are some of the smartest drones DJI has made, with highly capable payloads, new autonomous flight modes, intelligent detection features, increased flight time, and an overall improved control base from DJI FlightHub 2, making data collection efficient and intuitive.

Regulatory Challenges

Now, here’s the thing: local rules and regulations are going to hinder your usage of the Dock 3 to its fullest potential—or really any drone-in-a-box system for that matter—unless you have the necessary safety components. If you have a drone docked on a construction site, on a rooftop, in an urban area around critical infrastructure, or in a completely remote area, chances are you’re going to want that drone to fly completely autonomously with no human interaction. You don’t want to have someone on site as a visual observer watching the drone. You might be in a position where the drone needs to fly over people on the ground. These are scenarios that are illegal without proper approvals from your local government.

Safety Solutions

This means that for the proper usage of a fully autonomous system like the Dock 3, you’ll need to have a parachute system on top of your drone, which AVSS has in development for the Matrice 4D and 4TD, both of which fit inside the Dock 3, just like the AVSS parachute design for the previous drones used in the Dock 2. The parachute for the M4D for the DJI Dock 3 sits on top of the drone and interfaces with the firmware through the PSDK port. This allows it to communicate with the drone to immediately stop the motors in the event of an aircraft failure, which is a vital part of the process. Without the flight termination system, the spinning motors could sever the line holding the parachute. For users in the USA and Canada, AVSS’s parachute will enable flight over people and will be a category drone for those in L'Europe. The AVSS parachute will also enable C5 and C6 compliance with MOC 2512 and MOC 2511. Furthermore, AVSS will be offering a standalone C6 FTS for STS-02 standard scenarios, which enables BVLOS operations.

Practical Integration

What’s great about the design of the parachute recovery system and the standalone FTS is how it sits on top of the drone and can stay indefinitely mounted to the Matrice 4D or 4T. It really becomes a part of the system and won’t need to be constantly removed and reinstalled unless you need to transport or service the drone.

Use Cases and Compliance

Let’s think about the use cases of the Dock 3 and, really, a drone-in-a-box solution in general. For me, I would love to leave this mounted at a construction site to provide constant aerial photos and videos of the progression of the job to my client. To efficiently accomplish this, I would set an autonomous mission to be completed on a routine basis without me being on site or controlling the drone. Therefore, it would be a must that I have an AVSS parachute to comply with my local government’s rules and regulations. Utility companies that want to monitor their infrastructure could keep the Dock 3 in some of the most remote areas with as harsh conditions as you can imagine, thanks to the improvements made to the Dock 3. But guess what? They also need an AVSS parachute to comply with laws. Law enforcement agencies that are looking to plant docks around their city, town, or county for dispatching to incidents will also need this parachute if they plan on flying out of line of sight and above people.

So, I think you get it by now. If you want god take full advantage of the Dock 3 to place this in a remote area to fly out of line of sight or over people, you need to make sure that the drone inside has an AVSS parachute on it so that you stay compliant and fly safely.

thanks for watching cette vidéo and I’ll see you in the next one. Peace!

Comparing Skydio and Hover

The Skydio and the Hover differ quite a bit in performance and design. For some users—not everyone, but some—I believe the Hover could definitely replace their Skydio. One of Skydio’s standout features was its incredible obstacle avoidance. I still don’t think any drone on the market matches the Skydio’s obstacle avoidance capabilities. The Hover, on the other hand, has minimal obstacle avoidance—some at the back when flying in reverse, but it’s mediocre and doesn’t work the same way. However, when it comes to tracking, even though they approach it differently, I think the Hover is a solid contender. This is based on my personal experience and how I use my drones.

Tracking Performance

I can’t speak for everyone, but I had issues with my Skydio’s tracking. It was a bit unpredictable in its movements, and sometimes I felt I wasn’t in control. When tracking autonomously, you’re not supposed to be, but it could get erratic. The obstacle avoidance, while doing its job, made it jump around, often producing unusable footage. At times, it moved so quickly and unpredictably that it was almost scary, venturing into areas I didn’t want it to go. The Hover, lacking obstacle avoidance, follows your exact path. If you avoid obstacles, it does too, resulting in much smoother footage. It’s less aggressive, which I find better for my needs—tracking me on an e-bike, hiking, or riding a dirt bike.

Front and Side Tracking

The Skydio excelled at tracking from the front or side, while the Hover offers these options too, but they’re limited and less effective in some scenarios. For a casual hike through a forest, it works well, but at high speeds—like on a mountain bike or e-bike—front tracking struggles. However, the Hover’s caged design is a plus. The Skydio’s exposed blades made it prone to hitting small branches or wires it couldn’t detect, often leading to crashes in forests. The Hover’s enclosed props let it bounce off branches and keep tracking. Even if it hits the ground, it’s durable—I’ve crashed mine several times without damage, though it’s not indestructible, as posts on Facebook and other groups show.

Control and Safety

The Hover gives me more control, especially around people. You should never use autonomous tracking near others since you’re not in control, but the Skydio was louder and more obtrusive. On a bike path, if someone appeared, it was tricky to stop or land it safely. With the Hover, it follows right behind you—when you stop, it stops. You can hold out your hand, and it lands, making it feel safer and more manageable around people.

Ease of Use

The Hover’s ease of use and deployment stand out compared to the Skydio. The Skydio is significantly bigger and more cumbersome, harder to carry along. The Hover folds up, fits in your pocket, and requires no extra controllers. You pull it out, unfold it, press a button, and it’s tracking—no need to even get off your bike. This convenience matters; bulky drones tend to get left behind. Both drones offer beacons for enhanced tracking—the Skydio had one, and the Hover’s is more advanced with a preview window to ensure proper framing. The Hover beacon also supports a joystick for basic maneuvers or a second joystick for traditional control with a built-in screen, plus smartphone mounting for a larger preview.

Speed and Image Quality

The Skydio had an edge in tracking at higher speeds with obstacle avoidance, ideal for extreme mountain biking or fast activities. The Hover tracks at 42 km/h, sufficient for most uses, and has a speed boost up to 60 km/h briefly. For image quality, both do well, though they’re dated compared to modern DJI drones like the Air 3 or 4 Pro. They’re fairly equal, but the Hover Pro Max has a larger sensor and can film in 8K, which is impressive for its size.

So, folks, that’s my take on whether the Hover could replace a Skydio. It depends on how you use it, what you’re tracking, and your activities. For me—riding e-bikes, dirt bikes, and hiking around trees—the Hover performs better. Hopefully, you enjoyed this and found it valuable. Give it a thumbs up if you did; it’s always appreciated. Thanks for watching, and we’ll see you in the next one!

New Lossless 2x Zoom Feature

The first of the three new features is a lossless 2x zoom. This provides a crisper 2x zoom than before, though the previous version remains available. Previously, you could press the joystick or use on-screen controls to zoom in slowly to 2x. Now, there’s a new option at the bottom: tap the middle icon, and it jumps straight to 2x before recording starts. Once recording begins, you can’t tap that option. Let’s look at the first example.

Here’s a desk: on the left, the previous 2x zoom where I manually zoomed in, and on the right, the new lossless zoom. At this angle, it’s hard to tell, but once cropped in post-production, the difference is huge—especially with the text on that drill. You can clearly read “Makita” on the right; on the left, it’s just a blur. This is a significant improvement, bringing this camera closer to my ideal, like a Pocket 4—imagine an Air 3 or A3S camera system slapped on top. I’ve always wanted a clean zoom, and now I largely have it.

Next example: this trainer. At first, you think, “Yeah, it looks better, I guess,” but it’s close. Crop in, though, and the difference shines—especially around the chain and cogs to the right. The new zoom is much clearer compared to the old one. Another big deal.

One more example before the wild part: this Ikea plant. Initially, it looks decent, but check the ceramic’s little dots—casting imperfections. They’re far clearer on the right than the left. Zoom into the dust-covered fake leaf, and the dust is much more visible on the right, as is the pot below. Here’s the fun part: you can zoom 2x more, reaching 4x. Of course, then you’re back to the quality loss of before, just cropped further. It adds flexibility. I usually crop in post-production rather than on-camera, but sometimes I crop upfront when quality isn’t critical.

One catch: this isn’t available in Dlog or HLG modes. You still have 10-bit mode—that’s what I used here—but toggle Dlog or HLG, and the 2x option disappears.

Breathing Correction Option

Now, the second feature: a new breathing correction option. This isn’t about your breathing—it’s the camera’s, especially when focusing on something close. You might notice the screen “breathe” as it adjusts focus. The new option, off by default after the update, corrects this by tweaking the field of view when you tap to refocus on nearby objects. It’s subtle and hard to spot, but it’s ideal for scenarios like showing a product—holding it up, removing it, and bringing it back.

D-log Mode for Streaming

The final feature is Dlog mode for webcam or streaming output. This gives you all the flexibility of D-log footage while streaming live—pretty handy.

DJI Pocket 3 Firmware Update Process and Usage

You might wonder when I use the DJI Pocket 3 camera versus others, in a non-sponsored way—I’ll get to that. But updating the firmware? Super easy. Open the DJI Mimo app, connect your DJI Osmo Pocket 3, and it offers the update. Download it, and it’s done in about two minutes—quick and simple.

I haven’t talked much about this camera here, but I use it a ton in three main scenarios: trade shows, interviews, and similar settings. Paired with the DJI Mic, it’s my go-to—works flawlessly for things like the Tour de France. I supplement with my phone for higher-quality B-roll. In the studio, it’s great for quick shots of trainers—place, shoot, move, repeat. I’ve also used it on multi-day trips as my main camera, not an action one. It’s not waterproof, with an exposed SD card, and it’s shaky when running. But it’s durable—I’ve dropped it biking at high speeds, and it’s survived concrete crashes with visible scars. Rain? Handled days of it and still works. With DJI Care Refresh, I expected to kill it fast, but over a year later, it’s alive.

For action—body cams or selfies—I use the GoPro Hero 13 Black or Insta360 One X2. This camera’s for other footage. Hopefully, that clarifies things. If you found this useful, you know what to do with the clicks—it helps. Have a good one!

Camera Quality and Performance

Overall, the camera is great. It’s got a larger 1-inch CMOS sensor on the wide-angle lens with 12-megapixel or 50-megapixel options. The 3x telephoto lens, like the Air 3, uses a 1/1.3-inch CMOS sensor with 48 megapixels—an upgrade over the Air 3. We now have 4K at 120 frames per second, which beats the 100 frames per second on the Air 3. But here’s my first issue: we’re capped at 4K.

The Air 2S had 5.4K, and it’s an older drone. DJI hasn’t made many drones with 5K—only the Air 2S and Mavic 3 Pro come to mind (not counting the Inspire 3, obviously). Why not include it? Is 5K not popular enough? I wanted to ask Maria Davis, an Emmy-nominated drone pilot who worked with the Air 2S, about this.

Flight Experience: Air 3S vs. Air 2S

Flying the Air 3S feels smooth—like butter. With the Air 2S, you could feel it chunking through the air, but the Air 3S is just fun and amazing to fly. How often do I use 5.4K? Honestly, not much—less than a handful of times. We don’t even use 5K when it’s available unless we need to punch in later. Recording at a higher resolution is nice because you can zoom in, get more details, and downsampling looks better. But it’s a weird decision to leave it out.

Is It Worth Upgrading from the Air 3?

If you already have an Air 3, I don’t see a strong reason to upgrade. The Air 3 and 3S are so similar. If you compare footage side by side, the biggest improvement I notice is in dynamic range and overall image detail. The Air 3 isn’t that old and still a great drone. The main upgrade is the 1-inch CMOS sensor on the 3S, compared to the 1/1.3-inch sensor on the Air 3. However, we’re capped at a smaller maximum bitrate—130 megabits per second—compared to 150 on the Mini 3, Mini 4 Pro, and even the Air 2S, which is years old now. Software updates might offset this, but I don’t get why we’re going backward here.

Bitrate Tests and Footage Quality

I’ve seen people online say they’re not even hitting 100 megabits per second, so we tested the Air 3, Air 2S, and 3S. The Air 2S is rated for 150 but hit 152 in 4K, 10-bit H.265. The Air 3 was at 130, though it’s rated for 150. The Air 3S came in lower at 90 megabits per second. Still, I prefer the Air 3S footage—it’s sharper and cleaner. The Air 2S looked a bit softer. Bitrate is just data captured per second.

On YouTube, for example, it’s re-encoded to around 10 megabits per second. Can you tell the difference between 150 and 10 versus 90 and 10? It’s like megapixels in photos—not a huge visible difference unless you know what to look for. In my tests, I couldn’t spot much difference between the drones at higher or lower bitrates—the footage still looks great.

Auto-Tracking and Ease of Use

With older drone models, I tested flying while holding a baby. Now that baby’s a toddler, he’s the perfect subject for the Air 3S’s auto-tracking. Highlight him in the green box, enable ActiveTrack, and it works well. In areas with poles, if he runs behind one and the drone loses him briefly, it picks him back up quickly. One issue: the focus wheel sometimes won’t adjust, showing an error message. It’s not a dealbreaker for me, but it might be for some. I’m still waiting for an update that lets me change a diaper mid-flight—maybe with the Mavic 4!

Codec and Storage Considerations

There’s no H.264 option on the 3S. H.265 files are smaller but need more computer power to play back. It’s like a zip file—compressed data saves space on your camera, but your computer has to decompress it. H.265 takes a lot of memory. Windows 11 doesn’t natively support it—you need an extension from the Microsoft Store, which is surprising. On Mac, H.265 has worked fine for years, so it’s never been an issue for me—smaller files, better quality.

Comparison to the Mavic 3 Pro

I was surprised how close the Air 3S is to the Mavic 3 Pro. Side-by-side, a lot of the footage looks very similar, even though the Mavic 3 Pro costs much more. The Air 3S is still a consumer-level drone, but it’s nearly at Mavic 3 Pro quality. In some shots, I preferred the 3S—details in highlights and shadows were comparable, which impressed me.

Battery Life and Final Thoughts

One small gripe: despite the 42GB of internal storage (which I love), the Air 3S has less flight time than the Air 3. I don’t like seeing new models lose battery life. Is it the bigger sensor or tech onboard? Hard to say. The Fly More Combo now includes ND Filtres (ND8, ND32, ND128), which is great, but I’d prefer an ND16 or ND64 for my work. Did I make the right decision with the 3S?

Despite the minor issues, I think the Air 3 and 3S are the best value for the money. It’s still the best drone I own. Want to learn more? Check out our free deep dive video on the Institut pilote website—it’s pretty great. See you in the next one!

Thanks to Maria Davis for contributing music (“Pulsar” and “September”) to this Révision. Find her at MariaDavisMusic.com.

Event Breakdown and Accessibility

Scheduled just days from now, the race kicks off daily at 9 a.m. with practice sessions, followed by qualifying rounds and competitive heats. Spectators can watch pilots maneuver drones—typically under 250 grams and palm-sized—through a challenging course, either in person or via a large video screen displaying the drones’ first-person views. For remote viewers, the Cincinnati Quad Racers YouTube channel will stream the action live, reflecting a savvy adaptation to digital audiences. The museum, spanning over 19 acres of indoor exhibits, expects thousands to attend, drawn by its status as the world’s largest military aviation museum.

Adding an educational twist, Sinclair Community College’s Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) program will offer free computer-based simulators, giving visitors a taste of drone piloting. A raffle for three micro drones, held at 1:00, 2:00, and 3:00 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, further engages the crowd, courtesy of the Air Force Museum Foundation (no federal endorsement implied). However, guided tours of the Southeast Asie and Korea galleries will be unavailable during the event, a minor trade-off for the weekend’s unique focus.

Technical and Regulatory Framework

Drone racing, while exhilarating, operates under strict parameters at this venue. Only pre-registered, pre-approved drones are permitted to fly inside the museum, with registration closed well ahead of the event. The museum enforces a zero-tolerance policy for unauthorized small UAS (sUAS) flights—drones or remote-control aircraft—on its grounds, swiftly reporting violators to security forces. This aligns with broader Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations governing indoor and outdoor drone operations, ensuring safety within a high-traffic public space near an active military base.

The micro drones in competition, often FPV (First Person View) models, rely on lightweight frames, powerful brushless motors, and 5.8 GHz video transmission systems. Speeds can exceed 50 mph in skilled hands, demanding precision to navigate obstacles like the Globemaster’s 174-foot wingspan or the Twin Mustang’s dual-fuselage design. Such technical feats highlight the event’s appeal to hobbyists and professionals alike, showcasing advancements in drone miniaturization and control systems.

Industry Context and Market Implications

Drone racing has evolved from a niche pastime into a recognized sport, with events like this one bridging recreational enthusiasm and professional development. The National Museum’s race, now in its sixth year, reflects a maturing industry where micro drones are increasingly accessible—entry-level kits start around $100—yet capable of sophisticated performance. The involvement of Sinclair Community College signals educational investment in UAS, a field projected to grow as drone applications expand in logistics, agriculture, and defense.

Market-wise, the event subtly promotes a ecosystem of manufacturers, from drone makers like BetaFPV and Tiny Whoop to accessory providers for batteries and goggles. While not a commercial expo, the visibility could nudge sales, especially with free drones up for grabs.

Broader Impact and Future Outlook

The Micro Drone Race transcends entertainment, offering a glimpse into aviation’s future. As drones integrate into military and civilian spheres—think reconnaissance or last-mile delivery—this event underscores their versatility and public appeal. Its setting amid historic aircraft juxtaposes past and present, hinting at how unmanned systems might shape tomorrow’s air forces, a topic of keen interest at Wright-Patterson, a hub for aerospace innovation.

Looking ahead, the race’s success could inspire more museums to host similar events, blending Education with spectacle. Regulatory bodies may also take note, refining indoor sUAS guidelines as public exposure grows. For Dayton, it’s a chance to reinforce its aviation legacy while spotlighting a technology that’s no longer just science fiction.

DroneXL’s Take

This event exemplifies how drone racing can captivate diverse audiences while subtly advancing industry goals. Its controlled environment sidesteps outdoor FAA hurdles, offering a model for scalable, safe competitions. Yet, the museum’s strict no-fly policy for outsiders raises a question: could relaxed rules for hobbyists, perhaps in designated zones, further democratize the sport? As UAS adoption accelerates, balancing accessibility with security will remain a key challenge—and opportunity—for the drone community.

Photos courtesy of National Museum of the U.S. Air Force.

What kind of log is a “D-log”?

First of all, what does D-log mean? D-log is a video recording mode or color profile that allows the camera on your drone to capture more dynamic and tonal range than other modes. The “D” meaning “DJI” and the “log” for logarithmic, because what the profile does is compressing the tonal values in an image using a logarithmic scale, hence the name.

But Rafa, if this profile captures more color range, why didn’t we use it all the time?

First of all, you need to know that to use the D-log profile, you need to take some extra steps to squeeze out that extra dynamic and tonal range from your footage, and maybe you just don’t need or want to do that extra work.

Let’s talk about your needs here: what are you doing with your drone footage? Do you use it for your personal social media accounts? You sell them immediately to your customers because let’s say you are on a beach and record video of people doing parasailing? Or maybe you want to keep a database of your flights for uploading to some stock media websites like pexels?

We need to analyze this, because since the first drones that I flew, color technology has made giant steps to make our lives easier.

On my first drone, the legendary DJI Mavic Air, we only had two color modes for video: Normal and D-Cinelike. Notice how it was called “Cinelike” and not “log”, this is because depending on the category of the drone you use, you can have “cinelike” that is more like a flattened color profile than a real logarithmic one.

In more expensive drones, you’ll get the “D-log” and in even newer drones you will get the “D-log M” that has even more dynamic range.

But going back to my drone, in the beginning I used to record everything in AUTO mode and normal mode. And it wasn’t bad. But it wasn’t perfect either. I usually ended up with footage that sometimes lost information on the highlights of the image, so I had to start using the D-cinelike mode to capture that information.

Of course, I could take other ways to fix that problem, like reducing overall exposure by going to manual instead of auto and adding some ND Filtres to my drone, but at that moment I didn’t know that.

What I knew was that I was looking at my footage and knew that It could be better. And at that moment, I chose to ride the log (ok, cinelike) train.

Why did I think I was needing to record in log?

Well, because:

• I wanted to get that extra latitude that was hidden in the shadows of my videos.
• I don’t want to have overexposed images and,
• I WANTED TO WORK ON THE COLOR OF MY VIDEOS so I can match them better with my camera and also with the overall mood of my whole video.

But to do that I needed to LEARN how to do that. And that’s the first barrier to know when you should record on LOG.

Learning How To Colorize

Do you want to learn to colorize or are you satisfied with the colors that just came out of your drone?

The D-log profile is really useful in situations with high contrast, like very sunny days or any other situation where you just pull that color out.

Once you record in log you can search if there is a download page with LUTS for that specific drone and apply it on your video editing suite, like DaVinci Resolve, Adobe Premiere, CapCut or any of your like.

Or, If you prefer, you can watch some coloring tutorials on YouTube. Even my channel gave coloring lessons live (in Spanish) every wednesday at 7 pm. The real important part here is to know if you are ready to invest the time to go from this…

To this

To this

So, If you plan to take the next step, be ready to really control the outcome of your drone and sit a little more working on them but be ready to get amazing results that will make your videos stand out!

And CONFIANCE me, it will totally worth it.

Let me know in the comments below if you ever use the D-log profile or if you prefer to just get straight of out drone footage!

By the way, cette vidéo isn’t sponsored by anybody. I purchased this with my own money after my other one got destroyed because it has been such a useful tool for me over the last year and a half—especially for creating YouTube content or just capturing behind-the-scenes moments of shoots I’ve been on and stuff like that, which I’ll show you more of here in a minute. But first, we’re almost to our destination.

Active Track: A Game-Changer

Honestly, one of my favorite features of the Pocket 3 is the Active Track—the fact that I can have it track me around a scene like this and show off is really sweet. Especially if you work by yourself and film yourself, it’s almost like having somebody who can film you. That’s why I’ve been using the Pocket 3 to film a ton of my YouTube videos over the last year and a half or so since it came out—it just made filming so easy. It’s not just the fact that you can use Active Track, which is super useful, but you can set it up to track from one side or the other or a specific area on the screen to get the look that you want. For example, if you want to lead something through a scene like this shot here, it gives a little more weight to one side or the other, which makes it look a bit better than just center Active Track like I am right now.

Even just handheld, the Active Track works incredibly well because it keeps you in the frame, and you don’t really have to worry about whether you’re holding it in the right spot or turning it enough—it’s just going to keep you exactly where you need to be in the frame the entire time. It takes a lot of work off you. One of my favorite ways to use Active Track is getting environmental scenic shots of places I’m walking through—like this glacier here or this one right here where we are right now. By the way, this is the business end of a glacier, which means this is the part that is falling off as it moves and flows downhill into water. Contrary to popular belief, glaciers are always moving—winter, summer, it doesn’t matter—they’re always moving. So, this will still have big pieces calve off while we’re here. I wouldn’t get any closer than where I am right now; in fact, this might be just a little too close if a really large piece comes off. If you come out to a place like this or get the chance to visit a glacier feeding into water, don’t get too close to the business end.

Field of View and Focus

Another thing I love about the Pocket 3 is the field of view. You get this nice 20mm field of view—like right now, about 3 feet away from the camera—but you still get really nice environmental framing where you can see a lot of what’s going on around you, which is great. The thing that makes the Pocket 3 look like a much more expensive camera than it actually is, though, is that when I get close, the background blurs out. You can still see the background, but because I’m in focus, it makes you focus on the subject—super useful. That’s part of what makes the Pocket 3 such a great little camera: it actually has this little focus system. If I’m standing farther away, everything’s in focus, and it all looks good, but the closer I get, the more the background fades away and becomes a little out of focus, which just makes it look so much better than it should. That brings us to image quality.

Image Quality of the DJI Pocket 3

Image quality is fantastic for what it is. You can film 4K up to 120 frames per second in slow motion; if you don’t want slow motion, you can film 4K up to 60 frames per second, which is super useful. It’s what I’ve been filming most of this video in because it gives you really, really great footage. The fact that it films in 10-bit D-Log M gives you a massive range that you can use to color grade this camera and make it match pretty much anything else you’re shooting with. Because of that, you can get really great, incredibly rich, and bold colors out of this if you grade it well. If you want something that’s really easy to grade, I do have a pack of LUTs that works really well with the Pocket 3—they’re linked in the description.

This is where we need to talk about dynamic range. While this camera does have incredibly good dynamic range for what it is, it’s still limited—it’s a small sensor. But if you look at the shot here, I’m walking, and the camera’s pointing directly at the sun. Straight out of the camera, this is what it looks like—you could expose it different ways if you wanted to—but in post, you can bring the shadows or midtones up and make it look how you want. So far, everything you’ve seen in this video has been recorded in D-Log M.

Interestingly, shortly after launch, DJI added a normal 10-bit option. This is normal 10-bit, which, if you don’t want to color grade, looks great—really solid colors, very natural colors, a nice blend of contrasty and punchy, vibrant colors, but not over the top—really nice. If you want to shoot in a higher dynamic range, this is HLG. Honestly, I don’t see a huge difference between HLG and D-Log M, so I generally shoot in D-Log M, but if you’re someone who likes to shoot in HLG, you have the option.

DJI Osmo Pocket 3 Stabilization

We’ll get into low light in just a sec because this camera actually does very well in low light, but before we do that, we have to talk about stabilization. The way the Pocket 3 stabilizes—because it has a physical gimbal—means you get this really incredibly good, smooth footage. This shot you’re seeing right here was me running, holding the Pocket 3 behind John as he was biking. You can see just how stable it is, which is insane because I’m running on ice, trying not to fall, but it still gives you this beautifully smooth, incredibly well-stabilized shot.

This comes into play when you’re working in low light. A lot of action cameras stabilize by analyzing the image and using gyro data, but this can lead to weird blurry images or strange movements and vibrations. The Pocket 3 will stabilize perfectly in low light—it doesn’t matter—because it has a gimbal. There is one situation where this works against the Pocket 3, though: in motion in vehicles. Because the Pocket 3 stabilizes based on what the IMUs feel—whether it’s being pulled left, right, or straight up and down—it will tend to drift one way or the other depending on what’s going on. So, if you’re driving in a car going around a corner, you’ll see the horizon start to tilt one way or the other. It’s a minor inconvenience, but that’s where action cameras actually do a little better because they’re physically fixed cameras and don’t suffer from that same problem. Beyond that, the stabilization in the Pocket 3 is absolutely incredible for such a small camera.

Stabilization is only as good as how well you hold it, though. I’ve had a lot of people ask me how I get rid of the up-and-down motion, which you can see a little bit in my running shot. The answer is: walk softly as much as you can, then hold the Pocket 3 so you have some movement in your arm to counteract your motion. Try to hold it as fluidly as possible so you don’t get this as much, and you get more of a nice, smooth shot.

Low Light Performance

Now for low light—you have to be realistic; this is still a small sensor camera—but the Pocket 3 does really well in low light. Right now, it’s pretty darn low light in here, and I’ve used this camera way beyond where it probably should go. If you set it at minus two sharpening and minus two noise reduction, then sharpen and reduce noise in post, you can actually get some really clean imagery all the way up to about ISO 1600, maybe even 3200, depending on what you’re filming. The fact that this small camera can give you usable low light in something like this—if you ever happen to be in a glacier ice cave or just walking around the streets at night—is impressive. For its size, the Pocket 3 has really good low light, largely thanks to that 1-inch sensor. How spectacular is this ice cave? Also, it’s not the safest one I’ve been in, so I think maybe we should go out.

Vertical Video

Now we need to talk about vertical video. I don’t shoot a lot of vertical video, but the Pocket 3 will shoot vertical video—like I’m doing right now—where it crops in on the sensor, giving you a 3K image, basically up to 60 frames per second. That’s an easy way to shoot vertical; you don’t have to mess with the gimbal at all. But you can also just hold the gimbal sideways, like you see here, and shoot vertical video that way. There are a couple of advantages and disadvantages to doing that. The advantage is you get a wider field of view—here you can see side-by-side the normal vertical video, which is the cropped-in mode, and me holding the gimbal sideways. You can see you get a much wider field of view if you hold the gimbal sideways. The downside is that the gimbal’s meant to work in a certain orientation, so it doesn’t always do what you want when you’re holding it vertically. Ways to mitigate that are to put it in follow mode and stuff like that, but it does shoot really great vertical video. Of course, you can Active Track in vertical video mode and pretty much do everything else you’re doing in vertical video mode.

Audio Integration

One of the best features of the Pocket 3 is the seamless integration with DJI’s microphones—the little wireless microphones they sell. If you get the Creator Combo, you get the DJI Mic 2, but if you don’t want to spend that much, just buy a Mic Mini—they’re about 50 bucks. Right now, you’re hearing the DJI Mic 2; I’m a couple hundred feet away with a lapel plugged in and sitting just inside my hat here. One of the best things they added was a Mise à jour du micrologiciel that allowed you to also record the internal mics at the same time, which is what you’re hearing right now. Now I’m back to the lapel mic and a mix of the other audio as well. The best thing I found this was set up to be was a backup recording—so if something happened, like the DJI Mic battery died or something, you’d still have a recording. But I found it really useful for environmental noise. If you just want to get some nice noise that sounds like what it is—like for ASMR-type videos or something—then this really isn’t a bad deal. Having good, clean, clear audio no matter what with the DJI Mic 2, regardless of how close or far away from the camera you are, really makes this a useful tool. It’s pretty much all I’ve been using to record most of my YouTube videos outdoors because it’s such a great system and gives you such great, clean audio regardless of the wind or other conditions I’m in.

Hey, if you’re enjoying or getting value from this video, then consider subscribing. I test and compare filmmaking equipment in the most rugged, real-world conditions I can find here in Alaska, where I live, and I give you tips and tutorials on how to use it.

Photos, Battery Life, and Durability

While this isn’t really a photo camera—it only takes 9-megapixel stills because it’s a 1-inch sensor—those 9 megapixels are probably why you get such good low light performance. The Pocket 3 does take pretty nice photos, and they’re more than enough for sharing on social media. All these photos were taken with the Pocket 3, and yeah, your phone will probably take better photos now because if you have a newer phone, they all do. But the photos coming out of the Pocket 3 are actually really nice. You can do these 180° panos and ultra-wide photos, which are really fun when you’re in a place like an ice cave and want to make it look really big and wide. Those ultra-wide photos really do come through, and the panos also look really solid. They’re one of my favorite ways to do it because you get this super amazing, huge field of view using the Pocket 3. It stitches them together for you, puts them out there, and then you’re good to go. While I wouldn’t recommend this camera if you’re going to do a lot of photo work—I’d recommend something else—it does take good photos.

That brings us to battery life and durability. The Pocket 3 is way more durable than I first thought it was going to be. When DJI sent me the original one, I took mine into well-below-zero temperatures—it fell over a bunch, got wet inside glacier ice caves, got rained on and snowed on. Finally, what messed it up was a shoot I was doing for Caterpillar—we were using it as an angle to capture these glass panes, and when they broke, all the tempered glass hit it and basically messed up the focus system so it wouldn’t focus at infinity. I’m amazed at how much use my Pocket 3 got—it literally went everywhere with me, probably flew something like 100,000 air miles, and withstood pretty much everything I threw at it and just kept going, which is amazing for a little tiny gimbal camera. It really could handle some serious abuse. That’s not to say that if you get it rained on in just the right spot, it wouldn’t totally stop working—it absolutely could. It’s electronic, it’s a gimbal, it’s fragile—you have to be careful—but mine withstood a lot.

As for battery life, it’s very subjective depending on what you’re doing with it—the frame rates you’re filming in, how hard the gimbal is working, how cold it is outside (right now it’s single-digit temperatures, so I’m not getting great battery life). That being said, I ran pretty much everything up to just a few minutes ago on one battery handle extension. Getting a couple of hours off the battery and the battery handle extension works really well—it will keep the camera battery charged and deplete the battery handle first, then the camera battery will start to discharge. The cool thing is that you can also recharge the whole system rapidly—up to 80% in like 15 or 20 minutes (I don’t remember exactly, but I’ll put it on the screen here)—so you can get back up and running really quick. I’ve got a USB power bank in here, and I just plug the battery handle in and get it charging without it being attached to the camera—it will charge all by itself. Super nice. Generally, when I go out and do stuff like this, unless it’s super cold like it is right now, I just run with one battery extension handle, and that’s more than enough for me to get everything I need to film an entire YouTube video throughout most of a day of hiking and running around.

What Drives Me Crazy

You might be thinking the Pocket 3 is very near the perfect camera—and it is really good—but there are a few things that drive me crazy about it, and I want to make sure you’re aware of those so if you’re looking to buy this camera in 2025, you can make up your mind. One is the focus system—it’s not a tracking focus system, so it just kind of goes based on whatever’s in front of it, and it’s also very quick and jerky. I wish there was a way to slow it down and have it be a little smoother in the way it goes from far focus to near focus. That’s pretty minor, and so long as you have somebody or something in the frame where it should be toward the center, you actually do get a really nice, controlled focus—it’s just a little faster than I’d like.

The other thing that drives me crazy is this message when you’re using the transmitter—it stays on the screen forever. I wish it was like one or two seconds, and that’s it—that’s all I need to know the mic is connected. I don’t need a full 7 or 8 seconds of it telling me it’s connected. While you can do a 2x zoom in-camera and it actually looks pretty decent—basically indistinguishable from me cropping in two times in post—however DJI is doing that, they’re doing a really good job. But I do wish there was a way to have more powerful focal lengths available. Maybe that’ll come in the Pocket 4—that would be really cool if there was something like a 40 to 50mm focal length and then the 20mm.

Is It Worth It in 2025?

So, is the DJI Pocket 3 worth it in 2025? Yes, and here’s why. Beyond everything I’ve shown you in this video, what makes this camera so amazing and fantastic is the fact that it’s super easy to use. This is exactly how I’ve been using it for the last year: pull it out, turn it on, and start filming—no ND Filtres, no nothing special, no anything I need to do. There are great setup and tutorial videos about how to get the most out of this—lock your exposure, lock your white balance (which I didn’t even do in some of this video)—but this camera is just one of the easiest cameras to run around, film with, and get great-looking footage. Being able to do all the other stuff I showed you in this video is really just a bonus.

If you’re interested in picking one up, there are links in the description—they’re affiliate links that help me do what I do because, like I said, this video isn’t sponsored. There are some other links down there of other products I use that you can check out as well. Next, you’re going to want to watch this video right here, which shows how the Pocket 3 and an Action 5 compare to each other. I’ll see you over there. As always, if you have questions, ask me in the comments below or join my livestream, which happens most Wednesday nights at 4:00 p.m. Alaska time, 8:00 p.m. Eastern—at least if I’m not out in a place like this where there’s no cell phone service. I’ll see you again soon in the next one—just got a quick three miles back.

Don’t Be That Guy: Drone Crash at Uranium Mine

First up, in our “Don’t Be That Guy” segment, an alleged Drone Collision with mine equipment occurred at the Pinion Plain Uranium Mine in Arizona, causing the mine to temporarily close operations. While the size and type of the drone are unknown at this point, it reportedly struck a safety wire used to transport personnel into the 1,400-foot deep mine, according to the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office. After crashing into the equipment, the suspect, Bobby Mason, allegedly fled in an F-150, leading to a series of incidents, including two hit-and-run events near and inside Grand Canyon National Park. The Coconino County Sheriff’s Office has charged Mason with offenses including unlawful operation of an unmanned aircraft, aggravated DUI, criminal damage, hit-and-run, reckless driving, and harassment. The moral of the story remains the same: please don’t be that guy.

Georgia Bill Targets Chinese Drones

Next up, a Georgia bill would require the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency to create an approved drone list for public safety and government use. The bill would give agencies a three-year compliance window to acquire new aircraft from the approved list. If you live in Georgia, please let your legislators know what you think about this and how it might affect your operations. This is House Bill 205.

North Dakota Rejects Drone Ban

On the opposite side of the fence, the North Dakota Senate rejected a portion of a bill that would enact a replacement program for state-owned and operated Chinese drones. State Senator Cal Davidson led the motion to strip the text from the bill, citing the significant cost difference between Chinese and American-made drones. According to Senate testimony, the Matrice M30, currently used by state agencies, costs around $7,500, while an NDA-compliant alternative costs between $20,000 and $50,000. The Senate also preserved a $1 million allocation to support beyond-visual-line-of-sight operations in the same bill.

Drones for Good: Sumas Police Rescue

In a “Des drones pour le bien” story this week, multiple agencies in Northern Washington State responded to a report of an elderly woman who had gone missing during the night. After several hours of searching, the Sumas Police Department arrived on scene and launched an M3T, locating the missing person in under three minutes. The woman had fallen down a steep slope near her residence and was becoming hypothermic. Fortunately, she was rescued and transported to the hospital. A big shout-out to the Sumas Police Department—great work, and thank you for all that you do!

New DJI Products Unveiled

Lastly, DJI has released two new gimbals this week—yes, not one, but two! First, we have the Osmo Mobile 7 with Active Track 7.0, hand motion control, 10 hours of runtime, a built-in tripod, and magnetic mounting for accessories. The Osmo Mobile 7 comes in two price tiers: the entry-level model is $89, and the 7P model costs $149, which is surprisingly affordable for what you’re getting. DJI also released the RS4 Mini, and we’ve had our hands on one to test for the last couple of weeks. It offers 13 hours of runtime, a 4.4-pound payload, an Active Track module, and native vertical shooting. You can check out our full Révision right here.

Community Updates and Contests

In other news, we have two photo contests running in the community, each with over $600 in prizes! Share your drone photo of the Great Outdoors in the Drone Photo Contest, or submit a selfie from the cockpit in our Airplane Photo Contest for your chance to win. Head over to the community’s content space for all the details. If you’re not in the community, it’s easy to join—just register for any free course at PilotInstitute.com to get access. Join us later today for happy hour in the community, plus a live Q&A on Monday and Postflight in the premium community. We’ll see you then!

Front Camera Protector

The first item is a front camera protector. This protects the camera in case of a front impact, which can be especially useful if you’re using the Neo for tracking. What I really like about this one is that it clips right onto the front and is held on by friction. You don’t have to screw anything in or attach it permanently. As you can see, it provides a bit of extra protection if the drone bumps into a tree or a wall while tracking. It’s nice that it comes off so easily because that way, if you’re flying and don’t want it on, you can add or remove it as needed. It’s fairly inexpensive, so it’s something you might want to consider to give the camera a little extra protection.

Duck Guards

The next two items are duck guards, and they’re quite different. On one side, we have floating ones. When attached, if your DJI Neo happens to go into the water, these will keep it afloat so you can retrieve it and send it back for repairs or replacement if needed. The other ones are more minimal and just add a little extra protection. Now, I must say that the DJI Neo is probably one of the most durable drones DJI has built. This thing can withstand quite a few impacts, even from a great height, so an accessory like this probably won’t make a huge difference. However, one nice thing is that it adds some bright color to the drone. In the event of a crash, it’ll make it easier to spot. I lost mine in a tree last summer—or maybe it was last fall—and due to its color, it took me about half an hour to finally spot it. A bright color like this makes it much more visible. As mentioned, the floating set will keep your Neo afloat. They clip on easily, just like that. These foam ones, the ones that keep the drone afloat, add a little extra weight. The drone flies perfectly fine with them on, but it may not be as agile. So, if you’re flying in FPV style, you might not want them on. The minimal style, on the other hand, won’t affect flight performance at all. Both offer nice color that might help make the drone more visible if you crash it.

Propeller Guards

Another accessory you may want to consider, especially if you just want to add some color to the drone to make it more visible in a crash without adding extra weight or bulk, is third-party propeller guards. These are very similar to the default ones on the Neo. You simply remove the old ones, and the new ones clip right in. They won’t adjust the weight of the drone, but they will make it quite a bit more visible in the event of a crash.

Carrying Case for the DJI Neo

The last thing you may want to consider is a small case for it. This case is designed for when you’re using the Neo autonomously without a controller, and you don’t want to bring a big, bulky case along. As you can see, when we open it up, it has a spot for two extra batteries, plus a battery in the drone—a total of three batteries. The batteries fit down in the bottom, and the drone sits on top. Even if you have the bulkier bumpers on, it will fit inside and close up.

So yeah, folks, a few simple, inexpensive accessories you may want to consider for your DJI Neo. I want to thank you for taking the time to read this. Hopefully, you enjoyed it and found it valuable. Thanks a lot for checking it out, and we’ll see you in the next one.

Understanding the Flight Restriction

The flight restrictions extend 3,000 feet from the ship and go up to 1,000 feet, and they are designated as what’s called National Defense Airspace. This is the same type of restriction we see in Washington, DC, around Disney, and at Kennedy Space Center. But unlike those, this specific restriction is not depicted on any charts, and the penalties for flying there include steep fines, certificate revocation, and even criminal charges.

How to Avoid the Restriction

But here’s the good news: avoiding these restrictions is actually pretty simple once you know what to look for. Navy ships are generally gray. They have a large number, or set of numbers, called a hull number, painted near the bow, which is the front of the ship. These ships may or may not be armed. They will have the American flag at the top of the mast and may have other flags denoting the name of the ship. They could also be black-hulled submarines or hospital ships. Now, remember that gray ship in the distance isn’t just another boat; it’s a moving no-fly zone. Always maintain at least 3,000 feet of distance, and then use your zoom lens if you need to get the shot.

Additional Resources

If you want to check how to fly in other restricted flying zones, be sure to watch this video right here. And if you want more educational drone videos, be sure to subscribe.

Our Experience with Gimbals at Pilot Institute

As you can tell, at Institut pilote, we love using gimbals. We’ve been using them for a long time, starting with the original Ronin, actually. We also have this one right here on the jib—that’s the RS2 Pro, RS3 Pro, and RS4. We have the RS4 Mini on the smaller side of things. We also use a smaller version when it needs to be more portable. We have this one right here, which is the Pocket 3, and we have the Osmo Mobile 6. Yes, it took me a couple of tries to get all of them. Finally, we have this one right here, which is the DJI RS4 Mini—the latest and greatest from DJI. As you can tell, it looks a little bit different; it’s a different color. We don’t love the color—I mean, I don’t love the color. I think, personally, it’s going to get a little bit too dirty. But it comes with a ton of accessories, so we’re going to dig pretty deep into this new gimbal, tell you how it fits in the line of all the other ones, and then if this is something that should work for you.

Unboxing and Initial Setup

Let’s talk about all the different parts and then put them together. When you get the gimbal, this is what it’s going to look like. It’s pretty cool—it’s got the auto-lock function, which we haven’t seen in a mini format. We’ve seen them before on the more pro versions, the larger ones, which means that when you turn it on, it’s going to basically unlock, and when you turn it off, it’s going to lock itself off easily. Then we have this little tripod here. I recommend that you put it in—very simple—but it’s going to help you, like these other gimbals, to be more stabilized on your work area as you set it up.

Now, when you get the gimbal out of the box, it will come with this plate right here and also the plate that you’re going to mount to your camera. This is our Panasonic S5; we’re going to be using that as an example. You’re going to mount that to the bottom of your camera, and then you’re going to slide this in. There’s only really one way that you can put it in, so you’ll find if you’re doing it the wrong way. Then you have a little wheel right here that you can turn to do a minute adjustment, and then you can lock it—just like all the other places in here where you have something that slides. We have the ability to lock it. Make sure that it is locked in place before you go any further.

Strength and Compatibility

Now, don’t be fooled by the small size of the gimbal. It is actually pretty strong—it will be able to hold 4.4 lbs, which is the same thing that we saw on the RS3 Mini, not as much as the 6.6 lbs that we see on the RS4. But there is a list of compatible cameras that are available that will work with this. Now, you can mount any camera that you want on here, obviously, but if you want to plug it in and use some of the functionalities in here that are in the camera and have the gimbal talk to the camera, then you’re going to have to make sure that it is part of the compatible list.

Now, depending on the camera that you use, you will have more or less compatibility with the settings in here. For example, on the Lumix S5, we can start and stop recording, we can change the ISO, and change the aperture, but we can’t do the autofocus. Now, we’ve tested this with several cameras, pushing it to the limit, and we finally were able to overload it by using the Blackmagic Pocket 6 that we use inside of the studio.

Balancing the Gimbal

So now I’m going to show you how to balance this thing. Now, in the interest of time, we’re going to put a link right here to the full video from DJI on how to do this. But by the time we’re done, you should have a balanced gimbal that doesn’t move around and that’s ready to be turned on. Now, let’s make sure that I did a good job. We’re going to turn on the gimbal—you can hear it, the beep—and you can see in the top right corner on the back screen that there’s a green symbol that says that the camera is balanced. You can actually tap on it, and it will show you if the motors are working a little bit more. You can see that on my roll to the left, I have a little bit of motor work, so that means that I would have to use the back right here and kind of slide it again until that goes away. I’m okay with that at the moment, so we’re going to move on.

Vertical Shooting Feature

I want to show you something really cool with this gimbal, which is the ability to mount the camera vertically. I turn it off—you notice it went into the full lock mode—and then the cool thing is, in the back right here, we can unscrew this button and then push on it. As we push on it, the whole plate comes out—not just the plate that was attached to the camera, but the whole plate comes out right here. Because look what we can do now: we can mount it—there is a hole at the bottom—and we can mount it and lock it back in place, and now our gimbal is vertical.

Now, if I turn it on right now, it’s not going to like it because it needs to be rebalanced. You need to rebalance every time that you do a new setup—this counts as a new setup. You also are going to have to move things a little bit around. You notice that here the camera touches, so that means that I have to move my camera tray right here a little bit more to the left in order to give it more room to move. And there it is. So, at the end of the day, once you’ve redone your balancing, the camera should show up right here. If you do a lot of vertical shooting, then that’s the way to do it. If you have two of these gimbals, set one up vertically, set one up horizontally, and then you have two different ways to shoot very quickly.

Using a Phone with the Gimbal

The next cool feature that we have is the ability to use a phone instead of using an actual camera. The way that you do this, you’re going to have to remove the two plates at the same time. So the way that you do this is you’re going to unlock the bottom tray here, and then you’re going to slide it out of the way. You notice I have the one that was attached to the camera and then the one that was attached to the tray right here. Then we’re going to put it back into our flat mode—horizontal mode instead of vertical mode—so here’s the tray, and we’re going to put it right here, attach it.

So technically, that’s how your gimbal works, right? And then now we’re going to take this, and we’re going to slide it in place right here, and now we can lock it. And then now we can attach our phone and clip it in here, and then now you have full control, and you can see what’s going on on the screen.

Magnetic Tracking Module

The last item I want to talk about is this tracking module—it’s a magnetic tracking module. Magnetic is the way that it mounts to this camera—there’s no screw, there’s no bolts, it’s basically just clipping right here. You notice how quickly it went, and then you squeeze on each side right here to take it off. If you put it in the wrong direction, it just won’t let you do it—the magnet just doesn’t work in that direction. What does this do? This will allow you to track someone by doing gestures, and I’m going to show you in this video how we do this in a minute.

Navigating the Menus

Let’s go ahead and talk about the menus in the back of this thing. There’s a tiny little small screen—1.4-inch LCD touchscreen—in the back, very similar if you’ve used any of the DJI gimbals in the past, at least the more recent ones. The menu hasn’t really changed all that much. Now, before we get into that, there’s a couple of buttons in the back. There’s a joystick that you can use—now, depending on how you have set up the camera, then it will either move the gimbal around, going up, going down. And yes, you can reverse these buttons so that when you push the camera up, instead of going up, the camera actually goes down. Some people like it reversed, or whatever you want to call it—inverted. It depends on your style. And then you can go left and right—you can also change the speed. I’ll show you how we change the speed of these settings.

We also have the record button—if your camera is compatible or if it’s plugged in, you’ll be able to do that. And then, on the right side, we have a PTF, PV, and FPV button. PTF means that you can move in all directions when you’re holding the camera. If you pitch down, then the camera is also going to pitch, and if you pitch up, the camera is also going to pitch. It’s going pretty slow right now because I have it set as fairly smooth, but if we also go to the left, then it’s going to go to the left. Now, if I go in this direction—you notice I reached the limits here—if I go in this direction, nothing happens. Why do I say this? Because if we move it to the bottom one, which is FPV, as I go and roll to the left and to the right, the gimbal is also going to roll. This is if you want a really immersive mode where it’s FPV—first-person view—where if you’ve ever seen drones flying in FPV mode, that’s what it is.

And then the last mode in here is called the PF mode. In PF mode, you’re going to be able to pan just like this, and then if you pitch up and down like this, nothing happens—it stays basically at the level at which you have put it. So, no pitching—just basically this pan right here. If you want to pitch up or down, then you’re going to have to use the joystick.

And then, on the left side, we have another button, which is new, I think, to the RS4 series, where we have the ability to either use the joystick for moving the camera—controlling the camera—or if we push it up, if you have a camera that can zoom, then the joystick now becomes a zoom in and zoom out as you push up and as you push down. This camera is not compatible—I don’t like using that anyway—so this is a good mode right here to be able to use it.

Touchscreen Options

On the back of the camera, on the touchscreen, there’s four different icons. The one on the top right, I mentioned already, is whether or not the gimbal is in a good state. You can click on that, and it will show you which of the motors is working as far as the balance is concerned. On the top left, we have the ability to do a calibration. If I start a calibration, it’s going to start doing this right here, which is kind of shaking to make sure that it senses if the camera is calibrated correctly. It’s going to go through that process—it takes a few seconds—and at the end of it, it’s going to give you the results. It says, “Gimbal calibration is complete.”

On the bottom left corner, we have PTF, which tells me that I’m in PTF mode. Now, if I move that switch, then it’s going to change that reading—that really is just for indication purposes; changing it is only done via the button on the side. And then we have “Smooth.” You can see when I click on Smooth, we can have “Smoother” or “Responsive”—this is how quickly the camera is going to react to things. So, I have it on Responsive now; I have it on Smooth—notice how much smoother it is. As I make a change, it takes half a second to basically move on to the next thing, whereas if I go to Responsive, it’s almost instantaneous—the camera is reacting.

And on top of it, we have the speed at which we can go. So, I can go to Medium all the way to Fast. So, if I have it on Responsive and Fast, what’s going to happen is that as soon as I move—you notice it’s pretty much one-to-one—it’s super sensitive, which means that, well, depending on the type of work that you do—let’s say you’re chasing someone that’s fighting or running, and you really want to be in the action—this is probably the best mode. Put that in FPV mode, and then in super responsive, and it’s going to do a great job. You can still go in Fast and Smooth, which means that there’s still a little bit of delay as you turn around, so it’s a little bit smoother. When I stop moving, you notice that the camera doesn’t stop immediately. So those are great modes—personally, I like it to be in Medium and Smooth, but that really depends, again, on the footage.

Hidden Menus and Settings

Next thing, we have a bunch of menus that are hidden. We can start to scroll from the bottom to the top, and you will get to the joystick settings. So, we have the joystick speed—same as me moving around here—except now it’s about the joystick. I have mine on Slow because I like to go pretty slow when it moves down. And we have the smoothness, which is—what does it do when we start pushing, and what does it do when we’re done pushing? If I have it on High as far as smoothness, you’ll notice that when I let go—you see how long it takes to slow down—this is good if you want to be extra smooth, and you don’t really care about how it ends at the very end because you have to be very precise. You have to stop at least a second before it really stops itself. So, between the joystick speed and the smoothness, you can really make it extremely smooth myself—but that’s really the term here.

And then we have the dial function—the dial is this thing right here in the back—and we can set it to different things. I’m going to plug this in—I haven’t done that yet. We’re going to plug it to the back of the gimbal—not the back of this intelligent tracking sensor here, just the back of the gimbal up here—and I’m going to plug it to the side of the camera here into my camera control. Now, what this gives me when I turn on the camera is it gives me the ability to do several things. I’ve mentioned already that the Bluetooth option is not available on this camera, so I’m not going to worry about that. But my ISO changes and gets more sensitive—or the other direction, gets less sensitive. I can also set it to aperture—same thing—you notice my aperture goes up, and my aperture comes down. I can also set it to shutter—this is not compatible with this. We can also use it on Roll—check this out, this is actually really cool—I can have the camera roll right here as I’m moving the wheel. This is really cool if you want just a tiny little bit of roll in your footage, but you don’t want it to be too pronounced, or you don’t want it to be when you roll the camera like in FPV mode. This is a great addition.

You’re going to say, “How do you go back to normal?” If you double-tap on this button in the back here, it will bring the gimbal back to its original location. We also have the ability to pan doing this—so you can pan left or right—and then another one that I like—you can go and tilt. So this means that instead of using the joystick in the back to tilt up and down, if you have it set to PF mode, for example, I can go right here, and I can use this wheel to do maybe a pan right here on these objects, and at the same time, I can pan and I can go down on my items. Now, you could do that in PTF mode as well, but here you have a lot of control over how the camera moves up and down when you know you don’t have to worry about this—this is fixed, and it doesn’t move the camera. This is the only thing that changes the pitch on the camera—so something to play with. There’s no right or wrong answer here.

And we have the dial settings in here, which is the speed of the dial button in the back here, and you can also do a reverse dial. So, for example, here I had to go to the left to pitch down—you could have it so it goes right to pitch down. I’m not going to set it up that way.

Swipe Down Menu

So that’s the swipe-up menu. We have the swipe-down menu right here, where we have a few things. The first one is top left—that’s the display. We can auto-lock the display after 30 seconds, and we have the brightness of the display—so you can change that. It’s at 50% right now—plenty visible. I’m sure if you were outside, it will be different. Then we have our Bluetooth connection—there is an ability to plug in a phone to this in order to control the camera. I’m going to show you that in a second. And then there’s also a way to connect the camera itself to the gimbal—that’s if your camera is compatible. Make sure you look at the website to find out the compatible cameras.

Bottom left corner, we have the sound option—we can turn off the sound of the gimbal. So, if you’re on set and you want to make sure that you don’t have any sound coming out of this, you can turn that off. And then, on the bottom right corner, we have various settings in here. The selfie mode is if you triple-tap—so if I do one, two, three—the camera is going to turn around. Now I can take the camera and do a Potato Jet-style video—love you, Potato Jet—and triple back again—one, two, three—triple-tap—it’s going to go—oh, double-tap, I’m sorry—it’s going to go back to the front view. Now, I could disable that from the menu right here if I didn’t want to, by accident, click three times—that’s up to you.

We also have an option here for orbit follow—this is something that was also available on the RS4—which is the ability to help you as you do an orbit around an object; the gimbal is going to help. We have autolock features in here that can go after a specific amount of time, but also how it locks—right now we have it to fold and lock—you saw that animation. We can also have it to just recenter and lock—what it’s going to do is it’s going to bring the camera back to this normal neutral position here. Personally, depending on what I’m doing, I like the fold and lock when I’m about to travel, but as far as keeping the gimbal here in place when I’m on a shoot, I would prefer to do it this way with the recenter and lock—so that’s up to you.

We also have when it goes to sleep and what it does when it goes to sleep—in this case, recenter and lock as well. The next menu in here is the push mode—this is in order to push the gimbal in place if you wanted to do this by hand. I’m going to show you an example—if I do this right now, I don’t have any of the push modes on—if I push the gimbal, it’s going to try to return to its original state. If I have it on push pan, for example, and I turn that on, I can move the gimbal to where I want it to be, and it’s going to stay in place. Same for the push tilt—I can push it and put it right here—you hold it for a split second, and then it keeps the thing in place.

Horizon Calibration

So, there’s also in here the Horizon Cal vibration—what this is is the ability to make sure that your horizon is level. This camera, for example, has a level on it—I can tell that it is actually horizontal—but if I wanted to do a bit of a calibration in the event that it was tilting a little bit to the left or to the right—it happens from time to time—then this would allow you to do it. See, it’s moving around as I’m doing the calibration, and it’s going to make sure that at the end of it, you don’t have a crooked horizon, which is a bit annoying. You can also do it by hand by just adding a couple of degrees left and right—so I can slide this—you notice how it’s tilting left or right—if you want to do a manual adjustment. I’m not going to mess with it because it is actually level right now, and I don’t want to mess up our shots.

And then we have also the gimbal auto-check option in here—it says, “Make sure that the gimbal is balanced and held stationary before starting the auto-check.” When you do confirm, what it’s going to do is—don’t touch the table—it’s going to do its little shake thing, and it’s going to make sure that the balance is done correctly on the gimbal. It’s an “auto-check complete—gimbal status is good.” We knew that because we had the green little icon on the top right corner on the main menu.

You can turn on or off auto-off right here—I have it auto-off just to save the battery—and we can restore the parameters—you know what that means. We have language, device info, firmware updates—there’s a couple more things in here that are very typical for any kind of electronic devices. So, let’s swipe back up to get back to the main menu.

Active Track Settings

Then we have our swipe from the left to the right, which is giving us the active track settings. And the first one is composition—this is really interesting here. It says “keep current framing” or “center tracking subject.” It means that when somebody gets in front of it—remember this little add-on right here is going to help us keep the camera on whatever the subject is that we’ve selected—in this case, if we keep the current framing, let’s say that your object was on the left third or the right third of the image, then it’s going to keep it there. If you have “center tracking subject” selected, then it’s going to keep the subject right in the middle.

We also have active track speed—if you’re familiar with drones, which you should be if you’re watching this channel—the active track is the same idea as what you see on your drone. So, we have it on Fast right now because we were doing some testing—somebody gets in front of the camera, moves really fast—this is also going to move really fast to follow them. Then we have the ring light—which is that little light that you see right up here—I can turn it on or off—in this case, back on.

And then to turn on this tracking—this auto-tracking—you’re going to be doing gestures. So, to start and stop, we currently have it where you put your hand up like this, and it’s going to pick you up, and then when you’re done, you’re going to put your hand up again, and it’s going to stop. And then, if you want to take a picture, you’re going to do the pie sign right here—it’s going to start capturing the footage—and you’re going to do it again, and it’s going to stop. Now, you can change that if you want to—there is the hand symbol, we have the pinching symbol, we have the peace sign—so you can pick whichever one you want in order to tell the camera what to do using gestures.

Autonomie de la batterie

Let’s go ahead and talk about the battery life for this thing, which is fairly impressive for being this small—13 hours. The RS4 was 12 hours, the RS3 Mini was 10 hours. Charging time is an hour and 50 minutes, but it does have fast charging—after a 30-minute fast charge, it’s actually going to run for 5 hours. So that’s really impressive—you’re in the middle of shooting a wedding, maybe you charge that for 30 minutes, you’ve got five hours to go. If you’re using the fast charging, it will tell you on the back if you’re using the fast charging by giving you that indication straight on the back screen.

Accessories: Tracking Module and Briefcase Handle

So, one of the flashy new accessories for this gimbal is this tracking module right here, which unfortunately only comes with the combo pack. So, you have to spend a little bit more money to get to it, but it has the ability to keep a human subject in frame up to 10 meters away from this subject right here. It has the ability to do a continuous pan rotation—it can rotate 360° with the subject while it’s tracking it. And the cool thing about it is that there’s no need for a cable—it really just connects directly using that connection pin at the bottom right here when you do the magnet attachment.

Another cool accessory that we have is this briefcase handle—this is also available in the combo pack. It comes with the ability to mount anything with a cold shoe right here—there’s two of them on each side. You could technically mount the receiver for a microphone—DJI mic—and then you could put the transmitter for the DJI mic right here. And as you mount this to your gimbal, then you would be able to hold the gimbal and also talk at the same time right here into the microphone—so a really neat little update. Also, I appreciate the touch where there’s a hole right here to put the USB cable to go and connect it directly without having to remove this handle. And then there’s a quarter-20 right here as well if you want to add a rosette or anything additional.

This briefcase handle—you can change the angle of it depending on how you like to hold it—so very, very useful. You can also put this little tripod right here at the bottom if you needed to, or attach a tripod head or whatever it is that you want to add right here. But yeah, very, very useful—like I said, only comes in the additional pack. This is also very useful if you want to do something very low to the ground, and you want to really get down right here and hold the camera without having to just hold it from the main grip—that’s a great way to do it. So, like I said, only comes in the combo pack, unfortunately.

Using the DJI App

Another cool thing that we’ve seen with other gimbals from DJI is the ability to use the app on a phone right here to control the gimbal from a distance. This is very useful if you want to be kind of behind the scenes controlling and you don’t want to be just right next to the gimbal. The way that you do this is you’re going to have to find your gimbal—RS4 Mini in our case—and then find it in the list. Once it’s turned on and you have your Bluetooth turned on, it should show up on that list. You can click on it—it will connect—and then we have the ability to do different things.

Starting from the top, it says “Create,” and when you create, this is where you have access to some controls. The virtual joystick here is pretty cool because you have the ability to use this bottom joystick and move the camera around—you notice as I go left, as I go right, I go up, I go down—and it tells you where the camera is kind of located at this point in time. We can also do the roll using the bar that’s right on top of it—it rolls left, it rolls right—and you can push “Recenter” to bring the camera back. Obviously, you can change the speed and smoothness on each of the axes, which is really cool because if you want to do something that’s really nice and smooth, you can dial this in right here before you start recording.

We can do the “Force Mobile”—I really like this one as well—so we’re going to have to enable Force Mobile to get started. So, watch what I’m doing—I’m going to keep the phone right here, I’m going to have it vertical, kind of on the same plane as this gimbal, and I’m going to push Force Mobile right here. And now, when I rotate in one direction—pan—it pans. I can go down and up, and in some cases do the roll—you notice it says zero on the roll right now. If I bring the roll on each axis, then I can fully control the camera—so this is really cool and very responsive. Look at the speed at which it’s doing it—and you can do different speeds again—pan, tilt, and roll—and then you can also change the smoothness if you wanted to. So, if I wanted to do a tilt that’s a bit smoother and the roll that’s a bit smoother, then I can do that—you notice that as I stop, it takes a few seconds to also stop. This is really cool—it’s always fun to play with. I haven’t really found a way to use it in real life, but it is something that’s available. When you’re done, basically just get out of this or turn off—unclick that button—you’ll be ready to go.

Panorama and Time-Lapse Features

The next thing that’s really cool is the Panorama function. Now, this is really useful if you are doing photography and you wanted to just take a couple of shots. You can set the sensor in here—it will help it to know how many pictures it needs to take to put everything together—focal length, overlap, how much overlap you want between the different things, and then the interval between taking all these pictures. And what you notice in here is we have the ability to grab the corner—so if I grab the corner all the way to the left—notice what the camera is doing—we have 180 degrees. And let me bring it down so to really explain how this works—180 degrees, the camera is now facing me. I can go to right in the front right here—the camera is facing you right in front of me—and I can go all the way to the right at 180 degrees, and it comes back to me. So, if I set my endpoints to be at negative 180 and positive 180, then it would be doing a full 360 degrees. Same thing for the top—I can bring the camera all the way 90° to the top at 0 degrees—think about it like latitude and longitude—and then we can bring the camera all the way down to a 45° angle down right here.

So, if I wanted to do a panoramic that’s 360 and that goes 90 degrees up and 45 degrees down, then I would select the entire area right here, and then now the camera would take that picture. You notice as I’m moving this, that little yellow icon is the camera and where the camera is actually pointing in space—so this helps you really to figure out. And you can also move it by hand—so you can maybe go like right here, select that corner, and you can say, “Okay, that’s my bottom left corner.” Then I can click on the top right corner and bring that top right corner down, and I can say, “Okay, this is my endpoint right here for the camera for my panorama.” Oops—let’s just bring the camera down towards it right here—there you go. And now it’s going to be able to take this panoramic—it’s going to do 4×3, 12 pictures total—and then we’ll be able to put it together in our software.

I can go back—I can do a time-lapse—same exact idea here with the time-lapse. You can set where you want the camera to move and by how many degrees by creating different points. And then we also have the ability to do a track—this is the same idea as the time-lapse except we can set different points on the app here. So, I’m going to do—let’s do it this way—I’m going to bring the camera—I wanted to start right here—I’m going to push the plus button—that’s my Waypoint number one. I wanted to then go to Waypoint number two right here, and then I wanted to go up to Waypoint number three right up here. I can go back to Waypoint number one and it says stay there for two seconds—okay. Waypoint number two—how long did it take to go between one and two? Let’s make it pretty quick—let’s make it one second—and then we’re going to stay there for two seconds again. And then let’s say we want to go pretty slow—let’s say we take five seconds to go to the next point—and then let’s do a preview. So, it starts down here, takes one second to go there, and then another five seconds right here—you notice it didn’t do the wait between each of them. But if you had a shot that you want to do over and over and over again, this is a great way to do it because it will just keep repeating, and then you can be the subject on the film that does whatever.

Game Controller Integration

And the last thing that we have is really cool—we can use the game controller here. It’s very simple—you would have to get a PS4 controller or an Xbox controller—this is a cheap knockoff PS4 controller—and once you turn on the controller, you have to use Bluetooth on your phone to connect it, and then you’ll be able to control the gimbal. The rest of the options in here are pretty straightforward—the balance tests we’ve talked about, the motor parameters is what you see in the back of the screen. The user profile is also pretty useful if you want to have specific modes—if you want to, you have the ability in the back of the camera here with the M button to change between those different modes once you have them configured. This is helpful if you have a mode where it’s “Run and Gun” really fast—like a fighting scene—or if you want to do something a lot smoother—like having it on the jib, for example—so up to you how you want to set those up. And then there’s a final status of the gimbal itself—these are, like I said, pretty standard if you’ve ever used this line of gimbals from DJI—this is something that you’ve seen.

Pricing and Final Thoughts on the DJI RS4 Mini Gimbal

Let’s talk about the cost of this gimbal—$369 for the standalone kit—that includes the gimbal, the quick-release plate that we talked about, the mini tripod, the L-shaped multi-camera control cable—we also have a USB-C charging cable—and then one screw kit. And the combo kit—$459—that’s going to add the intelligent tracking module right here as well as the briefcase handle.

Now, overall, I think this is a great gimbal that has a lot of great use cases. If you want to spend a bit more money, here’s a video right here on the RS4, which may give you a little bit more power. Let us know what you think in the comments—if you’re going to get one, if this is something for you. I hope you appreciated it, and we’ll see you in the next video.

Exploring Editing Options

There are many free apps for editing footage that you can download directly to your smart devices, like a tablet or phone. In this video, however, we’ll focus on the DJI Fly App.

All the tools you need to edit and share are built right into the Fly app. To begin, I’ll assume all content has been transferred from the drone to your device—whether a smartphone or tablet. If you’re unsure how to do that, I uploaded a video about a week ago explaining how to transfer content from your drone to your device. I’ll include a link to that video in the description below. To start, launch the DJI Fly app; in the bottom left-hand corner, you’ll find an icon called “Create”—that’s our editor.

Understanding the DJI Fly App Editor

That’s where we’ll do all our editing. One key thing to note—based on Apple devices like iPads and iPhones (I’m not sure about Android, as I’m not an Android user)—is that it can only read files stored in the Photos app. So, if your footage is in the Files app, you’ll need to transfer it to Photos first. A great feature of the Fly app is that you can edit footage beyond just DJI products. You can edit your drone footage, but also mix in clips captured on an action camera or smartphone. Let’s launch the editing tool. You’ll notice it edits in a vertical format. On a phone, that’s fine, but on an iPad, you’ll need to adjust to editing vertically.

Editing Options: Auto vs. Manual

There are two main editing approaches, which I’ll split into two parts. Auto editing lets the software handle cuts, transitions, and music—perfect if you’re not into editing and just want a quick, shareable result. I’ll cover auto editing in a separate video, so stay tuned. For this video, we’ll focus on traditional timeline editing, giving you full control over everything.

Navigating the Editing Interface

Upon launching, you’ll see the main interface. At the top, there’s “New Project,” “One Tap Edit,” and a “Drafts” icon on the right for accessing saved projects. There are also pre-made templates, but we’ll stick to timeline editing. Tap “New Project,” and you’ll see “DJI Album,” which is content transferred to the Photos app. I currently have three files there. Preview them by tapping the corner icon to scrub through and decide what to include. You can also change albums—any albums on your device will appear. If you’ve got smartphone footage in the main camera roll, the app won’t read it unless it’s in an album. Create an album, name it whatever you like, and add your clips there.

Building Your Project

I’ll select drone footage and some files for our edit, including one shot on the Action 5 Pro. At the bottom, selected clips appear in the order they’ll be added to the timeline. Adjust their order by pressing, holding, and dragging—either now or later during editing. Once your footage is selected, hit “Next” to create the timeline (skip “One Tap Edit” for now, as that’s for auto editing). Initially, my video is 27 minutes with raw footage, so we’ll trim it down—perhaps to 30 seconds for social media shorts or 2-3 minutes for a dramatic piece for YouTube or Facebook.

Refining Your Timeline

For a visual preview, pinch to zoom in or out on the timeline. Before editing, set your aspect ratio via the top button—16:9 for YouTube or 9:16 for social media. For 9:16, expand the video to fill the frame; for this video, I’ll use 16:9. Adjust clip order by dragging, or hit the plus button to add more footage. Now, use built-in tools to trim, add music, apply effects, and color grade. For the first clip—drone footage over water—I’ll trim it to under a minute. Cut unwanted sections by splitting and deleting, like the front part and excess after the opening.

Enhancing Your Clips

As you progress, cut where needed—e.g., keeping a drone rise with a boat appearing in the harbor. Use undo/redo if you make a mistake. You can also reverse clips or adjust speed (up to 8x or down to 0.25x). Slowing too much may look odd depending on frame rate, but 4K 60 footage halved looks natural. Variable speed allows speed ramping for dynamic effects—like reversing a drone rise to a descent. Trim each clip, monitoring the total length to stay under a minute.

Adding Finishing Touches

After trimming to about a minute from 27, enhance with effects, titles, and color grading. DJI’s auto mode footage often looks great without much grading, especially for beginners. Add music via the “Music” tab—mute original audio or blend it for effect. The Fly app’s library offers styles like “Cheerful”; preview and select one, noting copyright for monetized edits. Add music early to cut with tempo changes for drama. Import royalty-free music under “Local” if preferred. For visuals, apply Filtres (adjustable strength) or manual color tweaks (temperature, highlights, shadows). Glamour effects smooth skin, while Color Recovery revives flat profiles like DLog M. Aqua adjusts underwater footage colors.

Adding Effects and Text

Under “Effects,” add options like snow, autumn vibes, or falling leaves for flair—depending on your taste. For text, tap “Click to add text,” enter a title (e.g., “Drone Video“), and tweak font, color, and size with templates. Add stickers—like a DJI logo or emojis—for personality.

Exporting and Sharing

Preview your edit, refine as needed, then export. Set resolution (1080p, 2.7K, 4K) and frame rate—I’ll use 1080p here. Export time varies (30 seconds to minutes) based on length and resolution. Once saved to the camera roll, share manually or directly via the app to platforms like Facebook or Instagram. Unfinished projects auto-save under “Drafts” for later editing.

Réflexions finales

That’s editing with the DJI Fly app—a powerful, free tool included with your drone. It’s ideal for transferring and editing footage, especially with devices like the DJI RC2. Hopefully, you found this helpful—if so, give it a thumbs up! Thanks for watching, and see you in the next one.

Triple Tech Drone Tablets

The first product I want to show you is one of the most expensive and somewhat controversial drone accessories over the past five or six years, but it’s also one I’ve used extensively: the Triple Tech line of drone tablets. This company sells tablets and a phone targeted toward drone pilots. They achieve this with a super bright screen, like the Triple Tech 9 Pro, which is almost 18 months old now. It has a 1300 sustained nits screen, more than bright enough to see even on the sunniest days. A bright screen is crucial when flying drones, especially one that doesn’t dim as it heats up. I’ve actually lost a drone because I was using my iPhone on a super hot day; the phone dimmed so badly I couldn’t see where I was, and I crashed my drone into the water.

Triple Tech products are also very tough—they can handle being dropped, stepped on, even driven over, or submerged in water. They’re designed for heavy use, and a lot of motocross people and ATV enthusiasts use them. They’re great for traveling across the country when you need GPS mapping ability. They also make mounts for handlebars and such, so it’s a very useful product that can double as a phone, which is an added bonus. The downside, at least for the tablets, is their heavier weight and high price. The 9 Pro, even at a year and a half old, still costs over $1,100. The 8 Pro is quite a bit cheaper and still very capable, but that’s a lot of cash for most people. Unless you’re a hardcore daily user, it’s hard to justify the price. They do offer the Triple Tech Mini, the size of a normal smartphone, but even that is a bit pricey.

Do I still use any of my Triple Tech products? I have all of them, but the answer is no, not really. Although they’re superior to the built-in monitors on the latest DJI drone controllers like the RC and RC2, I’ve decided I don’t want more gear to carry around. I’ve had to make choices about what I carry, and this was one product I removed from my bag to save space and weight. Turn on the controller, turn on the drone, and go. Are Triple Tech products great? Yes. Good customer service? Yes. Expensive? Yes, but if your use case demands ruggedness, long battery life, and a super bright screen, the price becomes irrelevant. You buy the tool that works for you. My long-term review score for all Triple Tech products is a 7.5 out of 10. Oh, and stay away from the Triple Tech 7—that thing was a disaster.

PGY Tech One Mo Backpack

Next, this product is something I reviewed almost six years ago, and it has stood the test of time. I have so many bags, cases, and backpacks I don’t know what to do with them. I’ll probably give some away or sell some on Gear Focus, but this one rises above them all: the original One Mo backpack from PGY Tech. You can’t get this exact one anymore; they now have the One Mo 2, which is pretty much the same with a few enhancements. All PGY Tech bags are some of the best in the industry, but this one has the perfect combination of weight, pockets, durability, and comfort. I’ve raved about this bag from day one, and I’m still very happy with it now. They offer a tremendous variety of storage solutions for all kinds of content creation, so I’ll link my favorites in the video description. If you’re looking for a great bag, backpack, or case that will stand the test of time, my overall score for the PGY Tech One Mo backpack is a 9 out of 10. It’s such a good bag.

Firehouse Ark 5 Drone Beacon

Next, when it comes to flying a drone at night, at least in the États-Unis, you must have an anti-collision beacon attached to it. Over the years, I’ve tried countless brands and models of drone beacons, and nothing comes close to the Firehouse Ark 5. Compact, simple, durable, and brilliant, its 1,000-lumen output allows this beacon to reach well beyond the FAA-required three statute miles. The battery life is great, and the price is appropriate at around $31. If you fly at night, there’s no reason to buy any other strobe. This will be the last one you ever buy unless you lose it, of course. For the Firehouse Ark 5, I give it a 10 out of 10—a perfect score. It’s such an amazing product, and every drone pilot who flies at night should have one.

Smartphone Gimbal

Next, let’s talk about something I really liked at first but now hardly use at all: a smartphone gimbal. The purpose of one is to help you get smooth, steady footage with your phone so your videos look more professional. They also have fun software features like motion hyperlapse and focus tracking, but I just don’t find myself using these anymore. However, they must still be popular somewhere because companies keep making them, and people keep buying them. I feel like it’s just another extra piece of gear I don’t want to carry around. It’s nice to have if you really need it, but most of the time, you probably won’t use it. One use case where they still have value is for Realtors who want to make their own walkthrough videos of properties—it provides enough stabilization to improve those over just carrying your phone around the house. For the average Joe, though, I think your money would be better spent on an action camera like the DJI Action 5 Pro or one of the DJI Pocket cameras, like the Pocket 3. I’m not including those in this video since it’s about products I’ve used for a while, but either would be a better investment than a smartphone gimbal. They’re inexpensive, but I’d rather see you put that money toward something you’ll use in more situations. For smartphone gimbals, I’d give them a 6 out of 10 right now because there are so many better options out there.

Freewell ND Filters

Now let’s get back to drones. What about ND Filtres? Picking an ND filter for your drone is like deciding what shampoo to use—yes, that joke was intentional—but I’ll make this easy for you. When it comes to drones, you should look at nothing else besides Freewell. They own the market due to their build quality and natural color, which is their primary focus. Unlike many companies that do so many other things, they invest heavily in research and development. I’ve only used Freewell for the past four years on my drones. I’ve tried others, but I always go back to Freewell. A common question is: do you need the all-day packs? Do you have to spend that much on these 16- or 8-packs of filters? It depends on whether you fly in varied situations. Nine times out of ten, an ND8, ND16, and ND32 are all you need. The polarized ones are nice if you’re capturing city aerials or footage around water on sunny days with lots of reflections, but even then, I usually stick to a straight ND filter. I long for the day we get a drone with a built-in ND filter, but I don’t know if that’ll ever happen. For Freewell filters, I give them a 9 out of 10—they’re so good, and the price for what you get is amazing.

Kershaw Live Wire Knife

Now, here’s a quick and random one: part of my EDC—everyday carry—is my pocket knife. Why am I showing you this? Why not? Over the past year, I’ve started collecting knives. It began because I wanted a nice knife for unboxing—something YouTubers who do unboxings seem to enjoy. It’s cool to have a nice knife, and that’s all it took; for some reason, it’s really addicting, and I don’t understand why. My go-to brand has been Benchmade—I started with them and have some of their knives—but last fall, I was looking for an Out The Front knife. I didn’t feel like paying so much for a Benchmade since their Out The Fronts are pricey, like $400 to $600. A salesman at Shields showed me his knife: the Kershaw Live Wire. I think it’s the 9000 model. He showed me a YouTube video of a guy beating the crap out of his, and I was sold. I use this knife every single day, multiple times, at home, at work, unboxing packages. I’ve yet to sharpen it—it’s the best knife I own. Is it a bit spendy for an Out The Front knife? Relatively, yes, but I wanted to show it to you because people occasionally ask if I’m into EDC, and yes, I am. This is it; this is my EDC.

Samsung Evo Select Memory Cards

So what about storage, like memory cards? I’ve used SanDisk since day one, and I’ve only had one card ever fail on me—a SanDisk card. But for the past year, I’ve switched to the Samsung Evo Select for my drones, action cameras, and other devices. Right now, I’m using this aquamarine-colored one—the Evo Select. I switched because they had a huge sale one day—I don’t even remember when—and I decided to try them since the price was much better than SanDisk. The ratings were great, and I thought it’d be nice to save a few bucks. Since then, I’ve stuck with Samsung cards because they’re consistently cheaper than SanDisk, even when neither is on sale. Sometimes they’re a lot cheaper; I’ve noticed more sales on Amazon. As long as I have no issues with them, I’ll keep using them. My score for the Samsung Evo Select cards is 8.7 out of 10, and it could go higher the longer I use them.

Simic Charger and Power Source

Next, I want to show you the product I labeled my product of the year last year: this 100-watt charger and 145-watt power source from Simic. It works with an 18V Ryobi battery—I call them “RY” batteries—and it’s incredibly useful for so many things. It has an OLED screen, two USB-C ports for charging, a flashlight, and a strobe light; it looks really cool. If you own anything Ryobi, this is a great investment for your toolbox. They’ve since released a bigger version, the PSC Pro Max, a 225-watt power source that’s incredible for such a small device. It’s powerful, versatile, and portable. I can still highly recommend this product—I give it a 9 out of 10.

Favorite Drone

Finally, I want to answer one of the most frequent questions I get, and many drone YouTubers get too: what’s my favorite drone? I’ve been fortunate to fly a wide variety of drones, and narrowing it down to one is really tough. I need to mention the drone that started it all for me and so many others: the DJI Mavic Pro. It was instrumental in growing the hobby into what it is today. That said, it’s not my favorite anymore because technology has progressed so much since then. I also want to mention the Matrice 30T—it was such a fun experience. It’s a beast with thermal imaging, amazing tracking, and the ability to fly in rain or nearly any weather condition—just a really cool drone. But my favorite all-around drone is the DJI A2S. I say that because it’s the one I used for both commercial purposes and just flying for fun. Whether for real estate or capturing amazing aerial footage, I took the A2S everywhere. The image quality was awesome—it still is. The size, signal strength, everything about it made it my go-to drone.

I haven’t flown it in a while because we now have the A3S, my most-used drone currently. It’s a step above the A2S, and that medium zoom camera lens is spectacular—so good. I haven’t used the A3S as long as the A2S, so in a few months, I might shift the A2S down and call the A3S my favorite of all time. The A2S is still great, though. The problem now is that while you can find some online, the price hasn’t dropped much. For just a couple hundred more, you can get the A3S. So, if you’re looking for an awesome drone, don’t spend your money on the A2S right now unless you find a good refurbished one for around $700 or $800. Otherwise, just get the A3S. Overall, I give the A2S a 9.9 out of 10—it’s such a great drone.

Birthday Giveaway

Since you stuck around and watched the entire video, you get to hear about the giveaway, and this one’s really cool because you can hardly find it anywhere in the world. As a celebration of my birthday month, I’m giving away this brand-new DJI Neo Fly More Combo. The box is opened, but nothing has been used—I just opened it once to take a video of the drone for B-roll, then put it back. Nothing has been turned on or used. It comes with everything: the controller, three batteries, a charging bank, and all accessories—about a $420 value. One of you has a chance to win it. Here’s what you need to do to be eligible:

1. Subscribe to the channel.
2. Click on my Amazon store link in the video description. No need to buy anything, but if you want to, go ahead—it helps this channel survive.
3. Throughout this video, five numbers flashed on the screen. Send me an email with those five numbers—do not comment them below the video. Email them to the address shown on the screen. If you comment the numbers below, I’ll delete your comment.

Once this video hits 10,000 views or on February 28, 2025—whichever comes first—I’ll place every correct submission on a list and use a random comment picker to choose the winner. I’ll email the winner for their shipping address and announce them on my YouTube community tab and Instagram Stories. So, when the video reaches 10,000 views or passes February 28, 2025, the giveaway is complete. It takes a little effort on your part, but it’s a great item that’s super hard to find, and you have a chance to win. One final thing: if you want to know about any giveaways I do, I always let my channel members know ahead of time. If you’d like to become a channel member, there’s a link in the video description. Click the thumbs-up on your way out today—I appreciate that. Thanks for watching, have a great day, and as always, fly safe and fly smart.

Examining the Beacon

First, let’s examine the beacon itself. It’s a pretty small standalone device with a touchscreen display and a few buttons. Below, you have a power button on the right side, a joystick on the left, as well as one on the right, together with a pause button and a return-to-home button in case of an emergency.

Modular Design and Controllers

One of the coolest things about the beacon is that it’s modular, meaning you can use it in many different ways depending on your needs and preferences. In this case, you can see we have two additional parts that can be attached to the beacon: the left controller and the right controller. These are traditional joysticks with a magnetic attachment.

Allowing you to quickly attach them to the beacon unlocks new ways of controlling your drone. When you attach the right controller underneath the beacon, you will hear a click sound, and the two are then connected. The beacon recognizes the device and now operates like a motion controller. You have a trigger button on the back, and you can press it and tilt this whole contraption front, back, or side to side, and the drone will move in that direction. You can, of course, also use the joystick to regulate the height of the drone, all while watching the real-time view from the camera on the beacon’s display.

If you want to control the drone in a more traditional way, you can also add the left controller to this contraption, attaching it the same way on the left side of the beacon. Then, what you need to do is simply unfold the arms of the controller and twist them down. Now, you have a very traditional-looking remote that has a built-in screen, which, yes, is quite small, but still, it’s visible. Or, if you want, you can add your smartphone and use its display as a screen by connecting a cable to this whole thing.

Standalone Beacon Features

The beacon, as a standalone device, like I mentioned earlier, can be used with its buttons to control the drone or simply as a beacon. This is the point that the drone would follow when it starts flying in tracking mode, and the built-in display helps you a lot to know if you’re framed properly, if the drone happens to crash, or for many other safety purposes. One of my favorite ways of attaching the beacon is to a bike with a handlebar mount, which you will see in action in just a minute. But before that, let me show you a quick setup of the beacon and the other parts of the remote controller, so you can see how easy and intuitive everything is.

Setting Up the Beacon

First, we need to power on the drone; then we can turn on the beacon itself by holding the power button on the side. We can see the beacon is searching for the drone via Bluetooth, and when it finds it, you will see the camera view on its display. From then, you can toggle between all the different flying modes, which we have here: hover, zoom out, follow, orbit, bird’s eye, dolly track, sight track, ski mode, cycling mode, dolly zoom, and indoor follow—a quite large collection of different flight modes.

And moves that the drone can perform for you. You can start and stop recording from the button in the center of the display, and you can see the battery levels of the drone and the beacon as well as a few different parameters like omni-terrain and microphone. Maybe a small thing that I would personally love to see implemented is a swiping gesture from all sides of the screen for accessing different features and slightly larger icons for easier pressing, especially since we don’t have that many elements on the screen anyway. Now that you have seen how the beacon works and how you can use it in a variety of different ways, let’s check out the new cycling mode which Z00 Robotics introduced with one of their latest firmware updates.

Testing the Cycling Mode

So here we have the setup: the drone is ready. Then we have the Osmo Action 5 Pro capturing my reactions. And here we have the beacon, which is connected to the drone and sits great on the handlebars, showcasing everything that’s going on through the lens of the drone. Right, so we’re on the bike, we’re in the forest, and obviously the first thing we need to do is turn on the beacon.

We’ll do that. The next thing I need to do is take out the drone from my pocket, which is the biggest flex since the drone is so small. Now I need to unfold it and also power it on. So, we’re waiting for our beacon to connect to the drone, which right now is already connected. From the beacon itself, let me just take the camera so I can show it to you. From the beacon itself, I can set it to cycling mode, ski mode, cycling mode, and just confirm. Then I can place you back here on the bike and simply press once on middle cycling mode, and we’re off in the air. So, I have the camera view of the drone here on the beacon. I can see myself, not really because it’s quite dark due to the sun. But still, I’m recording on the Osmo Action 5 Pro, and we’re off with the HOVERAir X1 Pro Max and the beacon. Now, one thing you should know is that this cycling mode has two settings that you can check out. One of them is for tight trails.

And the other one is for more wide-open trails, so obviously, here, things are a little bit too tight. That’s why I’ve set it to that setting, but later we’ll check out the other one as well. Everything is kind of freezing because the weather is around 0°, even though we have some sun. Still, it’s quite cold. Let’s pick up some speed. All good on the drone from what I’m seeing, and I’m a little bit out of breath already. That’s just ridiculous.

Adjusting Settings for Open Areas

But yeah, that’s how things are right now. Now we are in a lot more open area, so I’ll change some of the settings here in the app, where I can set the altitude, the distance, the duration of the shot, and of course, the cycling environment, which I just mentioned. If we want to keep it in narrow routes or open areas, I’ll switch that to open areas, and then I will change the distance to far and the altitude to high, just to get a little bit more of a different perspective. So we have done that; now we can just start flying. We’re recording. I can see the beacon. Let’s go. I will also pick up the speed a little bit more, and let’s see if the drone will be able to keep up without any issues.

Let’s stop for a second. I just need to tighten some of my mounts here because my camera is just falling. Other than that, we’re fine. Let’s continue. I can see the drone is doing very, very well, and let’s go. This is super bumpy. Okay, this is super, super bumpy. It is great for riding, though.

Navigating Challenging Terrain

Okay, I need to be super careful here with the amount of mud that we have here. Let’s adjust those mounts once again. The drone is showing zero hiccups though. Zero. I’m struggling a lot more than the drone. Everything is freezing here, so at least it’s not like liquid mud, but still, it’s definitely not the best for riding.

Ooh, and we need to go around this huge puddle here. Yeah, we need to pass through here, just to make sure I won’t get into the puddle.

Where are we? It’s all ice here. Oh my God! I am loving it, but as you can see, guys, absolutely zero issues for the drone. It’s following me, even from a further distance back from a higher altitude. These little twigs? Not a problem for the drone, and it’s just going and going after me. I love it!

Conclusion

And there you guys have it. This is the beacon for the HOVERAir X1 Pro Max. I hope this video was informative and entertaining enough for you so you can get a grasp of everything that you can expect out of this great device. I think it’s a must-have device if you have the HOVERAir X1 Pro Max, because no matter what you throw at it, it will just pull through. It will keep going, and it will keep following you, keeping you in the middle of the shot, producing some great shots for you while you’re doing something like me on the bike. I’ll catch you in the next one. Stay safe, take care, and goodbye!

Specifications Comparison

So, let’s jump right into it and take a look at the specs of these drones, including flight time, which I know is one of the most important things for people when they buy a drone. The DJI Flip comes in at 31 minutes—now, granted, this is the advertised flight time.

The Mini 4 Pro comes with two different batteries: 34 minutes for the small battery and 45 minutes for the larger one, giving the advantage in this case to the Mini 4 Pro. As far as weight, the Mini 4 Pro is 249 grams, plus or minus a few grams—actually, minus a few grams in most cases—with the small battery. If you have the big battery, it’s going to be 280 grams, which, keep in mind, if you’re a recreational pilot, means you have to register the drone. If you’re a Partie 107 operator, you have to register these drones regardless.

As far as connectivity going into the controller, both use OcuSync 4.0, so no changes here. Same for the speed: 36 mph maximum speed, so no difference there either. As far as sensors, we have a little more sophistication in the Mini 4 Pro, where you’re using different sensors for forward detection and two in the back for rear sensing as well. With the Flip, we only have forward sensing, which doesn’t use cameras—it actually uses a laser sensor instead.

Real-World Performance

Now, as always when we do these kinds of reviews, we put these drones to the test in a real-world environment. Keep in mind we were at high altitude when we tested them. For the Mini 4 Pro, the equivalent altitude was 7,500 feet; it was 6,900 feet for the Flip—a little bit less. What we found is that total flight time for the Mini 4 Pro was 23 minutes and 31 seconds with the small battery, while the Flip clocked in at 25 minutes and 59 seconds, so the Flip won with the same type of battery.

Obviously, with the bigger battery, we were able to get 34 minutes and 34 seconds on the Mini 4 Pro—not an option available with the Flip. As far as noise, they’re very similar: 70 decibels from the distance we measured, the same distance for both drones. I do have to say the Flip has a slightly different noise profile—it’s a little deeper. The Mini 4 Pro is actually very quiet when it starts to get to a higher altitude. Obviously, we’re not comparing this to the Avata, which has one of the most annoying sounds we’ve seen in any drone.

Camera Capabilities

As far as the cameras in the front, you’re not really losing anything with either drone. Both have a 1/1.3-inch CMOS sensor—I’ll get to the photos in a second to show you the difference. The aperture is fixed at f/1.7, same for both. As far as video quality, what we find is that both drones are capable of 4K at 60 frames per second, which is pretty standard these days, and 1080p at 60 frames per second as well. The big difference here is that on the Mini 4 Pro, the camera physically rotates to give you a 9:16 format, which we can do at 4K 60 because it’s the same camera—it just rotates. On the DJI Flip, we’re limited to 2.7K in the 9:16 format because the camera doesn’t move, meaning the image is cropped. I do believe this is a big advantage for the Mini 4 Pro if you’re doing a lot of content for social media—I think the footage looks a lot better because you have the full image, not a cropped sensor. So, the Flip is limited to 2.7K at 30 frames per second and 1080p at 30 frames per second in that 9:16 format.

Both drones are capable of slow motion, which is a different mode: 4K at 100 frames per second. The Mini 4 Pro also has the ability to do 1080p at 200 frames per second. As far as color modes, they’re very similar—Normal mode and D-Log M for both, so if you like shooting in Log, you’ll be able to do this. We’ll show you some footage in a second. The advantage with the Mini 4 Pro is that it also supports HLG, so if you’re a fan of HLG and that’s part of your workflow, this will work better for you.

Image Quality Assessment

As far as image quality on these two, they’re really similar. I don’t know if I’m specifically partial to the Mini 4 Pro just because I own one and have flown it a bunch, but I do think they’re very close. I was actually surprised that the Flip’s quality is almost as good as the Mini 4 Pro’s. I do think maybe for me the Mini 4 Pro seems just a tad better, perhaps in dynamic range, but in some comparison videos I’ve seen, I lean toward it. Again, I might be biased toward the Mini 4 Pro, but it’s pretty impressive how close the Flip gets to the quality you get in the Mini 4 Pro for less cost. They do have the same sensor, but I noticed the Flip’s images were a little magenta-tinted and didn’t show as deep greens as the Mini 4 Pro. I have a feeling it’s the backend processing built into the drone. Even though the sensor sizes are exactly the same, you still need computing power to get a good image, and I think the Mini 4 Pro has a little more on the photo side.

There are a lot of similarities here—burst, panoramic, all different formats can be done on both. As far as zoom, the Flip can do 2x, 3x, and 4x digital zoom, while the Mini 4 Pro can only do 2x digital. I don’t know that that’s a big deal—I hate using digital zoom unless I’m really looking for something specific, but it’s not something I’d use in my footage.

Intelligent Features

Both drones can do Master Shots. If you’re not familiar, this is the ability to record cool footage of an object—you let the drone fly, and it makes a little video at the end. This is great if you’re looking to get some creative flows going. As far as Quick Shots—Dronie, Helix, Rocket, Circle, Boomerang—all of these are available. The only difference is that, interestingly, the Flip can do Spotlight, and the Mini 4 Pro can do Asteroids. Neither drone overlaps on these two Quick Shots.

As far as intelligent flight modes, in addition to Quick Shots, we have Master Shots available on both. We also have Hyperlapse and Panorama on both. The big advantage for the Mini 4 Pro is that it can do Waypoints—not something we can do on the Flip. Both have Active Track, the ability to follow an object. On the Hyperlapse side, they offer Free, Circle, Course Lock, and Waypoint modes within the Hyperlapse functionality, and both have the same options.

Pricing Details

Now, let’s talk about pricing because I know this is important for a lot of you, as it should be. The Flip was designed to be a category below the Mini 4 Pro, so it is cheaper. The drone-only option, which is only available with the Flip, is $439. If you already have a controller sitting around, it’s a great deal—you can just buy the drone and use an existing controller.

You can also buy it with the RC2 (the controller with the screen) for $639. Of course, at the time of recording this, those prices might change in the future. The Mini 4 Pro comes at a premium: $759 with the RCN2 (the controller without the screen—you’ll have to use your cell phone). With the RC2, it’s $959. With the Flip, it’s $1,099 with the RCN2 (the lower model controller) and an additional $6 if you want to upgrade to the RC2.

Quite frankly, if you have the budget, the RC2 controller is probably my favorite. For the bang for the buck, it’s such a great package—you have everything in one, and you can be up in the air in no time. I don’t work for DJI, but this is just a great controller. If you want extra batteries, they’re $65 for both drones’ small batteries. The bigger battery for the Mini 4 Pro is $95 instead of $65.

Camera Chart Testing

We love to put our drones to the test using a camera chart, and this is where it becomes very valuable. We zoom in on different parts of the chart. If you’re not familiar with it, this is what our camera chart looks like. We start with 12 megapixels and then move to 48 right after that. We tend to pick portions of the chart that push the sensor to its limits. What we find, looking at the chart, is that these two sensors—remember, they’re the same size and have the same aperture—produce results that are very much the same. It looks like we could have swapped the SD cards, and the result would have been nearly identical. As we go toward 3200 ISO, it starts to get a bit more pixelated and noisy, which isn’t the case at ISO 100.

There’s one part of the camera chart that all drones usually struggle with: a square at the bottom in the middle with a black-and-white pattern that creates a lot of chromatic aberration. What we noticed is that when we tested the Mini 4 Pro initially, it performed the best, especially on that part of the chart, and it still does. We did the testing at the same time with the same lighting for both drones, and the Mini 4 Pro did better. Why? I don’t know—it’s the same sensor size, same aperture, and seems like the same sensor in every other way, but it just performed better in this case.

On the 48-megapixel side, we notice things we’ve seen before: at 48 megapixels compared to 12 megapixels, the image quality is better all the way up to ISO 800. ISO 1600 and 3200 typically perform better at 12 megapixels, which I think has to do with the number of pixels being utilized and the heating that develops from that. In general, if you’re using anything between ISO 100 to 800—which should be the majority of your flights—I recommend using the 48-megapixel camera.

When comparing the two cameras from the two drones, we see the same results as before: both cameras have the same issues in the same areas of the pictures. That’s not surprising because I believe it’s a very similar, if not exactly the same, sensor. Again, the Mini 4 Pro did better on that one specific portion of the camera chart—I can’t explain it, but it is what it is. I don’t know that in real life it would translate to that big of a difference.

Video Comparison: DJI Flip vs Mini 4 Pro

Now, let’s take a look at a video comparison. We used the same settings in the same area on the same day, flown back-to-back, to show you exactly what the footage looks like. I’ll let you decide what you think is the better footage and if one warrants more money than the other. Let me know in the comments!

Flying Regulations and Wind Performance

I do need to talk about flying over people, ID à distance, and these things because these are questions we get all the time. Both of these drones are not—I repeat, are not—Category 1 compliant with the FAA. For the Flip, the reason is it doesn’t have Remote ID internally. Otherwise, everything would work—it has prop guards, it’s sub-250 grams, and it would be perfect. DJI decided not to include Remote ID, which means you’d have to add a module, taking it over 250 grams. You can argue with me in the comments whether DJI was right or wrong—it doesn’t matter; it’s not Category 1 compliant. The Mini 4 Pro isn’t Category 1 compliant either because it doesn’t have prop guards natively. As soon as we add prop guards, it goes over 249 grams—same story.

The bottom line is you can apply with the FAA if you’re a Part 107 operator and certified. You can apply for a waiver because these drones, with all equipment, are sub-400 grams, which is the limit where the FAA requires a parachute. It’s fairly easy to get—we have a video here talking about all this information.

Something else I want to mention, because there’s a big difference between the two: the Flip does not do well in the wind. It’s terrible compared to the Mini 4 Pro. Hyperlapses are one area where we tested this a bunch, and the Flip doesn’t seem to perform very well compared to the Mini 4 Pro—it just doesn’t handle wind as well. So, if you’re flying in a windy environment on a regular basis, you’ll definitely want to pick the Mini 4 Pro.

Réflexions finales

My preference would be the Mini 4 Pro for sure, but I could definitely see myself picking up the Flip. It’s a little cheaper, and there are some great controller options you can pair it with. Whatever you decide—if you want to spend a few extra hundred dollars on the Mini 4 Pro or stick with something cheaper with the Flip—I don’t think you can go wrong with either. Let me know what you think in the comments, and we’ll see you in the next vidéo!

1. Drones Are Not Toys: Understanding UAV Responsibility

Just like you read it – your brand new, flashy piece of tech is anything but a toy. Sure, it might look like a toy, smell like a freshly opened toy, taste like a toy, and fly like a toy… but what you have is a UAV. And UAVs/Drones are everything BUT toys. Can a toy make an airplane or helicopter crash? Well, this device you plan to buy (or just bought) can cause havoc in the wrong hands. It’s just like a knife: in good hands, it can help prepare a delicious meal, but in the wrong hands, it can be disastrous. So remember: don’t treat your drone like a toy, and don’t give it to an unsupervised child (because it’s not a toy).

2. Is it easy to fly drones? Yes, but it’s also easy to crash them

Almost every time I fly my drones, someone approaches and asks the same 5 questions, not necessarily in this order:

• “Is it easy to fly?”
• “How high can it fly?”
• “How far can it go?”
• “How much does it cost?”
• “Can I fly it?”

Of course, I try to avoid answering because being Pilot in Command (PIC) isn’t a task for someone who loves to chat while flying. And while it CAN BE easy to fly a drone nowadays with all the sensors and automated safety features, if you get overconfident, you WILL crash it. You need to understand that learning to fly a drone properly requires an investment of time and, above all, developing your common sense.

3. Choosing Your Drone Purpose: How to Find the Perfect Type for your needs

What do you want to do with your drone? Are you planning to use it as a flying camera for family vacations or solo trips? Want to record yourself for social media? Or maybe you plan to start working with it? Perhaps you want to create commercial videos and photos? Or get into drone racing?

Different drones excel at different tasks, and that’s why you need to define your purpose – a drone that’s great for FPV racing isn’t the same as one with a perfect autonomous following system.

4. Size Matters

It’s not the same to carry and fly a tiny, palm-sized drone as it is to fly a drone that weighs over 700 grams, or really any drone over 250 grams. This is because in almost every country, drones weighing more than 250 grams must be registered and, depending on the circumstances, you’ll probably need a UAV Pilot license. And the bigger the drone, the bigger the overall setup – it’s not just the weight of the drone and controller, but also the extra batteries, chargers, bags, and accessories you’ll need to carry.

5. Learn About Battery Life Limitations and Flight Time

You need to understand something: when a drone maker tells you the estimated flight time of a drone, they’re not lying. They’re just giving you the number of minutes in “ideal” conditions. Usually these conditions mean flying at the slowest possible speed, at sea level, with no wind at all, sensors turned off, and without recording or taking any pictures.

So they’re not lying, but you should know that these settings are, to put it nicely, a bit “unrealistic.” Be prepared and buy extra batteries if you want to fly longer or if you live in a windy city like I do, at 2,850 meters above sea level. Remember that the higher the altitude, the fewer minutes your drone will fly due to air density – and closer to sea level, you’ll get more flying time.

6. Think before you buy: factor the weight of the ownership beyond the price tag

When you first buy a new drone, don’t just focus on the initial price tag. You need to think about additional expenses like a large carrying case, extra batteries, a sun shade for your controller, or even a different controller, propeller guards, spare propellers, and don’t forget drone insurance… this will help a lot if you’re not the best pilot (yet).

7. Don’t overestimate your Skill Level

Not long ago, I wrote about why your first drone should cost around $25 or less. Why? Because this is probably your first time flying a drone. If you get the flashiest, most expensive drone you can buy, you’re going to be afraid to fly it to its full potential. So it’s best to start with a simpler model to build your piloting skills without risking too much money.