By Bruce Eaton
We here at OhGizmo love our flying machines. But being able to fly is just one feature on the Dragonflyer V Ti Pro Helicopter. Able to shoot 460 lines of resolution on its CCD Video Camera and a 2.4GHz FM video transmitter, the Dragonflyer is not messing around in the aerial surveillance department. One of the best features though has to be its seven electronic sensors and the use of “Thermal Intelligence” to make sure its safe. This ensures that if it happens to go out of range or start running out of batteries, the device will land itself automagically.
The Thermal Intelligence (Ti) is a patented system which pretty slick: using 4 infrared sensors, it measures the thermal patterns of Earth vs. the sky to gain orientation. Ti then uses a thermal pattern of Earth’s horizon to calculate how much pitch and roll is needed to level it out and set down gently. More can be read here (warning, pdf).
This flying invasion of privacy is not cheap, coming in at $1500. There are loads of nice add-ons, such as their military grade “indestructible” [I want one of you readers to test that] cases. Time to fill the skies with these and live in a police state I say. Viva la 1984!
How long before we see newsfeeds coming from one of these instead of a news chopper. You could buy one of these for the price of a few hours of chopper time.
Being a news pilot I’d be screwed if that started happening =P
I bought a DFVTI and I love it. I fly it in the gym at the school I work at with the TI off. Makes for good practice when its windy. Flying it outside with the TI on is unbelievable, it makes flying way easier. I owned a DF4 and the DF5TI is way better. You must all upgrade, it is so worth it.