Most drones you hear about these days are in the $100 range. They do flips, maybe there’s a low-res camera on there, but it’s not like you’re looking at anything too serious. The Krossblade SkyProwler on the other hand seems to be the bee’s knees. It’s a Vertical Take-off and Landing (VTOL) drone, which means that you don’t need a runway to have it take to the skies, but once airborne it’s able to fly like a legit plane, rather than a heli. It’s able to switch back and forth between the configurations, so you’ll be flying at up to 83mph one minute, filming the countryside or whatever, only to slow down and hover for a bit when the fancy takes you. The powerful motors give it a payload capacity of 500g (a little more than 1lb.), which is enough for some high quality, gimbal-stabilized cameras. Three 5,000mAh cells give it great endurance of 40 minutes in plane mode, and 24 minutes in helicopter mode. The controller features a high-gain 6dB directional antenna for a range of 1.5 miles (2.4km), with an optional video screen so you can see what it sees.
As you can imagine, since this isn’t a toy, it doesn’t cost toy prices. You can get in on the action with a $699 pledge and a July delivery window, but that doesn’t include all the options. When it hits retail a fully decked out SkyProwler will cost $2,199, so now’s the time to get on the list if you want to save a few dollars.
[ Project Page ] VIA [ Werd ]
