I know some members have Drones… and I’m just wondering how much they get to use them …
Have they hit any snags ?? (no pun intended) 
I bought one of these earlier in the year in Hong Kong on my way to Tahiti and Bora Bora for a few weeks. It was £400 cheaper than I’d seen it on Amazon.
https://www.dji.com/mavic
Stayed at the Peninsula hotel which has a helicopter pad. Very worrying flying for the first few flights.
Took some great footage from there. The drone shoots in 4K and can fly up to 7 kms from the control device it also has a “Home” button so you can program it to return automatically from where it set off, it uses sensors to avoid obstacles. Sadly the “Home” button doesn’t always work, on one of the first flights in Bora Bora my room was an end of pontoon over water bungalow,mi flew it across the lagoon but the wind became very strong and the drone wouldn’t come back, I kind of had an idea where it crashed and walked about a mile through the waist high water, finally retrieved it on the roof of a corrugated roof propellers were broken but I had spares. I’ll try to upload some footage
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Bought a cheap one from a friend to have a play with, no return home or take off button but does have FPV camera. I am not an accomplished pilot! more hours needed but fun for the few minutes the batteries last. I would consider upgrading to a better model but other priorities at the moment.
The battery on this one last just short of half an hour plus I bought a spare one. In hindsight getting a cheap one to practice with is a good idea
I saw on the shopping channel (one of them) just last night, a drone for £179 with a good camera on a gimbal, single button take off and landing geo stationary height and a good battery life!
Hasn’t Lee Bentley got one?
He does - he posted some good clips 
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How do I upload a video please
If you upload it to a Dropbox folder you can link to it from here.
I bought a DJI Mini Pro 3 last year with great ideas of using it on a trip to Oz. Well I dragged it around with me and only flew it once for about five minutes. When I got home I put it away and forgot about it but having just rediscovered I’m going to have a quick play.
Has anyone else bought one since the last post here?
I use mine quite a bit to check the land for fallen trees,
the river bank/ water levels, Chateau grounds when the owner isn’t here, saves traipsing around all the time when it’s winter or too hot in the summer, all from the front door.
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Just be careful not to fly the drones where it’s not allowed… 
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I am no drone pilot, flown mine many times but really not getting into the swing of it. Mind you its a basic one compared to DJ’s etc. The electric helicopter was even worse 
battery life about 8 mins and then it just heads straight down.
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Just a reminder…
Réglementation des drones : puis-je le faire voler dans mon jardin ?.
Provided one isn’t in a “totally forebidden zone” seems you can fly the drone over your own property but not over any property without express permission from that property owner.
It’s all to do with preserving Privacy Rights…
and I was interested to note that a specific Insurance is recommended in case things go wrong…
I’ve got a friend who’s an airline pilot and keen amateur photographer, who let me take some photos with his high end drone last year (he pioted it and I gave directions to frame the shot precisely. Was very impressed with the results. All the photos I took differed from conventional drone photos and other forms of aerial photography as they were of various water conditions in the Lot, taken with the camera vertically above the river. Part of the series was shot about a metre above a weir at very high shutter speed and the results were interesting. The images can be printed a couple of feet wide.
Detail:-
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We have had drones active over the village a few times this year. Nobody knows who is piloting the. My neighbour has reported this to the gendarmes as they seem to be hovering over properties. Not legal at all. It may be innocent and someone that doesn’t understand the law but it’s a bit disconcerting, as if someone may be ‘casing’ the area.
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Rules are in place, for good reason… let’s hope it’s just an innocent ignoramous…
I get the impression all those who’ve said they’ve got a drone or have tried one are guys? 
I have a drone - Holy Stone HS-720G.
Only tried it a couple of times and then I broke my wrist and fractured the lower part of my arm that meets the wrist 
, so haven’t had a chance to try it out properly.
I was contemplating selling it as I’m not sure my wrist will be strong enough for the controls even when fully healed.
No chasseur using them for target practice or thinking they were a game bird them?
Sounds like a device needed which will identify what radio frequency the drone is being controlled using - and jamming it. Ker-rash!