Whats a good drone to buy under 1000$

[yada]

I want a drone with a /decent long range. Nothing that goes fast just for fun with a screen on the controller. I wanted to get an RC plane but that seems like the radio/camera part are too expensive. What do you guys use? Also I like to build antennas so one thing I would like to do is make a directional antenna and see how far it could go. Being able to fly at night would be good as well. What do you guys fly? Drone will be used in US/Canada. (Currently in the US for next few months)

[japasetelagoas]

You should really check out DJI's new Spark drone.
Just came out, the smallest of all of their series, probably the smallest high end one in the market.

http://store.dji.com/product/spark?site=brandsite&from=buy_now_frontpage

500 USD, 700 USD with the extra batteries and a few other items combo.

I don't have a drone but this new release really got me thinking on my first acquisition. It follows objects, recognizes hand gestures in order to perform certain functions, a whole lot of stuff. Watch their promo video.

Take care.

Edit: Forgot to mention the biggest drawback, due to its size the gimball does not pan (ie: you can only tilt the camera up & down, not sideways).

[james_s]

You might hop over to rcgroups, there's a whole section dedicated toward stuff like this.

Please be sensible about it, there has been a lot of bad press over the past few years and the FAA has really been breathing down our necks. Flying long range without line of sight with a spotter is illegal, same with flying over heavily populated areas or near airports. Stay away from full scale planes, stay away from roads/traffic and be mindful of private property, there is risk of draconian regulations affecting us all.

[yada]

You might hop over to rcgroups, there's a whole section dedicated toward stuff like this.

Please be sensible about it, there has been a lot of bad press over the past few years and the FAA has really been breathing down our necks. Flying long range without line of sight with a spotter is illegal, same with flying over heavily populated areas or near airports. Stay away from full scale planes, stay away from roads/traffic and be mindful of private property, there is risk of draconian regulations affecting us all.

Its going to used in a very rural area to map out places only accessible by hiking. The smaller ones don't have the range as the larger ones? I know this is true with a lot of things, I'm not looking for just a toy to fly around my back yard. What I wish I had the skill/money to create would be those RC planes that they fly for miles usually over the ocean and try to see how far they can go and make it back safely.

[james_s]

Well like I said, there's a whole section on rcgroups dedicated to this sort of thing. If you want long range survey capability you can do it a lot cheaper with fixed wing vs multirotor. Each has advantages and disadvantages.

[yada]

Well like I said, there's a whole section on rcgroups dedicated to this sort of thing. If you want long range survey capability you can do it a lot cheaper with fixed wing vs multirotor. Each has advantages and disadvantages.

I posted a question over there, that forum is not as well organized as this one in my opinion. Seems to be a lot of posts where people are just advertising Chinese goods.

[james_s]

Well they're not supposed to be. If you see spam posts you should flag them.