This drone doesn't shoot missiles, like the military's multi-million dollar flying death machines.
It just takes some amazing pictures (and can cost in the neighborhood of $500 to $1,000).
The video from the four rotor hobbyist helicopter was posted by YouTube user "Tretch5000."
Bill McGraw of Deadline Detroit reposted on the video late last night. He writes:
Tretch5000's drone buzzes over the green lawns and trees of Belle Isle. It glides between floors of an abandoned factory and out over a meadow of discarded tires. It zig-zags among the pillars of an old church that looks like a Roman ruin. It soars up the back, over the top and down the front of the Michigan Central Station in a dizzying trip that gives the viewer the sensation of falling -- or flying -- off the roof.
Here's the video, flying to the sounds of Ruby Frost and Mt. Eden's "Oh That I Had":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkMiIT1VG98
Remotely controlled flying machines are nothing new, but their capabilities are significantly increasing while their costs are significantly decreasing.
Wired Magazine's Editor in Chief Chris Anderson attributes the "drone" boom to burgeoning smart phone technology in his self-promoting piece "How I Accidentally Kickstarted the Domestic Drone Boom." (One poster commented, "Next up: How I kickstarted the Internet, by Al Gore.")
Anderson writes:
—sensors, optics, batteries, and embedded processors—all of them growing smaller and faster each year. Just as the 1970s saw the birth and rise of the personal computer, this decade will see the ascendance of the personal drone. We’re entering the Drone Age.
And Anderson and his company hope to be there to capitalize on it.
Right now, these "drones" can't really be drone-like unless the Federal Aviation Administration steps in.
FAA rules require that UAS (or unmanned aircraft systems) have to be within the operator's line of sight, have to stay under 400 feet, have to be flown during the day and have to be away from airports.
To be a "drone" implies that it flies somewhere either far from the person controlling it, or on some type of pre-programmed auto-pilot course.
With increasing pressure mounting (the government says in the United States alone, approximately 50 companies, universities, and government organizations are developing and producing over 155 unmanned aircraft designs), the FAA is looking into how it can regulate the coming "Drone Age" safely. They expect to have new rules by 2015.
Who knows? In 2015, Michigan Radio might finally be able to afford its first news chopper.
