Technology has taken over our lives so much that, the toys we played with in our childhood days are completely lost back in time. The kids now-a-days are seen to be playing with cell phones, Xbox, highly advanced gadgets and Drones!!!
Drones seem to be the next most fascinating thing amongst kids. The latest entrant testing it’s waters in this market is – Carbon Flyer!!
As mentioned on their pitch on Indiegogo, Carbon Flyer is the world’s first all carbon fiber personal drone, controlled by Bluetooth & Smartphone app, with an on-board video camera.
The concept of Carbon Flyer is pretty much similar to the paper planes we used to make and throw around, back in our days; the only difference here is that this is far more advanced.
Let’s give you a brief insight about how it came into existence!
Chris Hawker – the Ohio-based, president of Trident Design- creative design company, who created the Powersquid; always had a fascination for flying toys!
In May 2013 while taking a walk at the park, he along with his friend Abraham got this idea to make a carbon fiber free flight plane. One thing led to another and their idea started to make more sense and while the brainstorming was going on, another friend of theirs hit the nail by giving his input of adding Bluetooth control; this was the needed final touch.
Now, with these ideas in place Carbon Flyer looked more practical than fiction.
Hence, without further delay they put the idea to paper (not literally) and created a rough design of the product. After that, for 18 months every bit of the product from Carbon fiber airframe development, airframe prototype, Electronics and plastics development to creating the app and a lot more was seen to be under rigorous testing & development.
After its final testing was completed and once the team felt satisfied, in November 2014 they launched their first Crowd-funding campaign via Indiegogo.
Features…
Carbon Flyer has some really powerful features that will blow your mind. For instance: –
Carbon Flyer’s airframe or body is completely made up of Carbon Fiber. Carbon Fiber is a material that is a 100 times lighter than steel in terms of weight and is a 1,000 times stronger than the toughest foam. It is usually used for building aircrafts, high-end cars or for that matter branded sports equipment.
The durability of the product is so high that it is easily capable of enduring an inevitable crash.
It has high output LED running lights which can be found at all the motors and helps in locating the drone at sundown or night. These LED lights have been placed with different colors at each wing which helps in understanding the position of the drone.
Carbon Flyer is an extremely light-weight drone which has its own battery & does not require any external power source to fly and is controlled by a long range Bluetooth 4.0 along with a Smartphone app! It also comes along with a tiny camera attached to the drone and can be streamed through your phone itself.
Image Credit: CarbonFlyer
The miniature aircraft weigh’s 42.5 g with a length of 14.75 inches, wingspan of 7 inches, height of 3 inches and also its camera is 640 × 480. Its Bluetooth supports distances upto 240 feet which is roughly the size of a football field. The batteries attached are rechargeable lithium ion batteries which have the capability of roughly 3 minutes of flight time. After that, these batteries can easily be recharged by connecting the drone with the Micro-USB cable within just 15 minutes. With the help of the app you can also receive real-time indications about the battery life and signal strength.
Carbon Flyer being stiff, light weighed and tough can fly at a top speed of approximately 40 miles per hour.
You can steer the aircraft simply by going to the app and tilting the Smartphone in the direction you wish to take the drone and can increase or decrease the speed by moving your thumb up or down.
The beauty of the drone is that, it designed in such a way that it simply won’t break when it crash lands. To prove that, they have also made a video of the drone crashing over 30 times into a concrete wall; which remained unaffected apart from a few scratches.
As of now; the drone is available in black color but as per the makers, offering different colors would only be possible if they achieve their Crowdfunding goal on indiegogo.
Image Credit: Carbon Flyer
Till now the Carbon Flyer is being offered to its customers at a pre-order rate of USD149 via indiegogo and has over-achieved their goal of USD 50,000 by receiving USD 69,307 with 38 days still left to go. The product is also being prepared to be launched on Kickstarter soon and is expected to get more than expected funds.
The company intends to ship the drone to all its backers by September 2015 with a limited guarantee that you shall receive the product free of manufacturing defects.
The only but high–enough risk that surrounds the drone and its functioning is that; although it has been designed by trident designs in Columbus but most of its other parts are being produced by other companies which shall finally come together and will be manufactured in China. So how reliable would it be to trust other companies.
