Parrot Disco Drone

Product Description

The Parrot Disco. Sounds like something fabulous opening in Vegas this fall. Looks like a big, boring black-and-white drone. But what it lacks in physical flash, Parrot's new fixed-wing flyer promises to make up for in... [Read more]

Features

• Fixed-wing drone that reaches speeds up to 50 mph
• Ultra-precise piloting and extended flight range of up to 1.2 mile with Parrot Skycontroller 2
• Immersive flight experience with Parrot Cockpitglasses (FPV goggles)
• Shoot full HD 1080P videos and 14Mpx photos with the built-in wide-angle camera. Footage can be captured in RAW, JPEG and DNG format.
• High capacity 2700mAh battery with up to 45 min battery life
• Easy to fly with automatic take-off and landing, assisted piloting controls, anti-stall system, and Return Home functionality
• Compatible Smartphone screen size for the Cockpitglasses: 4.7 - 5.2" / 12 - 13 cm

Top Reviews

Do not purchase anything from Parrot. They will screw you. Read my story.
by jeff (1 out of 5 stars)
July 21, 2017

Update as of 7/26 - 32 days into my open case and now Parrot is just ignoring me. This company has the worst support imaginable. Run.

This product itself is great. 4.5 or 5 star great.

Now I am going to explain why I am giving only 1 star. When something goes wrong, and something will always go wrong with a drone at some point, you need to have the ability to work with support sometimes to troubleshoot or get things replaced. Their support team is now on week 4 of my case file issue and seem to have no interest in supporting me, giving answers or even communicating effectively. The Disco has a Pitot tube that senses air speed and controls the engine speed accordingly. the drone locked into permanent full speed in flight and eventually crashed because of the speed. Tier 2 tech support cannot be reached Directly, they are padded entirely by tier 1 which is more or less powerless beyond typing into the case file (they have cool callsigns though like they're in Top Gun), and they take a week or more to answer back and forth. Now I am 8 Days in from the last response to an email and nothing back. When I call tier 1 they commit to checking with tier 2. They can't even reach them on the phone. Parrot support is hands down the worst I have ever experienced in my 35 years of buying stuff and needing to call people.

Thanks Parrot. Hopefully some people take this into account.
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Parrot Disco - very capable if understood .. and that's not easy!!
by BitsnBytes (3 out of 5 stars)
November 22, 2016

The biggest problem w. the Parrot Disco is the lack of a good user manual that fully describes its very complicated flight control and autopilot system. I have a lot of experience w. RC aircraft and quadcopter drones of all makes and functionality, from the simplest to the most complex. Before I ever flew the Disco I spent a LOT of time reading the inadequate Parrot manual, looking at YouTube videos, and talking to customer support. My first flight was in a huge open pasture, and went just fine .. but it was a totally manual flight .. no "Flight Plan" preprogrammed autonomous flight ... That was only after 4-5 manual flights to "manual" landings. "Manual" is in quotes, because you cannot land the Disco manually, you have to hit the "Land" button and the Disco takes over and does a pre-programmed approach and landing FROM THE LOWEST ALLOWED ALTITUDE YOU HAVE SET in the configuration parameters. If you set 100 ft., you can fly the Disco no lower than 100 ft., so you can't descend to a lower altitude and land ... it will take over at 100 ft. ... Hence the recommended lowest altitude setting of 16 ft. ... From that point a "manual" landing causes the Disco to keep its wings level, gradually descend to about 6 ft., flare, settle and for a brief instant (try to find that anywhere except tech support) reverse its motor to allow a minimum speed landing .. it "auto brakes" to markedly slow its forward motion.
"Spiral Landing" mode is to be avoided unless you own, or have access to, a 100 acre flat field ... In that situation, from an autonomous Flight Plan flight the Disco does the entire landing from a wide spiral .. so good luck picking a landing spot.

A very unusual fact w. the Disco is that you are not flying the aircraft ... you are sending instructions to the autopilot which then flies the plane ... much like modern drones like the military Raptor ... and you can upload a pre-programmed flight plan that the Disco will fly quite nicely .. including altitude changes, different video views, etc...

Parrot needs to revamp its manual ... or have a continuously updated PDF manual online that they should INSIST that users read before flying the Disco .. that would solve 90% of the problems. It is not a simple, intuitive drone like the DJI Phantom, but if you fully understand it, and its limitations, I think users will have an enjoyable experience. Take it out of the box, charge it, and try to fly it with only the packaged documentation and you will be very disappointed.

Can't comment on FPV flight as I'm not that far yet ... and I've been flying it for several weeks.
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A huge load of fun
by jswedberg (5 out of 5 stars)
August 25, 2017

I used to fly radio-control planes when I was younger, but got disenchanted after going through the 'build it, crash it' cycle too many times. I was very intrigued by the Disco - it is a very different take on the consumer drone concept. I was very concerned, however about all the poor reviews on Amazon and elsewhere.

My concerns were unfounded, though. The Disco has performed better than I hoped! A few caveats, though - I knew (from my previous RC airplane experience) that a lot of space is needed. Don't expect to fly this in your back yard, or even in a small field, like you might a 'normal' helicopter drone. I fly mine around a large ranch, and it works great in that scenario.

I did carefully read the manual (which is very basic, as the critics have mentioned). I also watched the Parrot tutorial videos. Launching was easy once I saw the technique, and I never had any problem. Once in the air, it climbs to 150 feet and circles, giving plenty of time to get settled writhe controller. Landing worked well, too, but just like an RC plane, it is important to line up properly, and the more space available, the easier it is.

I did have problems viewing the instruments displayed on my iPhone - it's really to bright outside to see the display. The FPV goggles, on the other hand, have been really fun. Once the plane has been launched, I can load the phone into the goggles and get them over my eyes while the plane is loitering overhead. The FPV video resolution is pretty grainy (it is adjustable, however), but it is easily good enough to get the sensation of flying.

I've been quite pleased with the video output, as well. It is 1080p at 24 FPV, and the footage is optically stabilized so it looks far better than what I see in the goggles. The 32 Gb of storage is far more than what's required for a flight, and it's been easy to transfer it to my phone or laptop.

The software allows you to place limits on max range, and min and max altitude. I extended the range from the default 1500 feet to 2400 feet, and had no problems with connectivity as long as I pointed the transmitter at the drone. I have yet to try further distances - as it is, at 2400 feet, the drone is practically invisible and silent.

I have been being conservative on run times, usually calling it quits at 35% or so, but still have been getting over a half hour on a charge. The transmitter has more capacity, so there should never be a time when it runs out before the drone.

Two minor quibbles - the recharger will either charge the drone battery OR the transmitter, but not both. I plan to buy another recharger so I don't have to change cables back and forth. Also, the throttle has a spring that returns it to a middle setting - I'd rather have no spring, so that the throttle stays in place if I release the stick.
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Good airplane but not for beginners.
by Ron Landram (5 out of 5 stars)
February 2, 2018

I flew the Disco for the first time today and it performed very well. Launch was easy and I found the airplane to be stable and easy to fly. That being said, unless you can fly a fixed wing model airplane without any problems, the Disco is not for you. Once you take it out of loiter mode it flies much like any other RC airplane. I think a lot of the negative reviews and stories of crashes are because new pilots try to fly it without any fixed wing experience. I had no problem with it but it can be a little tricky to line it up and land. Also you need a good deal of room, especially for the first flights.
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Hard to master. Very fun when mastered. Overall-amazing.
by M. Siddiqui (5 out of 5 stars)
January 26, 2018

I don't usually review but I think this product is being reviewed badly and I think its not fair. I love this drone, it is by far the most fun I've had in flying drones. I think the people who had problems didn't really do things correctly. But this drone is actually hard to fly. It's not your usual drone quadcopter. But overall, if you get a hang of it you'll surely enjoy it. I've had a ton of crashes with this drone but amazingly it still works superb. I just wish there are wheels for landing :)

for the record I bought this at $499 and because I loved it I bought another one for $399. So, I feel its worth it. This might've been a different review if I bought this for $1000+.
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Think twice before purchasing.
by Kevin (1 out of 5 stars)
September 28, 2016

I am so disappointed in this expensive purchase and Parrot's support, I wish I could rank this product with negative stars.

After reading the manual and setting up, the drone was launched from our half acre of grass front lawn. At first all seemed great as it took off easily and moved right into loitering above us. However several times I encountered a "drone disconnected" message on screen even though the drone was only a few houses down.

Finally it ended in a crash as we noticed a piece of the right wing come off. First a drone disconnected message came on screen and it came down three houses away in a strange spiral. It crashed hard into many pieces. That was not in the manual.

After calling Parrot support I am told that my story does not match the "flight data" and that they reviewed my property and the 1/2 acre of grass front lawn is inadequate to launch and land the drone ( not that it actually landed where we were ). So for $1,300 we got about twenty minutes of drone flying.
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Losing sleep over this nightmare. Crashed for no reason with footage showing its origin, meth heads
by AFV (1 out of 5 stars)
October 4, 2017

This is quite literally the worst product I have ever used. The marketing is excessively misleading to the point I feel ripped off. The thing does not land. I watched all the videos, read the manual, pressed the right buttons. It just kept taking off again when it was coming in for a landing. I crashed it into a soft tree twice. The camera they put in the nosecone can VERY easily and permanently be moved out of focus. You can't adjust it and this seems intentional to me. You have to go buy a 150-300 dollar replacement. That is likely their plan as I could get a camera that seems comparable for 30 bucks but it isn't compatible.

But the worst thing is, on only my third flight, I lost video feed, tried to land it, it took off again. I brought it in again via the home button which worked, but the plane was flying crappily with unsteady rpms. It had been fine when the flight started. Then it lost all connection and nose dived where i can never find it. I looked at the app to get flight history data and it had no record of the flight at all! It was like it deleted evidence of its failure. Heaven help me if the people who were unlawfully shooting at it (no, they did not hit it, I was way too far and high and not over their property and it was a different flight that it crashed), find it and review the footage showing from whence it took of. Because, brilliantly, the product automatically records when you take off. You have to turn it off immediately or else your crashed drone will advertise where it came from. This product is a total nightmare. There is no homing beacon, no fall back to find it. They make it look like it automatically lands but my experience was that I spend a fortune on this, mainly for this feature and it was completely not working. I could have bought a plane for the fraction of the cost if it was just going to fly off and crash in a mountain somewhere. I am so extremely disappointed I am not sure I will even look for the plane tomorrow. I'm not sure I even want it back. I already wasted hundreds of dollars on a piece of crap, why waste more time, when i should spend that looking for a solution/product that might actually work and provide value?
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Easy to get up and Flying
by Dan C (5 out of 5 stars)
December 30, 2017

Well packaged, delivered ahead of schedule. All components included as expected. Very easy to assemble and operate if you follow the instructions in the Users Manual. Do not expect to just open the box and fly. Know the FAA rules - This drone will have to be registered with the FAA. Don't fly it near an airport. This aircraft is easy to fly and has automated features that make launching and landing very simple. The First-person goggles provide a very unique "cockpit" view which makes it fun to fly, but if using the goggles, make sure you fly with a spotter or visual observer that can see where the aircraft is going. I also own a Parrot Bebop drone and the controller and FPV goggles are compatible with this system.
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The Disco is extremely user friendly and the FPV is great when it works
by Amazon_Customer (2 out of 5 stars)
September 27, 2016

I am a complete noob in the aviation community but after watching the Parrot videos I was hooked.

I have never been a fan of quadcopters. I've always wanted an RC Plane that was user friendly and had the FPV capabilities. The Parrot Disco fit the bill.

The Disco is extremely user friendly and the FPV is great when it works... emphasis on when it works. The company advertises a range of 2000 meters but so far I have been unable to take this drone past 700 meters before the connection is broken and the Disco is forced to return home.

Video footage begins to hang and become fragmented after 400 meters and then it freezes / disconnects after 500+.

I wrote a review on my site at gear-nut dot com

There are some things Parrot is not disclosing that I feel prospective buyers should know about before making the plunge.
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Autopilot glitches
by madhavadas (2 out of 5 stars)
April 29, 2018

It worked fine but had some problems with the autopilot, it stop working randomly and caused two crashes. Also the servos are cheaply made and one of them stripped causing a third crash.

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