What Parrot’s New Drones Can Do

Parrot has a bunch of new drones out right now — from the Disco, the first easy-to-fly fixed-wing drone that promises to give a “fully immersive” flight experience, to a pair of shiny new minidrones.

Here’s all the details.

The compact (58cm x 115cm) fixed-wing Parrot Disco can reach top speeds of 80 km/h and offers 45 minutes of flight time. It is made of expanded Polypropylene and reinforced by carbon tubes, meaning it is both lightweight (750g) and robust.

You don’t need previous piloting experience, and it takes-off and lands automatically — there’s also an autopilot function to help control the flight.

For example, when the control stick of the remote control is tilted to the right, the fixed-wing drone will curve in the same direction, while the autopilot takes care of lightly tilting the wing and increasing the speed of the engine.

To get that promised immersion, Parrot has created a first person view headplay Parrot Cockpitglasses which live streams the airborne footage captured by the Disco’s Full HD frontal camera — there’s 32 GB memory on board.

There’s a new and compact remote control — Parrot Skycontroller 2, you’ll also be able to pilot from your own RC controller in full manual mode (after connecting a module).

Available in October 2016, you can get the whole kit — Parrot Disco + Parrot Skycontroller 2 + Parrot Cockpitglasses for $2,399.99.


The Swing is the first plane Minidrone which takes off and lands vertically and has forward flight, the X shape of Swing enables it to fly both vertically and horizontally. When the propellers turn toward the horizon, it flies horizontally like an aircraft — always in forward motion with full speed reaching 30 km/ph. It turns right, left, does U-turns, half-flips and loops, as well as promising “amazing” fluidity and stability.

Speedily switching from the quadcopter mode to the plane mode, Swing can perform aerial tricks at high speed. It will stay in the air for eight minutes (depending on the piloting mode), and has a fast charge of 25 minutes (with a not-included 2.6A charger).

The minidrone uses the FreeFlight Mini app for setting the parameters, and the Parrot Flypad for the piloting remote control. It has customisable joysticks and buttons and also has a stable connection with the Swing at long distance, extending the range of Bluetooth Low Energy up to 60m.

You’ll be able to pick one up (in a bundle with the Flypad) in October for $229.99.

The Mambo is Parrot’s powerful Minidrone which reaches speed of 30km/h and performs aerial acrobatics — front, back or side loops, 90 degree or 180 degree turns.

It comes with a Cannon, which allows you to identify a target, aim at a moving object and fire aprojectile, and a Grabber — so you can transport a message, catch a cube of sugar and drop it in a cup. If you’re into that sort of thing.

You can pick one up in October for $199.99


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