A few months ago I bought this drone that is called the DJI maverick. This thing is a modern technological marvel. I still can’t really believe all the things this drone can do. I mean it’s got a camera that shoots 4k video it can tilt it and then look anywhere it needs to keep it really really stable. I mean I could go on and on it is an amazing a little piece of equipment.

However there are some things that I think you should just be aware of and just some some good practices to have if you are going to buy a drone of any kind.

I am going to cover some of those things in this article.

Remember to register your drone

The first thing you should be aware of is that if you own a drone for any purpose whether you are using it just for fun or if you are using it for like commercial purposes to like shoot real estate videos or anything for that matter pretty much across the board you are in the United States you have to register your drone with the FAA.

To register your drone, folow this link.

If you are still on this for like your own personal use like just for fun the cost is just five dollars to do that so it is not for that big deal. However if you are doing this for commercial purposes the cost goes up substantially I think it is like $199 or something like that.

So either way that is just something you should be aware of the FAA can actually find you and even put you in prison if you don’t register your drone. They apparently have the right to do that so it is not something you want to just ignore just definitely be sure to register your drone as soon as you get it so that you are in compliance with that.

Take your time and learn how your drone works

The second thing I would urge you to be aware of is that whatever kind of drone you get make sure you just take some time and understand how the thing works.

I know that should seem obvious but man me when I get this thing I was so excited to just like make it fly and see what it could do and that is understandable. However you are going to remember this is like an actual aircraft this thing can hurt people, this thing can kill animals and kill birds if you run into them.

I mean this thing could even like get in the way of an airplane and cost some kind of incident so it is really really important that even though this thing is fairly easy to fly take some time and go slow and make sure you understand how the thing is supposed to work.

There is actually some great YouTube videos out there that were hugely hoped with me when I was getting started.

Whatever kind of drone you get chances are if you just do a youtube search you’ll find a lot of helpful tutorials out there about how to get started with whatever drone you are using.

Get an alternative tracking method

Another good idea that I’ve heard from some but I have not actually implemented myself yet is to get an alternative way of tracking this thing down.

If you ever lose it for example there are RFID stickers you can get and the app that you use with this drone which goes on your phone and you actually can control the drone with the controller which is hooked up to your phone. It actually tells you where the drone is at all times.

I can tell you I’ve already had a couple of really scary instances where at one point I was flying this thing over Lake Michigan. It was man a good 300 feet away from me at least in my phone for some reason disconnected from the drone. I couldn’t see the video feed on it anymore and I was like oh my word I’m about to lose my drone.

Luckily the actual controller was still connected to it so I could ten up you know look at it all from the distance and get the drone back. But you know it just kind of goes to show you can’t necessarily always rely on this thing to perform perfectly. I can’t wish you could it seems like that is something you should be able to depend on but apparently you can’t.

So just make sure that whatever you are flying this thing you always keep it within your own field of view like don’t go flying it three miles away where you can’t actually see it with your own eyes.

Make sure you are being careful of that and that is actually one of the requirements and something that you need to be doing. Anyway if you have one of these things. So just keep that in mind so that if for some reason the app disconnects on you you can get it back and track down where it is.

Get the right accessories for your drone

Another really good idea if you are going to get a drone is to make sure you understand what kinds of accessories are available for your drone.

For this particular one it is possible to get a landing gear that sort of extends the feet which can be helpful just to make sure the camera doesn’t ever get in grass or get wet or anything like that. You can also get water landing gear that goes on this you can literally land it in a lake and it is going to be okay.

What I bought this particular drone I was fully aware that these batteries which are actually pretty good batteries they give you I think it is about 27 minutes of flight time. A really good piece of advice I heard is that it is good to have a backup battery so that you don’t necessarily have to be done after those 27 minutes are up. So I actually bought a package with this drone that came with not only the battery that is on the drone but also to backup batteries.

That effectively gives me like an hour and a half of flying time so I don’t have to you know stop go home, recharge the battery and come back out.

Just be aware of the accessories that are out there because there are some really great things that can make the whole flying experience a lot better if you just have the tools that will really extend the usefulness of your drone.

Know your limits

Something else you should be aware of is that you can’t necessarily just take this drone and fly wherever you want to with it. Basically just sort of high-level rules are :

you can’t fly above 400 feet with this and
you also can’t fly over people,
you can’t fly over big gas stadiums or crowds or events like that
you are obviously not supposed to be flying this thing when you are under the influence of any kind of drugs or alcohol
and then it is very very important that you only fly your drone within your own line of sight.

So even though it is possible to go you know around the corner or so far away that you can’t even see it you are not supposed to do that and I will say when you go to register your drone you actually have to agree to all these things before you can register for it.

If you aren’t already aware of it you kind of have to agree to these things before you can complete the registration process so it is just something to be aware of.

How does weather affect drones?

Lastly one other thing I’ll note is that this particular journal and the best of my knowledge all drones out there have limitations when it comes to how strong they are and what kind of wind and weather they can fly in.

I was trying to fly this thing in wind conditions that were about 20 miles an hour which as I learned is a terrible idea. For the most part if when conditions are like 15 miles an hour or higher I would not recommend taking this thing out and flying it.

You can actually lose your drone because it can’t necessarily fight really strong winds and come back to wherever you are at. Luckily I don’t lose drone but when I was landing it the wind actually blew thrown into the side of a house and broke two propellers on my drone and it also shipped up the siding on this house.

Luckily it didn’t break my drone I just had to buy a couple new propellers to put on there which was not a big deal at all. But it could have been a lot worse and just generally speaking it is not a good idea to fly in conditions that this thing is not built the handle.

The same thing goes for any drone out there they all have the limitations so just make sure you are aware of what those are and don’t push it all in all.

Is it worth it?

I am just like so impressed with this little piece of technology like I’m honestly kind of shocked that a consumer like me can have access to this kind of thing. It almost seems like the kind of technology only the military should haveaccess to because it is just like stunning how easy it is to control this thing, everything it can do, it is amazing the time that we live in right now.

It is really exciting to just be in this world and watch where things are going but in the meantime I’m just super impressed with this. I think it is an awesome little drone and it is probably one of the most fun purchases I’ve made so far this year.

I’m still learning a lot about how to fly it and get good cinematic shots one of those things where I don’t think it takes a lot of skill to use it but the more you are willing to put into you know figuring out how to fly this thing effectively the better and better shots you can get.

So if you’ve got the money to spend on the drone I think you should totally do it because there are a lot of fun.

I should also say if you are somebody like me who is in the real estate world and you are trying to get this for the purpose of shooting promotional real estate videos and getting good pictures of your properties you can totally do that with this.

However I don’t necessarily think it is always worth that because when you consider the cost of buying the drone and then all of the commercial licensing you have to do in those situations. It really kind of is a lot that you have to do and I don’t know that it necessarily justifies that unless you are going to be doing it like as a business or with every single property you sell then it could be.

But practically speaking I don’t know that it always you know reasonably makes sense but if you just really want a drone and you want to get one go for it because there are a lot of fun and I think you could really give yourself a lot of good quality entertainment especially if you are anything like me and you are like this kind of thing.