A new drone was unveiled at the CES Gadget Show, and it looks like a lot of fun.
Feature Image VIA
Chinese company Ehang revealed it’s latest creation, the ‘Ehang 184’ and picked up a lot of attention.
The drone looks like a tiny little helicopter, but with four propellers like the majority of drones. It can fully charge in 2 hours, for a 23 minute flight, holding up to 100kg, with space to carry one person and their small amount of luggage.
The ‘pilot’ sets a flight plan before take off, and once inside can only give two controls – ‘take off’ and ‘land’. The pilot has no controls whatsoever. Which sounds fucking terrifying, to be honest. Apparently, the company are working on a remote control that can take over in case of an emergency, and make the drone land safely, which you’d think might be one of the first things they did, but better late than never I suppose. Apparently, the safety of the vehicle lies in its four propellers, and even if 3 of the 4 stopped working for whatever reason, the last one would cause the drone to land by spinning to the ground. Fuck that.
These things look cool, but are going to be costly, with a price tag in the region of £170,000, which is pretty steep for a solo ride in a helicopter that you can’t control if you encounter a problem. Still, at least you can get some amazing photographs while you’re up there.
