I’ve been really wanting a drone for a while now. But drones are kind of expensive. I didn’t really need a drone. I just wanted one. I noticed all that really cool drone footage on YouTube videos and kept thinking that a drone would be a terrific gadget to add to my photo bag. It would have been cool to take a drone on trips to get some really great aerial photos of wherever we happen to be, especially when we were on the beach in Jamaica or the Dominican Republic or South Haven. 

When the chance came along on Dealspotr to promote a little drone from Force Flyers, I jumped at the chance. My application was accepted and about a week or so later, there was a package waiting for me on our front porch…

And now I had a drone. For free. All I had to do was write a blog post about this drone to promote it. And it was all mine. My new toy was the Rocket Drone ZF7 With Folding from Force Flyers. According to Dealspotr, the retail value of this drone was $79.99. Not expensive at all but not super cheap either for something I didn’t really see myself using all the time…

My first reaction was really positive. It was pretty small and compact. The propeller arms folded in towards the body making it really easy to carry. It would be super easy to throw it in a backpack to take it with me. As I read the instructions on how to operate it. It seemed rather complicated. You had the two joysticks each four buttons below each joystick and an additional button above. It was a bit intimidating, all those buttons…

Maybe that’s why it sat on the desk in our office for the last month. Maybe it was because it seemed like every weekend we either had stuff going on or the weather was rainy so on the desk it sat. I’ve studied the instructions a bunch of times over the last month, trying to figure out how to fly this drone. I don’t have any experience with drones. And it seemed a little more complicated than it needed to be. But I don’t have anything to use as a comparison. We didn’t have anything going on today and the weather was pretty nice. At least the sun was out. So I decided to take the Rocket Drone ZF7 With Folding out for its first flight. I read the instructions again as I walked to the big grassy field behind the school at the end of our street…

The drone was equipped with a “Hi-Res WiFi FPV camera” so you can capture all of the action with First Person View right to your phone. I attached my Samsung Galaxy Note9 to the controller and launched the app. I calibrated the gyroscope, powered up the drone and I had lift-off. As it hovered in the air, I snapped a still photo with the camera…

With it still hovering in place, I started to record video of my drone’s maiden flight. I touched the left joysticks and the drone started to drift away from me. Frantically, I started moving both joysticks to try to pilot the drone back in my direction. But the controls went completely unresponsive as the drone drifted towards tall trees just on the far side of the soccer goal in the photo above. I started to run after it hoping that if I got closer to it maybe I could regain some control of the drone. But I couldn’t get close enough in time and I watched it hit the top of one of the trees and drop to the floor of Parker Woods on the other side of a ten-foot chain-linked fence. I took a photo to help me locate it. This is what I saw…

That’s not going to be much help. I figured out how to get around the chain-linked fence, and I spent the better part of an hour looking for the drone in a very soggy, muddy Parker Woods. I couldn’t figure out for the life of me where exactly it crash-landed. But it’s out there somewhere…

You’d think something white would stand out like a beacon. It does not. As I searched for it, I thought maybe I could use the video I was recording to help me locate the drone somehow. But when I went to playback the video, all I saw was this…

And that’s when I stopped looking for the drone. What good is a drone if you can’t take super cool drone videos? But more so, what good is a drone you can’t actually control? Maybe it was pilot error, maybe it was just defective. But I’m happy to say that I no longer have the desire to own a drone. I’ll just stick to watching other peoples really cool drone videos on YouTube from now on.

I found Rocket Drone ZF7 With Folding on Amazon where it’s listed at $49.99. Not surprisingly, it has a single one-star review…

I got it for free and it sucks. So maybe it wasn’t pilot error after all. 😀👨‍✈️❤️