Parrot Disco an FPV flying wing for all

Parrot Disco an FPV flying wing for all

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Here we go with the CES announces. Parrot bring a new flying wing to the party which looks very promising. I think in the indoor flight testing shown briefly in the video below its tethered. If its not that bit is super impressive. Folks are saying Parrot have abandoned the quad whilst forgetting that they own Sensefly and already sell wings. Perhaps this is just a more consumer focused entry. Aiming straight in fact for the FPV market. Perhaps no coincidence that the name is very close to the main player in the wing field, the TBS Discovery. A couple of shots in the video allude to Trappys style of flying.

Parrot have been working on the Disco for two years and expect to release it later this year. No word on price, it looks to be Bebop guts put in an EPO wing, personally I would have been happier with EPP.

I like the wing root V that allows it to be assembled with the wings constrained from moving back and forward. Thats from the eBee…


As always with Parrot the product looks sensible and polished. Not cobbled together. Again in the video a vertical automatic launch is shown and that points to there being ample power. With return to launch, auto landing and waypoints Disco has all the features.

I wonder if the camera can take stills and at a rate fast enough for mapping. If so with a 45 minute endurance this would be an excellent GIS platform.

In fact if you know what your looking at the video is full of performance clues.

I expect Parrot will be open to tinkering as they are members of the Dronecode foundation and very quickly the Disco will have grown up uses.


Parrot have always been among the leaders in development and innovation. They are years ahead of the major player when it comes to equipment. Being European they didn’t engage in quite so much bragging BS.

Four bladed noise generators have stolen the limelight in the last couple of years, if the price of this is right (much less than the eBee) I can see this flying off the shelf towards 333 operators in the USA and folks without the time to roll their own FPV machine. If they used LoRa based long range comms as TBS has started doing with Crossfire it would tick all the boxes.

Can you tell I want one!

 

 

Gary Mortimer

Founder and Editor of sUAS News | Gary Mortimer has been a commercial balloon pilot for 25 years and also flies full-size helicopters. Prior to that, he made tea and coffee in air traffic control towers across the UK as a member of the Royal Air Force.