smallman28 said:
just watched some of the videos available on their web site (hope they make better parachutes than vids).
in this one (and most of them) it is hard to see the landing but the rate of descent is considerable.
http://youtu.be/SCxeFX_uO4I
in the last one I watched there appeared to be some significant breakage on impact.
and note how large the unit looks on the drone (that big black box on top)
http://vimeo.com/56451356
I contacted a dealer in the US and asked them how sales were and they said:
"Can not keep them on my shelves. Mars also just made a new mounting bracket specifically for the phantom."
This surprised me so i asked them to describe a scenario when it would be deployed.
Here is the response:
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Most time with beginner and intermediate flyers, they lose coordination and orientation. They fly so high up or so far out, they do not know where front and back is. If this happens, all you can do is shutoff the props and it crashes to the ground. In that instance, shut off the props, deploy the parachute and it floats down instead of crashes. Another instance, you have a unit that is flying nice and high, great footage, and crashes into a house or mountain or wherever you are flying. Depending on that, the way down 1/4 mile potentially. Cant get control of the unit, deploy the parachute and hopefully it will catch and save your drone. Drones can be $1000+. It is worth attempting to save for $150
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This seems to totally ignore RTH or the telemetry data available via the app. Then the part about crashing into a house/mountain is not well explained and does not convince me to buy one.
I also inquired about customer feedback. Nada
For something that is flying off the shelves there is zero customer feedback or reviews.
and no testimonials or third-party recommendations on the MARS web site.