We got our first look at Parrot's new plane-like drone, the Disco, at CES earlier this year. Tuesday, the company showed off the fixed-wing drone again, unveiling pricing ($1,300) and a release window (September), but also giving us our first shot at flying it. So we hit a golf course with Parrot to give the Disco a try and put the drone through its paces (and maybe hit a palm tree or two).

This little fixed-wing flyer is fast, and can reach a speed of up to 50 miles per hour, with a battery that Parrot says will give it 45 minutes of air time. Taking off is as simple as pressing the launch button and then tossing the drone in the air. It does have a pretty big wingspan though, so the toss can be a little tricky; you have to make sure you don't chuck it straight into a nosedive or hit yourself in the face in the process. It's a little awkward at first, but it gets easier as you practice.

After that toss, the Disco will automatically go to a preset height (in our case about 160 feet) and start circling your location. It will continue to do that until you start messing with the controls, so you can be the thrower and the flyer without worrying about what the drone will be doing while you're busy picking up the controller.

The Disco can keep consistent altitude and direction like that for about as long as you could possibly need, even once you take control. That "control" mostly just consists of making turns; by default the drone's autopilot simply has the device fly straight ahead otherwise. You can see where you're going thanks to a camera mounted on the front of the drone that streams directly to your smartphone. While it flies, it's also capturing 1080p video, and you have the option of grabbing 14-megapixel stills as well.

Emily Price

Speaking of controls, the Disco comes with Parrot's updated "Skycontroller" remote control, aptly named "Skycontroller 2." The controller uses your smartphone as its display, and can connect to the drone at a stated distance of just slightly over a mile. It has two joysticks that you use to control your flight, which can be customized with features such as geofencing (to make sure you don't travel too far out), as well as limits on altitude and distance.

If all this automatic stuff sounds like it doesn't leave much flying to the pilot, there's also a manual mode for more granular control. Also, the Disco is compatible with the majority of RC remotes, and pilots can connect their own RC transmitters to the drone to use whatever gear they're used to and/or try to push the Disco to (or past) its limits.

autopilot makes flying the Disco super simple, but landing takes a bit more skill.

The default autopilot makes flying the Disco super simple, even for beginners, but landing takes a bit more skill. A Parrot rep suggested around 500 feet of clear space for a landing, but novice users will need a lot more. Quadcopters can just land where they are hovering, but the fixed-wing Disco needs to glide in like, well, a fixed-wing plane, and you'll need a ton of runway. Mechanically, you land the drone by decelerating and performing a gentle dive. Then, when you're about 15 feet off the ground, you hit a landing button which turns off the motor, letting the Disco just glide the rest of the way.

This isn't exactly as simple as it sounds. I was flying the drone with a group of four other people, and all of us (our instructor included) managed to glide directly into a tree at least once. One pilot actually glided right into the high branches of a tree where it got stuck. We had to get a rake to knock it out. I feel like I got better at landing even after a few tries, but there's certainly a learning curve there, and one that could leave you shaking every tree in your yard.

Emily Price

The good news is a small crash landing won't destroy the drone. The Disco is made from EPP—expanded Polypropylene—and reinforced with carbon tubes, a construction which allows it to weight just one and half pounds while still being super durable. It's also got some features that will help take the edge off a rough landing. Its wings will actually pop off when you (cough) plow into a tree, the same way skis will pop off so you don't break your legs. The propeller also folds in when it lands, so you don't have to worry about snapping it off in a less than graceful landing.

The bad news is that a bigger crash can cause some actual damage. I had mine while I was testing out one of the more high-tech features of the the Disco—"cockpitglasses," first-person view (FPV) goggles that allow you to feel, in a way, like you're sitting in the cockpit of the drone. The headset itself is based on the same principle as Google Cardboard or Gear VR and uses your phone as its screen, splitting up the feed from the Disco's built-in nose-mounted camera into two side-by-side streams for each of your eyes. A trigger button on the Skycontroller also lets you swap the view for what's in front of you to a view of the ground at any given time, so you can get your bearings.

It's a fun way to fly, but you're definitely going to want a spotter when you do (or maybe a co-pilot that's actually handling the controls). Flying in an area where I was unfamiliar with my surroundings, it took a bit of work for me to get my bearings with the goggles on. It didn't help that the goggles kept slipping, though I blame a lot of that on the exceptional heat that day and the resulting (and gross) sweat. Normally a little slippage might not have been a big deal, but given that I needed both hands for the controller, adjusting the goggles caused me some problems. At once point the goggles slipped mid-flight, and I got them on just in time to see the drone run into the top of a palm tree at high speed and split into several pieces.

Emily Price

As I mentioned before, the pop-off wings are a feature not a bug, but after this collision one of the wings actually cracked. If you happen to do the same, Parrot will be selling replacement parts, but they'll cost you. Replacement was easy—the drone was good to fly once we had it outfitted with a new wing—but learn from my mistake and think twice about flying in FPV mode in a place where there are obstacles around. You'll want to learn the ropes in a wide open space. Wider and more open than you think you could really ever need. Move to Wyoming, if possible.

You'll want to learn the ropes in a wide open space. Move to Wyoming, if possible.

After spending an afternoon in the air, I left wanting to fly the Disco even more. If you live somewhere where you have access to a huge open space to fly (Wyoming, for example), this is an amazing drone experience I'd definitely recommend. If you're flying in parks or other locations with a lot of trees and other obstacles, it might be a pass.

It's also important to consider the alternatives here. A price of $1,300 is pretty darn steep, even considering the on-board camera, autopilot, and FPV features. RC planes, on the other hand, can be had for as little as a tenth of the price. No, they don't have autopilot or built-in cameras, but if you'll just looking to mess around with a fixed-wing flyer on a lark, the discount is hard to beat. And Parrot will be offering its FPV goggles and the new Skycontroller with the Bebop 2, the next generation of its popular quadcopter, as well if you like the idea of having your eyes in the sky and aren't sold on a fixed-wing flyer, or not $1,300 sold on it anyway.

There's no doubt about it: The Disco is a fun and fairly simple flier, it's just up to your whether you think it's worth the high price of admission.

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