iPad-controlled helicopter fun to fly, but has a steep learning curve

The AR.Drone is a helicopter on steroids. It has four rotor blades, two cameras and can be flown over a Wifi by an iPad, iPod Touch or iPhone. We had the chance to play with it and found that it's a fun toy to fly, but that flying indoors can be challenging and could frustrate some pilots.

Setting up the drone is pretty easy and we found no trouble in pairing it with our iPad. It took us a few flights to get used to flying the drone, during which we managed to fracture the indoor hull, which is designed to protect the rotors and internal components. After mending the hull with some super glue we were ready to go again. While the device has two cameras, one forward facing and pointing down, they don't seem to be intended for navigation since they only capture video at 15 frames per second. During CES in January, we saw augmented reality games that took advantage of the cameras by displaying enemy planes that you needed to shoot down. Those games aren't available now, but should be by the end of 2010.

Controlling the drone's flight is done by tilting the iPad. Ascent and decent as well as rotation are controlled by a separate button the iPad's screen. Once we took the drone outside we were able to really have some fun with it letting it fly fast and high. Even though we had a few crashes, the rotor blades were surprisingly resilient. When outdoors the drone can compensate for the wind while hovering, but once the pilot takes control of that it becomes his responsibility.

After about 15 minutes of flying, the drone will run out of batteries and gently descend and land. It takes about 90 minutes for the device to charge. Right now there's only one app available through the Apple App store and it's called AR.FreeFlight. It will run on an iPad but is designed for the screen sizes of an iPod Touch and iPhone. Parrot has made an SDK available and the success of this product will partly hinge on what developers create for the toy.

So to recap the AR.Drone is a fun helicopter to fly that is very responsive and able to handle outdoor environments well. Indoors though, the protective hull is prone to fractures. The AR.Drone will be available in Brookstone stores in the US on September 3, 2010, for 299 dollars. It's also available online for preorder now.