You must have seen those aerial photos of Machakos’ Kenyatta Stadium. Governor Alfred Mutua share the pics on his social media pages, and some people might have asked why spend a lot of money to hire a chopper just to get some pictures.
Today we can reveal that the photos were not taken from a helicopter, but a drone. During the official opening of the stadium on Saturday, the same drone was seen flying over the stadium, probably looking for the best shots.
It is not clear who was operating it, and whether Machakos County government owns it.
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| The drone flying over Machakos stadium [Photo by Nonini] |
Civilian drones are surprisingly very cheap. For only Sh 15,000, you can buy a H-King Darkwing, capable of flying for about 10 minutes without recharge. For Sh 25,000, you can get a Parrot AR, capable of flying for 20 minutes non stop.
For about Sh100,000 you have a Turbo Ace X830-D, with a flight time of upto 30 minutes.
The one used in Machakos appears to be a DJI Phantom GPS Drone. It can fly for a little over 15 minutes before recharge. It has a flying range of about 300 metres.
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| DJI Phantom GPS Drone |
The best part however is that it has an autopilot system. You can send it out and it will come back and land at the same spot using GPS coordinates, without you controlling it.
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