The Best Drones You Can Buy

ScreenshotWho doesn't want a drone of their own? They're remote control aircraft with autonomous navigation capabilities, expandable to carry different types of gear that might be useful from the sky (this usually means cameras and other imaging equipment). Drones are simply robots that fly, and you can buy one if you so choose.

What do you do with a drone? Nearly all the same things you'd do with a conventional remote control airplane (fly it for fun), but there are a number of interesting things made possible by endowing a flying vehicle with robot brains. A farmer might use one to automatically conduct an aerial survey of his or her crops via the same exact route every day without even having to leave the house. Enterprising paparazzi might use a drone to sneak a celebrity shot from a non-obvious vantage point. Swedish scientists have even choreographed drones to "weave tensile structures" (read: build buildings out of fabric).

For now, the mainstream fun to be had with drones seems to be in outfitting them with cameras and flying around, watching the live video feed. Quite the step up from Microsoft Flight Simulator 98. Let's check some of the more notable consumer drones out there now.