Hypothetical question

[Stratospheric]

If you could have a hexacopter with all the capabilities of the inspire 1 would you take that over the inspire 2?

The reason I ask is there is a company near us that builds custom drones and they apparently have license to use DJI internals and peripherals. We have only had a preliminary meeting with them but they have indicated the CAA prefers hexacopter's for commercial pilots.

We were waiting for the release of the inspire 2 to see what extras they came up with and as nice as the inspire 2 is we would prefer to have the redundancy of a hexacopter.

Thanks

 

[badeshi]

Do you need a licence to use dji internals and peripherals? You can buy the flight controllers, motors/escs and cameras/gimbals and put them on what ever frame you want? Unless I am mistaken?

But whenever I have looked at adding all tech from an inspire, for example the cost shoots right up! Much cheaper to buy dji tech in a dji package it seems...

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[The Editor]

If you could have a hexacopter with all the capabilities of the inspire 1 would you take that over the inspire 2?

The reason I ask is there is a company near us that builds custom drones and they apparently have license to use DJI internals and peripherals. We have only had a preliminary meeting with them but they have indicated the CAA prefers hexacopter's for commercial pilots.

We were waiting for the release of the inspire 2 to see what extras they came up with and as nice as the inspire 2 is we would prefer to have the redundancy of a hexacopter.

Thanks

OK, first of all anyone can use DJI parts (flight controllers, esc's, motors, GPS, etc, etc) - they are readily available for self builds and you do not need a magic 'license' to build multirotors with them. So I would take anything they say like that with a large pinch of salt.
Secondly, for standard permissions, the CAA do not care how many rotors are on your aircraft. They will readily give PfCO to a single rotor (helicopter) or Octo. Their primary (and only) concern is safety and this can be demonstrated for all kinds of aircraft.
Where things change is if you are going for Non Standard permissions and are submitting an OSC for closer proximity work or flights in a congested area.
This is where a redundant craft will be preferred over a four corner variety
Hope that helps.

Oh, I have a "Licence" to use DJI internal parts as well (or as much as the company you are talking to do)

 

[Stratospheric]

I didn't know if they were licensed out but they reckon they can give us a hexacopter with what we hope to have similar capabilities to the inspire 1

 

[The Editor]

I didn't know if they were licensed out but they reckon they can give us a hexacopter with what we hope to have similar capabilities to the inspire 1

That's easy.
Just build based on a carbon hex frame. Do some maths for MTOM, thrust per corner and RPM based on size of lipo and length and chord of prop.
Fit, a suitable FC, esc's, motors, props. Add a Lightbridge and you have your aircraft !

 

[Stratospheric]

So if the price was similar to the I 2 which one would you choose?

There is another bonus in that if anything goes wrong with it the company is about 3 miles away so no relying on DJI customer support.

 

[The Editor]

So if the price was similar to the I 2 which one would you choose?

There is another bonus in that if anything goes wrong with it the company is about 3 miles away so no relying on DJI customer support.

It all depends on exactly what you want to do with the machine.
A heavy lifter UAV that will fly a RED Weapon is a totally different animal to a cm accurate aircraft that requires a camera to look up for say bridge inspections.
Or an aircraft fitted with a thermal camera for crop inspections or S&D doesn't need the speed of an airframe that will be used to film cars or motorbikes etc.
There is no 'one size fits all's unfortunately.
Don't forget, anything DJI will be crippled by Geo so if you need to do anything that requires NFZ access it would be better to stay away from DJI parts altogether - or you could go A3 which doesn't nanny certain areas.
Personally, I never use obstacle avoidance so that's a gimmick as far as I'm concerned but some pilots will like it.
Have a think what your core requirements are and then pick a platform around that.
You will NEVER get a UAV that ticks every box (the same as there is no such thing as a perfect camera) but if you are hitting 7 out of 10 or higher then you have your answer.