Written by | Tom Comet
Everyone needs a good, wholesome Christmas project and the folks at DroneBoy are no different in this regard. Over the holidays our lead pilot, Tom Comet, took it upon himself to build up the newest member of our quickly growing fleet – an Aeronavics SkyJib X4XL. Aeronavics are based in New Zealand and have a well known reputation as being builders some of the best multirotor frames in the world. They were formerly known as Droidworx until they were politely asked by LucasArts to change their name. Who knew ‘droid’ was trademarked term controlled by LucasArts? Anyway, they make kick ass airframes and they were our first choice for this new rig.
This massive new camera drone features the new “coaxial” motor configuration. It is an octocopter (8 blades) but only has four booms with two motors on each – one upward facing and the other down. This new configuration is better in high winds, faster to fly and, due to the four booms instead of eight, much quicker to pack and assemble on site.
This new machine is truly the top of the line and will be capable of flying camera and gimbal stabilization packages up to 20lbs. We can fly our Gremsy gStabi H14 gimbal along with our Red Dragon camera or just about any other camera a client could ask for. The all up weight (AUW) will be just shy of 50lbs which is pretty insane.
We are super excited to get this new unit out there on productions working as we know folks will be blown away by what it can do on their shoots. Contact us today for more information, camera options and pricing.
For those of you reading who are more technically inclined, here is a breakdown of all the main components that went into this build.
Airframe – Aeronavics SkyJib X4XL
Motors – KDE 5215-435
Speed Controllers (ESCs) – KDE EXF-UAS75HV
Flight Control – DJI A2
Batteries – Tattu 16000 mAh, 6S, 15C
Power Distribution – Power Hungry Systems PHS10
To see what goes into building a monster drone like this check out the video above, and the photos below.