The Best American approved drones offer reliable performance, complete feature sets and NDAA compliance to operate in critical infrastructure environments.
In recent years, the drone industry has made a rather large pivot away from foreign drones and shifted to domestic or American drones. Ultimately many enterprise companies operating in the US-based drone industry are unable to fly Chinese made drones. Companies have been forced to transition away from companies like DJI and find new drones to replace their aging fleet.
When we say the Best American Drones, ultimately we’re describing NDAA approved drones, or drones on the BLUE SUAS list. Its important to note the Blue SUAS list is drone specific, not manufacturer specific. These drones are able to be working in critical environments. These drones can be inspecting railroads, conducting solar inspections in sensitive environments, operated by government entities or even inspecting our utilities. This list does include drones that are made in foreign countries but are in compliance with the security standards. This is important as American Drones literally means, American approved drones. Drones approved to fly in American airspace for government entities or to be flown around critical infrastructure. So when we say “American Drones,” we’re really saying these drones have been approved by the American Government to fly .
While companies like DJI have vastly dominated the commercial verticals of the industry, yet they’re being phased out quickly and aggressively. The evolution and transition to domestically made drones only has been accelerating.
Recently, Florida enforced the ban of Chinese made drones for public safety and public works agencies. This has actually cased numerous drone programs to shut down. These departments now need to raise new funds to purchase drones that would comply as domestically made drones.
|We have a detailed drone guide for public safety that compares many domestically made drones. |
While many new drones have popped up in the marketplace, few drone manufacturers are able to deliver a reliable platform to perform creative and technical tasks. Many of these new domestically approved or American drones have been catching up in the features and payload offerings like DJI’s M30t. There have been a few clear front runners in the domestic space. The Best American or domestically approved drones are:
- Freefly Astro
- Parrot Anafi Ai
- Skydio
- Sony Airpeak
- Wingtra
- Brinc Drones
- Aerovironment
- Harris Aerial
- Easy Aerial
- Inspired Flight
- Skyhero Loki
Checkout this comparison of American approved drones.
Check out a full breakdown of Many American drone offerings in our Public Safety Drone Guide. Click the link then click to download the guide on the webpage.
When considering the best American drones that allow pilots to capture epic aerial video and flight autonomous missions for mapping deliverables, the list slims significantly.
Drone Pilots ultimately want a portable, easy-to-use and reliable drone. Few drone manufacturers have been able to deliver that package at a reasonable price point. Domestically developed drones have ended up costing drone pilots much higher amounts. Albeit the pivot to American approved drones is here and now. The barrier to entry has gone up, but that could mean higher pay days for drone pilots.
The Best American approved Mapping Drone under $5,000:
Parrot Anafi Ai offers a powerful solution for drone mappers. Dubbed the first 5g cellularly controlled drone, Parrot has significantly improved the Parrot Anafi platform. The Parrot Anafi Ai looks completely different from the Parrot Anafi USA. The USA model is significantly under powered drone and has a very limited operating distance.
The Parrot Anafi Ai offers a 48mp camera sensor with intuitive control application making it easy for pilots to pick up the remote and get to work. The drone does offer mapping capability, as we noted in our review video, the drone is able to fly mapping (acquisition) missions faster, but processing data took much longer to complete due to the camera being an LRS shutter.
When compared against a Phantom 4 Pro Version 2, the Anafi Ai’s map took 2 hours more time to process data. Now if drone pilots are using cloud processing, the Parrot Anafi Ai does offer a speed advantage for completing orthomosaics over the network. Paired with Pix4d Cloud, maps can be produced as fast as the data is captured. The imagery is uploaded over the 5g network right to Pix4d Cloud.
We would also say the Parrot Anafi Ai is the best portable drone solution as well.
The Best American Mapping Drone with Creative Capability
FreeFly Systems has developed an insanely powerful drone called the Astro. While the Astro is a medium sized quad copter, it has the capability of folding and flying a 61mp Sony Camera. Freefly’s Astro drone offers an impressive 37 minute flight time, autonomous mission capability and
payload flexibility. The Free Fly Astro operates on an Auterion Flight Controller. By far one of our favorite drones to fly as this drone has superior handling. Freefly Systems Astro is a great drone to consider for your enteprise operations. The Astro Mapper sells for $21,000.00
A close competitor to the Freefly Astro drone is the Sony Airpeak Drone. Specially made for cinematographers.
The Best American Fixed Wing Mapping Drone
The best fixed wing mapping drone has to go to the Wingtra One by Wingtra. The fixed wing drone offers payload flexibility and advanced geo-referencing methods.
With the Wingtra Hub workflow, pilots actually require less equipment to create geo-referenced orthomosaics. Due to the flight characteristics of the wingtra, the drone can map almost 400 acres per hour. Big projects call for big drones, Wingtra delivers a reliable mapping drone that can get the job done. The Wingtra can also fly multispectral cameras and multiple camera payload options.
The best American Security Drone
The best American security drone hands down goes to Easy Aerial. Easy Aerial manufacturers
the SAMS-T platform. This drone-in-a-box solution offers one of the few tethered drone solutions than can ditch the tether and fly for up to 45 minutes. This drone can even be launched and recovered from a moving vehicle as well. The advanced drone offers a powerful payload with thermal capabilities as well.
The SAMS-T system comes with the Easy Aerial Osprey drone which is a multi-payload hexacopter. These hardcore drones offer the most robust profile of all the aircraft mentioned. Learn more about these aerial workhorses in our Drone ComparisonGuide
To learn more about the American Approved drones, and which drones offer the best capability for their vertical, check out our Drone Guide. Found on our Props Public Safety Training page, then click download guide.
Drone U Course Library includes courses on the Anafi Ai, the Skydio S2, coming soon. Wingtra, Airpeak and Astro trainings. These same trainings are available on our Enterprise training Platform. PROPS.
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