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Cost/minute of flight time

KNAVE

Well-Known Member
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May 28, 2017
Messages
104
Spark: $49 ÷ 16:00 = $3.06/minute
Mavic: $89 ÷ 27:00 = $3.30/minute
P4P: $169 ÷ 30:00 = $5.63/minute
Inspire 2: $159 ÷ 26:00 = $6.16/minute

Anyone else notice a trend here?
 
Trend is downward but curve is flattening. Diminishing returns as it were.
 
Spark: $49 ÷ 16:00 = $3.06/minute
Mavic: $89 ÷ 27:00 = $3.30/minute
P4P: $169 ÷ 30:00 = $5.63/minute
Inspire 2: $159 ÷ 26:00 = $6.16/minute

Anyone else notice a trend here?

Banana #1. You're not accounting for the payload capability.

And in $/Wh terms, it's quite the opposite trend:
Spark: $2.90 / Wh
MP : $2.04 / Wh
P4P : $1.89 / Wh
Inspire : $1.63 / Wh

Further, the MP, P4P and I2 have similar efficiency at 458, 467 and 458* gram-minutes per Wh

But, the spark only gets 285 gram-minutes per Wh.

The above indicates that the spark probably has poorly matched propellers (too small) (To make it compact).

It's Energy/mass is similar to the others but it gets far less endurance.

*(The I2 might be a little better than this depending on camera).
Edit: battery cost in $/Wh terms.
 
Last edited:
This isn't the correct way of measuring.
You should be looking at the number of cycles.
The Phantom 2 Batteries was atrocious. $199 AUD for OEM intelligent batteries and 40 cycles before it puffed up. DJI promised 300 cycles but only gave 3 months warranty.
$200/40 cycles = $5 per 15minute flight. So an hour would cost you $20.

The P3 onwards had better discharge capabilities and firmware to prevent voltage sagging when the motors maxed out. The batteries were designed with better cell monitoring. Most users reported 100-200 cycles. You need to remember that each time you let self discharge from full to 50-60%, you are losing half a cycle. But losing that half cycle was better than binning your entire battery.
 
My take on cost per minute for a Mavic:

New price $999.00
Selling it after a year or 100 flights ($500.00)
Real cost $499.00
Cost per flight - 100 flights $4.99
Cost per minute - 20 minute flight $0.28
 
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Reactions: AlanTheBeast
How about the guys that crashed there brand new drones in the first few minutes? MP at $1000, fly it for 5 minutes before destroying it. That's $200 per minute or $12,000 per hour of heart wrenching fun!
 

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