POSTING VIDEO: Yuneec Q500 RTF Typhoon FPV Quadcopter – it's baaack!

Lucidity

UFO Pilot

Those of you with long memories may recall that we first ran into multirotors from Yuneec at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) show in Las Vegas last year. We were pretty much bowled over by the aircraft themselves, but especially the gorgeous transmitter that was to ship with them – now only being equaled, almost a year later, by the UAVX and the radio built to accompany the Hubsan X4 Pro/Hobbico Ora.

That incredible “Wow!” factor was only marred by the fact that those products never shipped. We figured that they were vaporware, until now. I first realized Yuneec was back in the game while I was looking at the Blade 350 QX 3 and noticed the “Yuneec” brand on the back of its ball-turret-style camera pod.

Looking around the booth for another minute, I spied the Q500 Typhoon itself – definitely a different aircraft than the one we had seen at NAB last year, but very clearly a descendant of it. Less ambitious than the original design, perhaps, but actually delivered to the end user – which tends to be a decisive factor in determining the overall success of a product.

I asked Horizon rep Steven Petrotto about why a multirotor from another manufacturer was on display in his booth, and he explained that his company was now the exclusive reseller of Yuneec aircraft for the hobby market – which is probably a good arrangement for both parties.

Yuneec doesn't have to stand up a whole support infrastructure for this new customer base, and Horizon gets to swipe bits and pieces of their technology (such as the camera pod on the Blade 350 QX 3) to make their own products even better. I believe that this is what is referred to in the business world as a “win-win” scenario.
 

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