Comment by Luke Olson on November 1, 2012 at 6:55pm

I'm sorry, but you've all been brainwashed if you're trying to justify the $60,000 price tag. Mesa County Sheriff's Office in Colorado is using drones that cost about $2,000 each and they do everything the "Lifesaver" can do at 1/30th of the cost. They're also legal with the FAA because they have a COA.

As a tax payer if my sheriff's office bought these I'd be pissed. Super pissed. I don't care how much cheaper they are than a helicopter because every drone or two is another officer they could've had on the force. Or better benefits for the officers like health and life insurance or pensions. Just because there's more zeros on the price tag doesn't mean it's somehow inherently better.

Comment by Hunter Parris on November 1, 2012 at 7:00pm

Don't get me wrong. I don't agree with this price tag at all. I'm just stating how they try to justify it.

Comment by Esteban on November 2, 2012 at 11:15am

it seems to be a flying coffin...

Comment by Allen Bishop on November 2, 2012 at 11:26am

The MESA County Sheriff's office has two UAS's.  They started with a Dragon Flyer X6 which lists anywhere from $15K to $25K depending on confguration and only gets about 15 minutes of flight time.  About a year later they partnered with an Aurora Colorado company FALCON UAV and acquired a fixed wing UAS called the Falcon UAV.  It has a flight duration of approx 1 hour and retails for $13K with camera and either the Procerus - Kestrel autopilot or you can shave off about $5K and they will substitute the Kestrel with the Ardupilot.  The fixed wing was sold to them at cost as their first client.  By the way - neither of these UAS's are $2,000.

Comment by Luke Olson on November 2, 2012 at 11:32am

Allen, if that's the case there's some incorrect press out there about the cost. Either way they're a lot less expensive than the "Lifesaver" drone.

Comment by Ellison Chan on November 2, 2012 at 1:30pm

$60k will not even pay for half the salary of an engineer or programmer for a half a year. We're expensive.

Comment by Hunter Parris on November 2, 2012 at 4:17pm

Incorrect press??? Who's ever heard of such a thing!?  Lol.

Comment by Rui Manuel Cravo Marques on November 2, 2012 at 7:25pm

well, you may fit it with all top equipmment (I don't know where will you fit it however), but for the looks of it, the only plausible explanation will be "government contract" !!!! This happens in all countrys more or less, let me tell you how : You know the guy or a guy who knows the guy that can approve this, you pay him lunch in a cool restaurant, maybe with some escort girls, you offer him, around 5 or 10% of your proffit and there you go. I'm not saying this is what is happening here, but it does happen in a lot of well known sittuations.

Comment by Jonathan Price on November 3, 2012 at 12:46pm

Training, service, and support.

In my experience, government sector (and some corporate) customers expect a level of service that is mind-boggling to DIYers like ourselves. Basically, they expect to sign a paper and then never have to pay another un-budgeted penny or even think about your product ever again. It is very likely that the vendor will have to hire another (possibly local) full-time tech to service each account. At $40-60k they might lose money on a high-maintenance customer.

Of course, I don't have any experience with selling drones, the companies I've worked for make other kinds of electronics, but I would guess the principle is universal.

Comment by Kevin Vertucio on November 4, 2012 at 8:53am

A lot of these commercial systems are priced at this level. I attended AUVSI this past August and a lot of these companies are selling similar products at similar price points. What local Law Enforcement agencies have the $40k-$60k for that? 

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