Declare your droneNEW DELHI: International flyers bringing drones into India will now have to declare them with the customs.With the remote-controlled flying devices emerging as a major security threat, the government has decided to revise the customs declaration form to include drones in the list of `prohibited and dutiable' items, with effect from April 1.Mysterious drone sightings were reported around IGI airport recently , after which the Delhi Police issued an order allowing its men to shoot down any such mysterious object in the no-fly zone. Senior customs officials say the move will ensure stricter vigil and bring to notice if any drone is being brought into the country . In a notification dated March 1, issued by the finance ministry's revenue department, the Central Board of Excise and Customs amended the customs baggage declaration regulations 2013. Drones have been added as a commodity to be declared and strict action will follow if a passenger tries to smuggle these in without informing," said an official.

Customs officials say the need for all flyers to fill the customs form upon their arrival has been done away with and those who are carrying dutiable or prohibited goods only require to fill it in, as per the new rules. "Drones, if allowed to be freely brought in, can cause lawand-order problems. Usually, high-end drones are imported from countries such as USA, Germany and Japan by government agencies for surveillance and law and order operations," said a police official.ar drone 2 instrukcjaIn January, Delhi Police had issued a 'standard operating procedure' after a number of suspected drones were spotted in and around the airport. parrot ar drone schematicSOP allowed cops to shoot down any suspicious flying object over sensitive locations, especially in and around IGI. parrot ar drone le bon coin

The objects included para-gliders, drones and hot air balloons. However, police will have to consult IAF and NSG before taking such an action.From Around the WebMore From The Times of IndiaAside from stalwarts like DJI and Parrot, a lot of new players have entered the drone sphere. Drones have long been used for military and security purposes, but these unmanned aerial vehicles are increasingly taking off in civilian sectors such as media, photography, cinema, agriculture, energy and delivery services. read maine police buy $300 'toy' drone that's illegal to useEver more affordable and easy to use, remote control quadcopters are also becoming popular consumer gadgets among a growing number of hobbyists and enthusiasts.parrot ar drone unterschiede A thriving market Some four million leisure drones were sold worldwide in 2015, with these flying gizmos proving a star gift for the winter holiday season. grendel drone commander synthesizer

The consumer market is currently dominated by Chinese manufacturer DJI, which makes models such as the Phantom and the Inspire, and French firm Parrot, which scored a hit with its well-known AR Drone. Research from GFK suggests that the French manufacturer's sales of leisure drones tripled in 2015, totalling 286,019 units over the course of the year. The two market heavyweights are, however, facing tough competition as new rivals eye this thriving sector. This profitable market has attracted a host of new contenders, with even the most unexpected firms jumping on the trend. Leading action camcorder maker, GoPro, for example, is looking to diversify its product range with its own drone called the Karma. Initially slated for a 2016 launch, the GoPro drone's release has been pushed back to the end of the year. In the meantime, not a week goes by without new drones arriving on the market. Here are three hot new models that could make serious waves in their respective product categories.

Yuneec Typhoon H The Yuneec Typhoon H is a highly sophisticated hexacopter (six rotors) with an onboard three-axis, 360-degree 4K camera. PNJ Cicada Plus This newly released leisure drone is great for beginners. Loaded with a three-axis 1080p camera with a Sony 16-Megapixel sensor, it can be controlled via a smartphone over a 100-meter range. Xiaomi Mi Drone A direct rival for the DJI Phantom and the Parrot AR.Drone, the Mi Drone comes loaded with a 4K (UHD) camera with a 12.4-Megapixel Sony sensor. This drone can fly for 27 minutes over a range of up to 3km. With a highly competitive US $460 price tag, it sells for half as much as an equivalent 4K DJI Phantom.So you want to be a drone pilot is where you start. a crazy $1,200 semi-autonomous eye in the sky , but a cheap miniature quadcopter. Chinese companies are pumping out truckloads of mini quads right now, and while they can't find their own way home, they teach you the basics of how to fly a speedy four-propeller craft for under $100 even in a tiny apartment.

They won't make cops nervous, and they're an absolute blast to fly around. The hard part, I found, is picking the right one. When I realized how cheap and easy it would be to get started, I bought the first drone I laid my eyes on. It lost its tiny propellers whenever it crashed into objects, and my puppy nearly swallowed one. The second put scratches on my walls, and another one in mySo I set out to find the perfect beginner drone: easy to learn, durable, cheap, and safe to fly indoors. Cheap drones are still relatively new, and they're hard to find even in hobby shops. But go online, and you can find practically as many flying objects as you'd need to blot out the sun. Whether big or small, I found that most cheap miniature quadcopters have the same battery life of roughly 6 to 8 minutes, have roughly the same long range thanks to 2.4GHz transmitters, are nice and stable due to internal gyroscopes, and charge over USB in about an hour. You know what they don't all have? If you're learning to fly-and aren't fond of damage-those are priority number one.

So I did what any red-blooded gadget lover would d I nabbed a crapload of drones with propeller guards and flew my heart out. $65 Air Hogs Helix X4 won't wow your friends. It's not a speed demon you can send zipping around your lawn. But it is the drone I flew directly into my precious Panasonic plasma TV, at top speed, without a care in the world. Completely covered in lightweight styrofoam armor, it didn't leave so much as a scratch. It bounces off my walls, sticks to my ceilings, and doesn't hurt even when I shove a finger right into its ducted fans. Plus, it's easy to control: while it doesn't have the fancy trim adjustments of practically every other drone I tried, it automatically compensated for minor deviations. I even flew it outdoors in a pinch. It's also the only drone I could charge from its controller, which admittedly requires an outrageous 8 AA batteries. Oh, but beware: the Helix X4 screeches like a hair dryer the entire time you're using it. If I had to pick just one drone to recommend sight-unseen, it would be the Air Hogs Helix X4.

But it's not the best for everyone. Here are four other drones I can wholeheartedly recommend that might suit you even better. $90 Blade Nano QX makes the Helix X4 look like a giant blimp. With hobby-grade motors set in an incredibly lightweight frame, it's blazing fast. When you set the controller to beginner mode, it's stable enough to use indoors and there's a expert mode that disables the gyroscope entirely for outdoor stunts. (It sounds like an angry bumblebee, which is comparatively a plus!) Still, this quadcopter has so much power under the hood that its prop guards and bendy frame can't protect it from the worst, as I discovered when cracking its cockpit, permanently deforming a propeller, and accidentally ripping out one of the motors (while trying to remove that propeller) over the course of an afternoon. While it comes with two sets of propellers and spare parts are modular and cheap, you'll want to be a seasoned quadcopter pilot before taking off the safeties.

Thinking about buying an Estes Proto-X or Synchro? Buy this $30 drone insteadThis cute ladybug of a palmtop quad has such a well-designed prop guard, it's the only miniature drone that never lost or bent a propeller when I repeatedly flew it into foreign objects. It's also got way more power than other mini drones, which can admittedly make it a challenge to fly indoors - ease off on the throttle, folks - but also means it can actually challenge a light breeze if you take it outside. You can have it perform flips by pressing in the right thumbstick, and it's got nice soft rubber feet for hard landings. The fun also lasts longer than with any other toy-grade drone thanks to the ingenious idea of using a pair of identical LiPo batteries for both the transmitter and the drone itself: just swap them when the tiny copter dies and you're good for another 6-7 minutes. Again, it's a challenge to fly this one, and the gyro seems a little finicky: I wound up spending time recalibrating the trim nearly every time it hit a wall.

(aka Swann Xtreem Quadforce Video) There aren't a lot of drones that have cameras propeller guards, but this is the one to get right now. It's a $60 DJI Phantom ripoff with cheap materials and a crappy camera, but nothing else comes close for the price Syma is askingIt's one of the most stable cheap quadcopters I tried, stable enough to fly around my tiny townhouse indoors, and stable enough to fly in a mild breeze-though you'll get some very shaky footage. You can start capturing video just by holding down a button on the remote control. The video quality is absolutely terrible, worse than any cameraphone you've used in the past decade, but even disgustingly bad footage from high in the sky has charm! (aka Swann Xtreem Mini Stealth Drone) You're not going to find a quadcopter that sound like four propellers straining to keep themselves in the air, but the $35 Syma X4 more closely resembles a miniature blender than a dying vacuum cleaner. What's more, it's sleek, well-built, and wonderfully stable for indoor flights - easier to fly than any of the miniature drones I tried.

Gamers (like me!) will find themselves right at home with its Xbox-style controller. Just make sure you check that all the buttons on the controller are working correctly: one of the important trim buttons on my controller was misaligned and extremely hard to press. (aka Sky Walker 1306 / Sky Matrix H1306) I had more fun with the $90 High Roller than any other drone I tried. It's the only drone you can crash over and over and keep on flying because it automatically flips itself upright. Unfortunately, it's also the only drone that permanently died after I turned it off one evening. If I wasn't afraid of the many quality control issues I spotted, I'd recommend one to you. (H107C, aka Code Black / Black Hawk) I really, really wanted to like the Hubsan X4. It's such a sleek little craft, and the $50 H107C model comes with a propeller guard and a built-in camera. Unfortunately, the camera stopped working the very first time I took it out, and somehow the Hubsan's brittle propellers still managed to push past the guard and impact my walls.

This smaller $40 version of the H107C doesn't come with a propeller guard and doesn't work well with the optional one you can buy for an additional $7. It's jerky, not nearly as stable or as easy to control, and mine had a tendancy to tilt too far during flight and crash into the ground. (aka Syncro / Hubsan Q4) This tiny cute $30-$40 drone is quite literally a circuit board with motors attached at all four corners, but those motors don't give even this barebones drone a lot of lift. When I added an aftermarket propeller guard, it was too heavy to fly properly. Without one, it tends to lose propellers in my carpet. While it comes with a pair of detachable wheels that let it roll up walls and across ceilings, I found they didn't adequately keep the $100 Rolling Spider from slicing into household objects. The main reason I didn't enjoy playing with the Parrot, though, were the laggy smartphone controls. (aka Swann Xtreem Maxi Quad Starship) Don't bother with this larger $25-$50 version of the Syma X4.

It's a teensy bit more powerful, but not enough to reliably fly outdoors. It doesn't last longer, and it's noisier and looks uglier. The propeller guard is removable, but wound up removing The #1 best-selling quadcopter on Amazon, I had high hopes that this cousin of my favorite miniature quadcopter would be a solid camera drone. Unfortunately, it turned out to be one of the flimsiest pieces of shit I've ever laid eyes on. More importantly, even with a fully charged battery, my $65 unit didn't always have enough power to get off the damn ground Though it's a way better camera drone than the others I tried, producing far clearer HD footage, it's also big, heavy, expensive for beginners at $300, and not as responsive as joystick-controlled drones. Much like the H107C, but transmits a live video feed from the camera to a screen on the remote control for $140. Lots of unhappy customers due to issues with that controller. WL Toys V262 Cyclone Some user reviews complain of quality control issues, and more of them about horrendous customer service.