What is a drone?

Ask ten people what a drone is and nine will draw a little quadcopter with a camera. That's a drone, but so is a remote-control car, a robot boat measuring the sea, the little helicopter that flew on Mars, and the satellites above our heads. This guide gives you five questions that help you tell any drone apart from any other.

Nobody on board

A drone is a vehicle with nobody on board. Someone steers it from outside (with a controller, from the shore, from another country) or it steers itself. That's the whole definition. The EU says the same about the flying ones: an unmanned aircraft is any aircraft that flies without a pilot on board, whether it's flown remotely or flies by itself, and that includes radio-controlled models.

The name is older than you'd think. A drone is a male bee: it buzzes around and doesn't do much. In 1935 the British flew a radio-controlled target plane called the Queen Bee, and unmanned planes have been "drones" ever since.

Not only in the air

Drones live in five places, and most have their own short name:

• Air: UAV, unmanned aerial vehicle: quadcopters, planes, helicopters.
• Ground: UGV, unmanned ground vehicle: RC cars, delivery robots, robot lawnmowers, tracked robots. Starship's six-wheeled delivery robots and Milrem Robotics' THeMIS both come from Estonia.
• Water: USV, unmanned surface vehicle: any RC boat you've seen on a pond, and robot boats like the sail-powered Saildrones that collect ocean data.
• Underwater: UUV, unmanned underwater vehicle. An ROV is steered live from the surface on a cable; an AUV swims a mission on its own.
• Space: UASV, unmanned aerospace vehicle. Satellites, space probes and Mars rovers are drones too: nobody on board, steered from Earth or flying themselves. Space is so far away that radio signals take minutes to arrive, so they mostly run on their own. Estonia's first satellite, ESTCube-1, was built by students at the University of Tartu and launched in 2013.

Is it a drone?

Try it. An RC car? Yes, nobody inside, someone steers it. A paper plane? No, once it leaves your hand, nobody steers it. A car with a driver? No, there's someone on board. NASA's Ingenuity helicopter, which made 72 flights on Mars? Yes. Our B200 soccer drone? Of course. And the robot vacuum? By the definition, yes: it drives itself around your living room with nobody on board. We just don't call it a drone.

How it moves through the air

Flying drones hold themselves up in different ways:

• Multirotor: four or more propellers. It can hover, turn on the spot and fly in a room, but it burns a lot of battery.
• Fixed wing: a small plane. It needs speed to stay up and can't hover, but it flies much longer and further. Zipline's delivery planes drop medicine by parachute.
• Helicopter: one big rotor and a small tail rotor. It hovers like a quad but is more complicated.
• VTOL: takes off like a quad, then flies like a plane. Estonia's Threod builds them.

Who's cooking?

The biggest difference between drones isn't how they look. It's how much they do for you. Think of the kitchen:

• Frying pan: manual. You do everything: heat, timing, flipping. You burn a few, and you learn. That's an FPV drone in acro mode, like our 65 mm whoops and 5″ racers. You fly every moment, and you build and fix it yourself.
• Toaster: semi-automatic. You pick the setting, push the lever, it does the rest. A camera drone holds its height and position and flies home on its own; our B200 soccer drone holds its height for you. Easy to start. When it breaks, it usually goes back to the shop.
• Smart oven: autonomous. You say what you want and it works out how. That's a mapping, delivery or patrol drone, or the robot vacuum: someone sets the goal, the drone does the job.

Many drones can switch between modes, just as a smart oven still has a manual setting.

How do you see it?

Another big difference is where the pilot's eyes are:

• Line of sight (LOS: line of sight, or VLOS: visual line of sight). You look at the drone with your own eyes. That's the normal rule for hobby flying: our B200 soccer drones, camera drones.
• FPV: first-person view. You see through the drone's camera, in goggles. You can't see the drone itself, so in the EU a spotter must stand next to you and keep their eyes on it. That's how our 65 mm whoops and 5″ racers fly.
• Out of sight (BVLOS: beyond visual line of sight). The drone is too far to see at all. It's flown from a map, or it flies itself. That needs special permission. It's what delivery, mapping and long patrol drones do.

LOS, VLOS and BVLOS are international terms: rules everywhere use them, so they're worth learning.

What is it for?

The same shape can do very different jobs: play (toys and whoops), pictures (camera and film drones), sport (racing, freestyle, drone soccer), work (farming, inspecting bridges and power lines, mapping, delivery, search and rescue) and defence.

How heavy?

For flying drones, weight decides the rules. In the EU, newer drones carry a class label: C0 under 250 g, C1 under 900 g, C2 up to 4 kg, C3 and C4 up to 25 kg. Under 250 g gives you the most freedom; heavier means more rules and more training. The Safety guide has the details.

Camera or home-built? Different rules

Weight isn't the whole story. Two things change the rules for small drones too.

It has a camera. A drone with a camera (or any sensor that can record people) means you have to register as an operator, even if it weighs under 250 g. Only toys are let off. The reason is privacy: a camera can see into gardens and windows. In Estonia you register with Transpordiamet.

You built it yourself. A home-built drone has no class label, so only its weight counts. Under 250 g (and slower than 19 m/s) it can fly in A1, like a C0. Up to 25 kg it flies in A3, far away from people. Our 5″ racers are home-built and weigh about 500 g, so they're A3 drones. Under 250 g you may fly FPV in A1 too, as long as a spotter stands next to you; Transpordiamet confirmed this in 2026, and no pilot exam is required. So our 65 mm whoops (about 25 g) fly in A1, but they carry a camera, so their pilots register. And our B200 soccer drones are technically toys.

Rules change, so always check the latest at transpordiamet.ee.

And one more: you have to be 16 to get certified. Under 16 you fly bigger drones only under the supervision of a certified pilot: at HOBIzone that's the coach, in a designated area. Flying on your own without a certificate? Take a licensed adult with you.

Quad families

Even quadcopters come in families. A tiny whoop is palm-sized with ducts around its props. Our 65 mm whoops are the ones we race indoors. A cinewhoop is a bigger ducted quad that carries a camera for smooth film shots. A toothpick is tiny, light and quick. The 5″ is the classic size for racing and freestyle: our outdoor racers. Long range quads with 7–10″ props fly far and long. A cinelifter carries a heavy cinema camera. And the folding camera drone is the toaster of the sky.

Our three drones

At HOBIzone we fly three kinds of drone, and whenever a guide says "our drones" it means these:

• B200: drone soccer. Indoors in the soccer cage. A quad inside a 20 cm ball cage, up to 175 g. A toaster: it holds its height for you. You fly it by line of sight. Technically it's a toy. Bigger soccer drones usually fly in A1.
• 65 mm whoop: indoor racing. A ducted quad of about 25 g with a camera on board. A frying pan, flown FPV in goggles with a spotter next to you. It flies in A1, but because it has a camera, its pilot registers as an operator.
• 5″ racer: outdoor racing. Home-built, about 500 g. A frying pan, flown FPV with a spotter next to you. Home-built, so it flies in A3, far from people.

Five questions

Next time you see a drone, ask:

1. Where does it go? Air, ground, water, underwater or space. 2. How does it move? Rotors, wings, wheels, tracks, legs or propellers. 3. Who's cooking? Frying pan, toaster or smart oven. 4. How do you see it? Line of sight, FPV or out of sight. 5. How heavy is it, and does it have a camera, or did you build it? That decides the rules.

Five answers, and you can tell any two drones apart.

A drone is a vehicle with nobody on board.