Skip to main content

Making a Christmas tree fly is 2016's wackiest use of a quadcopter

Flying Christmas Tree | Flite Test
From drones that can dive like birds to ones encased in giant flying hamster balls, we’ve seen our fair share of experimental unmanned aerial vehicles over the past 12 months.

One that we’ve not previously come across, however, is a quadcopter Christmas tree, which is exactly what YouTube channel Flite Test has created for its new festive-themed video.

Recommended Videos

As talented drone builders and pilots, the team at Flite Test has previously flown novelty drones such as a Star Wars-inspired RC Death Star. The sight of a flying fir tree mounted on a quadcopter may be their most surreal creation yet, though — and surely their least aerodynamic.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

With that said, a lack of maneuverability, speed, and … well, just about anything else that would normally constitute a good quadcopter is more than balanced out by the sheer festive joy of the scene.

Things get even better at the end of the video when the team goes one step further than flying a plain fir tree by launching a fully bedecked Christmas tree, complete with tinsel and baubles, into the skies above Miller’s Christmas Tree Farm in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania.

We should note that, as original as a flying Christmas tree drone is, it’s not the only Yuletide UAV that’s popped up this December. Popular YouTube personality Casey Neistat recently had his own attempt at winning Christmas with a video depicting him dressed up as a snowboarding Santa who has eschewed the sleigh for a human-flying drone.

If this Christmas is anything like the last one, we can also expect a plethora of new drones to be found under people’s (presumably non-flying) Christmas trees. With that in mind, maybe we haven’t seen the last of the festive-themed quadcopter videos either.

Keep your eyes peeled: Santa and his reindeer may not be the only unidentified flying objects in the skies this weekend!

Luke Dormehl
Former Digital Trends Contributor
I'm a UK-based tech writer covering Cool Tech at Digital Trends. I've also written for Fast Company, Wired, the Guardian…
Hybrid vehicle sales reach U.S. record, but EV sales drop in third quarter
Tesla Cybertruck

The share of electric and hybrid vehicle sales continued to grow in the U.S. in the third quarter, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported this month.

Taken together, sales of purely electric vehicles (EVs), hybrids, and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) represented 19.6% of total light-duty vehicle (LDV) sales last quarter, up from 19.1% in the second quarter.

Read more
Tesla’s ‘Model Q’ to arrive in 2025 at a price under $30K, Deutsche Bank says
teslas model q to arrive in 2025 at a price under 30k deutsche bank says y range desktop lhd v2

Only a short month and half ago, Tesla CEO Elon Musk told investors that outside of the just-released driverless robotaxi, a regular Tesla model priced at $25,000 would be “pointless” and “silly”.

"It would be completely at odds with what we believe,” Musk said.

Read more
Costco, Electrify America add EV-charging stations in three states
costco electrify america add 50 ev charging stations in three states ea chargers 1280

Costco, which had abandoned offering EV charging 12 years ago, is getting serious about resuming the service.

Over a month ago, the big-box retailer once again put its brand name on a DC fast-charging station in Ridgefield, Washington, that was made by Electric Era .

Read more