A second-hand drone often costs half the price, and the first years of depreciation are real. The risk is not the price: it is buying an aircraft you will not be able to fly legally, or whose repairs will cost you the difference.
Registration does not come with the aircraft
This is the most common mistake, and it comes from a confusion of vocabulary. In Europe the drone is not registered, the person operating it is. EASA puts it plainly: drones do not need to be registered, but you, as the operator, must register yourself.
What you receive is an operator number, attached to you, and it covers your whole fleet. It has to be displayed on every aircraft you own.
The direct consequence when buying: the seller's number has no business on a drone that becomes yours. You peel off their sticker and put on your own. If you do not have a number yet, now is the time to apply for one, not after the first flight.
The class label and the declaration of conformity
EASA asks the buyer to check that the aircraft carries its class label, from C0 to C6, and that it comes with its declaration of conformity. For a second-hand aircraft the agency adds a requirement of its own: obtain reasonable confidence that the aircraft has not been damaged or modified in a way that affects its initial compliance.
In practical terms: ask for a photograph of the label before you travel, and for the conformity document with it. An aircraft whose label has gone is not necessarily illegal, but it no longer sells at the same price.
What the classes actually change: class C0 or C1.
The real condition: what to look at
- The serial number, and whether it matches the original purchase invoice
- The flight hours, which the aircraft logbook or the maker's app can tell you
- The arms and the landing gear, whose hairline cracks tell the story of hard landings
- The gimbal, moved through its three axes with the motors running
- The obstacle sensors, often scratched, sometimes replaced with parts that are not original
Ask whether the aircraft has been in an incident. A frank answer is worth more than an aircraft with no history: a drone that has flown has necessarily lived.
Batteries, the expensive part
This is the consumable, and this is where the bad deal hides. A battery is judged on its cycle count, which the maker's app displays, not on how it looks. Past roughly two hundred cycles the capacity drops and the advertised endurance no longer means anything.
Turn down any swollen battery without discussion. It cannot be repaired, it has to be recycled, and it is a fire risk in transport.
What has to change hands
Before you pay, agree on what follows the aircraft: the declaration of conformity, the original invoice, the exact number of batteries and their condition, the spare propellers, and above all the unbinding of the maker's account. An aircraft still tied to the seller's account may refuse certain operations.
After the purchase
Register as an operator if you have not already, put your number on the aircraft, update the firmware, and make a first test flight in open ground before taking the aircraft on a job that matters.