There are two big families of drones: FPV and non-FPV (sometimes called cinematic). Flying non-FPV, GPS stabilized drones (like the DJI Mavic family of drones) requires almost no training, you just put the drone in the air and it stays there, waiting for your instructions.
Flying FPV (in acro mode) has a steep learning curve (but is, arguably, much more fun). The way to learn is to use a proper simulator. The most versatile and popular one is Liftoff and costs around $20, but there are many others, including free ones. You should also buy a dedicated controller since normal game controllers don't work well (the throttle joystick needs to stay where it is instead of returning to center). Dedicated drone controllers can be found around $40-50 used.
And then off you go! Be prepared to spend at least 20 hours on a sim before you can fly IRL (it took me around 100 hours to really be comfortable). It's surprising how well the learned skills transfer from the simulator to the real thing.
One other note about simulators is that they include PID tuning (at least Liftoff does), which can be an incredibly time consuming and tedious process with a new quad if you're new to it. It's better to learn that process in a sim where you can change values and see how the results affect behavior right away. In the real world, you typically have to fly back, land, plug the quad into your laptop/phone, change the values, sync, unplug, and take off again.
I was able to fly the DJI avata in full manual mode with maybe only 4 hours in a sim. I'm not sure if that's because it just "clicked" or if the avata is just way easier than other FPV drones. I definitely think the ability to exit FPV with a click of a button and it's crazy durability have allowed me to be comfortable taking risks, which has made me a better pilot.
Great point. Using Liftoff and similar is a game changer. Flying in acro mode is something where you will crash repeatedly at first. (At least I did... in Liftoff thankfully!) Then after a relatively short time, the controls will be intuitive, it will feel easy, and you don't forget. Like riding a bicyle is a perfect analogy.
I think 20 hours is excessive. I'd say 30 mins to 2 hours is fine, depending on the user. The most dramatic learning will happen in the first 10 mins or so.
Velocidrone $20 is the most popular sim with the pros. It's designed to be the most accurate at as cost of graphic detail.
They have open races every week.
I can place in the top 300 sometimes.
You can see the FPV of any of the races. The fastest pilots fly so fast it's insane. It's hard for me to comprehend how they can even comprehend what they are seeing.
They will fly though a 3 gate ladder(aka corkscrew) in 1.5 seconds.
Not entirely unrelated, but FPV drones are now the main weapon of the Ukraine war. They started using them against tanks, then groups of soldiers, but have now found that they are cost effective enough to go against individual soldiers.
The drone soldiers operate in small teams from underground bunkers close to the front from which they launch hundreds of drones a day, with different types of drones for different targets. The limiting factor is the amount of drones, Ukraine plans to build one million of them this year domestically.
Apart from jamming, there's not much to defend yourself against drones except staying underground, or moving fast enough that there is no time for you to be spotted and tracked. But drones can see kms away and move at hundreds of kmph, then go after you personally, even inside buildings, and even at night with infrared vision.
In an interview they asked a drone-ace how many ennemies he killed, he said he couldn't remember; "Do you remember how many cups of coffee you drank last year?".
I am not sure what to think about all this, but it is certainly fascinating
Bombs and artillery is the main weapon, FPV drones are a novelty and they're being limited by being tied to the remote pilot. Pilots don't really scale that well - it takes a long time to train, and they have to be relatively close to the drone, so they're vulnerable to counter attacks.
Autonomous drones are supposedly already used for oil refineries (vision based navigation, to mitigate GPS jamming), once this tech trickles down to smaller drones things will get really scary..
Drones basically have flipped the total modern artillery doctrine on their heads.
With the proliferation of fire-finder-radar, modern artillery started to switch from dug in stationary guns to highly mobile "shoot-and-scoot"-tactics, in which a gun quickly fires half a dozen rounds in a time-on-target salvo and relocates to dodge the counterbattery fire. For this, modern Artillery systems like PZH2000, Archer, RCH155, Dana and Caesar are optimized.
Since the advent of quick and cheap FPV drones, moving artillery on the road is much more in danger, and dug-in guns with jammers, SHORAD and overhead protection again regained the survivability edge - albeit mainly because russia lost most of its modern radar.
The only western SPA with any chance of survival seems to be the PZH2000, as its on a tracked carriage allowing it offroad movement and concealment and being better armored than most wheeled contemporaries on Lorry-Chassis
>In an interview they asked a drone-ace how many ennemies he killed, he said he couldn't remember; "Do you remember how many cups of coffee you drank last year?".
On the other hand, that's also what someone bragging insincerely would say...
Today I left major European defense company. It’s fantastic how tax payer pay for real outdated, but properly certified crap. Long story short: Bundeswehr soldier can’t use improvised drone at all. In fact he also needs a license and insurance. This renders earlier mentioned Bundeswehr useless in modern conflict against an enemy with many improvised drones. With certification 500-1000$ diy drone costs suddenly 10 times more. Maybe this is nice business opportunity to team up for?
Hopefully this will make invasion much more costly, so smaller countries will have more chances to survive their imperialists neighbors. Sure the criminals can level your city but they need toe eventually move their troops in to pillage the resources and then you can make them pay. Only downside is with countries that can afford to lose 1000+ men a day for years, it will cost them and you a lot.
Anyone knows if in China such men loses are acceptable for the population.
I just watched that video. I feel bad for the kid. Even in the absolute best case scenario, Ukraine wins and he has to live the rest of his life with nightmares of all the people he killed. I know this isn't exactly productive discourse but God, war is incredibly bleak.
It's quite annoying that every stage of the lesson requires you to recalibrate your controller.
When I learned to fly racing drones, I used Velocidrone; I have no experience of FPVSim.
Even if you don't plan to eventually fly an acrobatic or racing drone, the sim experience can be a bit relaxing & focused. I used to practice on a 2nd monitor while I was in large mandatory group meetings for work.
If you do plan to build and fly drones, then a simulator is absolutely worth every penny. You pay for real drone crashes with time and money, and you probably need 100 hours of practice before you can handle the real thing (and not that well).
If I were going to get back into the hobby, I'd probably try to do long range fixed wing aircraft with FPV and flight automation. The view will be much more enjoyable and the batteries will last much longer. I think there's also less community pressure around RC planes vs. drones, especially the loud racing ones.
> If I were going to get back into the hobby, I'd probably try to do long range fixed wing aircraft with FPV and flight automation.
For me personally that’s too boring.. Long range is illegal in lots of places; in the US you technically need a spotter and the craft needs to be in direct line of sight, and pretty close because it should be visible with unaided eye - so, no binoculars.
3.5" is the sweet spot where you can build a sub 250g (or almost sub 250 - do cops really carry kitchen scales on them?) drone with decent performance that doesn't scare people when you fly around and still has the performance close to a 5" one and you can still do all of the tricks. The only drawback with 3.5" is that they're more susceptible to wind, so if it's always very windy where you fly, maybe consider a 5". Oh, and you also don't need to install a remote ID module on a sub 250g quad.
I was in to drone racing for a while then got out of it and in to high powered rocketry. Interestingly, a friend is moving and wants me to take over his passion project. A rocket powered glider using an 'M' (pretty powerful) rocket motor. He has a smaller POC working with an ardupilot autopilot launching on 'H' motors. The basic gist is the rocket takes the glider up and the autopilot handles the flying until the altitude is low and then manual takeover for landing. On an M motor, the glider is going to go far out of site so the ardupilot will have to get it back to the flight line where i can see it and land.
I need to check the rules closely because there's exceptions for rocket powered gliders but I don't think i'll be able to launch at a sanctioned event and will probably have to go out to FAR (friends of amatuer rocketry) which is a multi-day drive for me. Tripoli, the main governing body for experimental high powered rocketry, has rules about guided recovery with some exceptions for gliders. I have a feeling a rocket powered glider would have to remain in sight at all times which wouldn't be the case with an 'M' motor sending it up. Someone building a rocket that can fly to 100k feet and then land at a waypoint would attract a lot of unwanted attention from authorities and be bad for the hobby which is why those rules exist.
I think these days things have changed for the better... Free simulators,light weight fun builds that don't easily be damaged/cause damage from crashes..
I just bought my first fixed wing, but it made me realize why i like my sub 100 gram " 3" toothpick" kind of quads even more. i can fly those around the home, i get 10+ minutes of flight time (trust me, it gets annoying after 8-9 minutes and you need a break before you fly the next battery!), and even if i crash that 1S toothpick into something or someone, you barely cause a scratch..
Does anybody fly Ardupilot? Last time I was really into flying I used DRonin, which sadly got abandoned. I have a real aversion to BetaFlight, though I know it's got 90% of the market; however, Ardupilot seems to have a reasonably active community.
I don't really care about freestyling - I'm more interested in cruising over forest canopy, and having a reliable return to home function if radio signal gets lost. (I have probably 15 built out airframes; over time I probably need to replace defunct hardware, but a lot of it still seems reasonably acceptable. Quite a few f7 controllers for example.)
Ardupilot is quite good, but I would say it's kinda similar to Linux in terms of an operating system for your drone. It can be configured to work with a wide array of hardware and operations, but its 'off the shelf' interface isn't going to be as polished as some other more hardware specific systems. If you want to build your own, and have full control over your system, Ardupilot is a great place to start.
Hi, just registered and logged in, but your link just takes me to the catalogue page - is that intentional? Is there a specific course I should be searching for?
I've been thinking of pulling the plug on getting a dji mavic (maybe mini pro which is 249g and doesn't need a licence, but also thinking of another dji mavic pro also). A1/A3 is around £200 elsewhere.
Huh, once I figured out how to switch to first person view and acro mode and hooked up my PlayStation controller this was surprisingly fun – it behaved a little like a more friendly helicopter simulator. The most annoying part was that I couldn't have throttle on a completely separate control from the rotation axes, and the frequent brief freezes I got in Firefox.
If this is an indication of what it is like to fly real FPV drones, I'll have to put a lock on my wallet.
> The most annoying part was that I couldn't have throttle on a completely separate control from the rotation axes
You wouldn't want that because throttle is essential for flight control unlike with fixed wing where it's somewhat set and forget in many situations. It's partially alleviated by 'real' radios not having a spring on the throttle axis, so it stays in the position you've put it and part of it is just more practice..
Having been intrigued by this (see my other comment) I decided to try out one of the more featureful higher-fidelity simulators, and discovered something else: I get really motion sick after just a few minutes.
Is this
(1) because my turns are uncoordinated,
(2) because I have an incorrectly configured viewport,
(3) because I'm not cut out for FPV flying, or
(4) a matter of persevering and getting used to the perspective?
For cine drones DJI is so dominant, other brands don't stand a chance. Potensic is trying to exist, and their drones aren't bad, but not as good as those from DJI and costing about the same. Hubsan was once promising but seems to have entirely dropped the ball. Anafi's long dead. One sometimes hear about Skydio but they seem to only exist in the US? I don't know anyone who flies them.
For FPV drones there are many more options. I think one of the best brands is GepRC but there are so many others, it's impossible to mention them all. Still, for the video transmitting system, DJI is still dominant there as well, but at least you can use alternatives if you really don't like them (Walksnail for digital, or lots of others for analog).
Joshua Bardwell has tons of educational videos on YouTube discussing options. Also his website has articles that are up to date on solid hardware options. It depends a bit if you wanna fly racing, freestyle or cine. I really do recommend his content especially learn to fly in sim with ELRS boxer radio.
Once you step outside of DJI there’s so much variety, what do you want to do?
If you’re learning to fly FPV, get a betafpv all inclusive kit like the cetus series - that’s what I started on.
Eventually though, if you’re flying hard you’ll crash hard so you want to know how to build and therefore fix your quads. I highly highly recommend Joshua Bardwells DIY build kit and YT video series.
But you can also buy bind-n-fly quads like the Nazgul.
If it's fpv racing, freestyle etc ... There are many ready to fly options. Starting at 50 grams all up weight for indoor flying to 5" 200+kmph racers to bigger 7" long range quads..
Too bad in most parts of the EU is illegal to fly drones. You can do it if you are far from populated areas but you need to go trough a complicated bureaucracy and obtain a permit before each flight.
This is not true as a blanket statement unless you are talking about commercial flying, large drones or restricted airspace. I'm not sure what country you are referring to but I haven't personally come across one that requires a per flight permit outside of higher risk commercial operations. Most EU countries are pretty harmonised on drone rules at this point.
Sub 250g drones such as the DJI Mini series and the Autel Nano will give you the most flexibility in places you can fly legally.
I am a registered pilot. Had to do an online course and learn about restrictions, took an hour and was free and is valid across most countries in EU. Most stupid restriction is that for FPV, a spotter is required. But if I stay away from people/buildings I am permitted to fly up to IIRC 6kg drones
That's not true at all. You can fly in many places in the EU without any permit, esp. for sub-250g drones. You can't fly over groups of people (isolated people is ok), over towns and near airports and airfields. (And yes, it can be annoying if you live in a big city center.)
For FPV flying it's a little bit different. In theory, it requires to have a "spotter" who will watch the drone when you fly, and the same other rules apply. But if you're flying in your backyard, close to the ground, or indoors, nobody will notice or care.
Not sure for FPV (don't own one), but it's quite trivial to get an operator license/registration, and you don't even need one for a certain smaller / more toy-like class of devices.
And this covers most parts of EU.
For 99% of flights you also don't need any per-flight "bureucracy".
There are some limitations, like X height in city, not above crowds, no "no-go" zones, but totally not "illegal to fly in most parts of EU".
bambax|1 year ago
Flying FPV (in acro mode) has a steep learning curve (but is, arguably, much more fun). The way to learn is to use a proper simulator. The most versatile and popular one is Liftoff and costs around $20, but there are many others, including free ones. You should also buy a dedicated controller since normal game controllers don't work well (the throttle joystick needs to stay where it is instead of returning to center). Dedicated drone controllers can be found around $40-50 used.
And then off you go! Be prepared to spend at least 20 hours on a sim before you can fly IRL (it took me around 100 hours to really be comfortable). It's surprising how well the learned skills transfer from the simulator to the real thing.
tekdude|1 year ago
NicoJuicy|1 year ago
cjonas|1 year ago
the__alchemist|1 year ago
I think 20 hours is excessive. I'd say 30 mins to 2 hours is fine, depending on the user. The most dramatic learning will happen in the first 10 mins or so.
MrFantastic|1 year ago
They have open races every week.
I can place in the top 300 sometimes.
You can see the FPV of any of the races. The fastest pilots fly so fast it's insane. It's hard for me to comprehend how they can even comprehend what they are seeing.
They will fly though a 3 gate ladder(aka corkscrew) in 1.5 seconds.
sizzle|1 year ago
fvdessen|1 year ago
The drone soldiers operate in small teams from underground bunkers close to the front from which they launch hundreds of drones a day, with different types of drones for different targets. The limiting factor is the amount of drones, Ukraine plans to build one million of them this year domestically.
Apart from jamming, there's not much to defend yourself against drones except staying underground, or moving fast enough that there is no time for you to be spotted and tracked. But drones can see kms away and move at hundreds of kmph, then go after you personally, even inside buildings, and even at night with infrared vision.
In an interview they asked a drone-ace how many ennemies he killed, he said he couldn't remember; "Do you remember how many cups of coffee you drank last year?".
I am not sure what to think about all this, but it is certainly fascinating
05|1 year ago
Autonomous drones are supposedly already used for oil refineries (vision based navigation, to mitigate GPS jamming), once this tech trickles down to smaller drones things will get really scary..
exar0815|1 year ago
With the proliferation of fire-finder-radar, modern artillery started to switch from dug in stationary guns to highly mobile "shoot-and-scoot"-tactics, in which a gun quickly fires half a dozen rounds in a time-on-target salvo and relocates to dodge the counterbattery fire. For this, modern Artillery systems like PZH2000, Archer, RCH155, Dana and Caesar are optimized.
Since the advent of quick and cheap FPV drones, moving artillery on the road is much more in danger, and dug-in guns with jammers, SHORAD and overhead protection again regained the survivability edge - albeit mainly because russia lost most of its modern radar.
The only western SPA with any chance of survival seems to be the PZH2000, as its on a tracked carriage allowing it offroad movement and concealment and being better armored than most wheeled contemporaries on Lorry-Chassis
coldtea|1 year ago
On the other hand, that's also what someone bragging insincerely would say...
tylergetsay|1 year ago
lnsru|1 year ago
simion314|1 year ago
Anyone knows if in China such men loses are acceptable for the population.
swaginator|1 year ago
vdfs|1 year ago
avidiax|1 year ago
When I learned to fly racing drones, I used Velocidrone; I have no experience of FPVSim.
Even if you don't plan to eventually fly an acrobatic or racing drone, the sim experience can be a bit relaxing & focused. I used to practice on a 2nd monitor while I was in large mandatory group meetings for work.
If you do plan to build and fly drones, then a simulator is absolutely worth every penny. You pay for real drone crashes with time and money, and you probably need 100 hours of practice before you can handle the real thing (and not that well).
If I were going to get back into the hobby, I'd probably try to do long range fixed wing aircraft with FPV and flight automation. The view will be much more enjoyable and the batteries will last much longer. I think there's also less community pressure around RC planes vs. drones, especially the loud racing ones.
05|1 year ago
For me personally that’s too boring.. Long range is illegal in lots of places; in the US you technically need a spotter and the craft needs to be in direct line of sight, and pretty close because it should be visible with unaided eye - so, no binoculars.
3.5" is the sweet spot where you can build a sub 250g (or almost sub 250 - do cops really carry kitchen scales on them?) drone with decent performance that doesn't scare people when you fly around and still has the performance close to a 5" one and you can still do all of the tricks. The only drawback with 3.5" is that they're more susceptible to wind, so if it's always very windy where you fly, maybe consider a 5". Oh, and you also don't need to install a remote ID module on a sub 250g quad.
chasd00|1 year ago
I need to check the rules closely because there's exceptions for rocket powered gliders but I don't think i'll be able to launch at a sanctioned event and will probably have to go out to FAR (friends of amatuer rocketry) which is a multi-day drive for me. Tripoli, the main governing body for experimental high powered rocketry, has rules about guided recovery with some exceptions for gliders. I have a feeling a rocket powered glider would have to remain in sight at all times which wouldn't be the case with an 'M' motor sending it up. Someone building a rocket that can fly to 100k feet and then land at a waypoint would attract a lot of unwanted attention from authorities and be bad for the hobby which is why those rules exist.
saidinesh5|1 year ago
I just bought my first fixed wing, but it made me realize why i like my sub 100 gram " 3" toothpick" kind of quads even more. i can fly those around the home, i get 10+ minutes of flight time (trust me, it gets annoying after 8-9 minutes and you need a break before you fly the next battery!), and even if i crash that 1S toothpick into something or someone, you barely cause a scratch..
senectus1|1 year ago
what controller would you recommend?
btreecat|1 year ago
FC are essential for long range missions typically, but I have pushed several miles on just GPS overlay in my video feed.
mosfets|1 year ago
qup|1 year ago
There's also freerider fpv, DRL, and Liftoff. They're all pretty good, honestly.
smallerfish|1 year ago
I don't really care about freestyling - I'm more interested in cruising over forest canopy, and having a reliable return to home function if radio signal gets lost. (I have probably 15 built out airframes; over time I probably need to replace defunct hardware, but a lot of it still seems reasonably acceptable. Quite a few f7 controllers for example.)
thadt|1 year ago
l3x4ur1n|1 year ago
padfootprong|1 year ago
I've been thinking of pulling the plug on getting a dji mavic (maybe mini pro which is 249g and doesn't need a licence, but also thinking of another dji mavic pro also). A1/A3 is around £200 elsewhere.
kqr|1 year ago
If this is an indication of what it is like to fly real FPV drones, I'll have to put a lock on my wallet.
05|1 year ago
You wouldn't want that because throttle is essential for flight control unlike with fixed wing where it's somewhat set and forget in many situations. It's partially alleviated by 'real' radios not having a spring on the throttle axis, so it stays in the position you've put it and part of it is just more practice..
mosfets|1 year ago
kqr|1 year ago
Is this
(1) because my turns are uncoordinated,
(2) because I have an incorrectly configured viewport,
(3) because I'm not cut out for FPV flying, or
(4) a matter of persevering and getting used to the perspective?
avidiax|1 year ago
z3phyr|1 year ago
bambax|1 year ago
For FPV drones there are many more options. I think one of the best brands is GepRC but there are so many others, it's impossible to mention them all. Still, for the video transmitting system, DJI is still dominant there as well, but at least you can use alternatives if you really don't like them (Walksnail for digital, or lots of others for analog).
ilikeatari|1 year ago
palata|1 year ago
If you want a commercial off-the-shelf drone, nothing is remotely close to DJI, really.
wepple|1 year ago
If you’re learning to fly FPV, get a betafpv all inclusive kit like the cetus series - that’s what I started on.
Eventually though, if you’re flying hard you’ll crash hard so you want to know how to build and therefore fix your quads. I highly highly recommend Joshua Bardwells DIY build kit and YT video series.
But you can also buy bind-n-fly quads like the Nazgul.
saidinesh5|1 year ago
If it's dji like flying, there's skydio .
If it's fpv racing, freestyle etc ... There are many ready to fly options. Starting at 50 grams all up weight for indoor flying to 5" 200+kmph racers to bigger 7" long range quads..
exabrial|1 year ago
btreecat|1 year ago
mosfets|1 year ago
schiffern|1 year ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armada_(novel)
mosfets|1 year ago
hla18|1 year ago
[deleted]
DeathArrow|1 year ago
blutack|1 year ago
Sub 250g drones such as the DJI Mini series and the Autel Nano will give you the most flexibility in places you can fly legally.
fp64|1 year ago
bambax|1 year ago
For FPV flying it's a little bit different. In theory, it requires to have a "spotter" who will watch the drone when you fly, and the same other rules apply. But if you're flying in your backyard, close to the ground, or indoors, nobody will notice or care.
coldtea|1 year ago
And this covers most parts of EU.
For 99% of flights you also don't need any per-flight "bureucracy".
There are some limitations, like X height in city, not above crowds, no "no-go" zones, but totally not "illegal to fly in most parts of EU".