FPV intro

sprzout

Knower of useless information
Mentor
I was out this past weekend trying to set up Drone Racing at my RC field. Unfortunately, nobody came out to participate in the racing except myself and our club president, so not really a "race" but rather introduction to some new members as well as some older pilots that initially thought they were the "problem" with the hobby.

I brought out my backup pair, and my club president had his two pairs of goggles, allowing new people to see what it was like:

IMG_0302.jpg


I'm the fat, balding guy on the far left, and the rest are either new students for RC flight or just members who wanted to see what the "FPV craze" was about. Turns out this was actually beneficial, as at least one of them thought that it was mostly "rogue pilots" flying destructively and flying crazy, trying to push the limits and causing problems for full size aircraft. After a few minutes under the goggles, they realized that it's more like being in the pilot's seat and were immediately saying, "Huh, I wonder if I could put this on a plane!"

I'm happy they were interested, and I'm simply just trying to provide education on it. Maybe I can change a few minds by showing them how much fun we're having with it!
 

sprzout

Knower of useless information
Mentor
I'm trying, that's for certain. :) I know there's a lot of bad blood, and many of the guys at our field see drones as negative things that they don't want because they're afraid it'll stop them from flying their fixed wing aircraft or helis. In reality, where most of us "drone guys" fly at our field, we're just cruising away from the path of the fixed wing pilots in an assigned spot, and maybe running gates or pulling aerobatic moves in our own area.

I think they're getting used to the idea, as well, as to how fast these things can actually move and how responsive they are, and some of them are wanting to be speed demons. :)
 

mrjdstewart

Legendary member
i do the same thing. i always take my spare goggles when i know i'm flying FPV so anyone who wants to can come for a "ride." Just make sure if it is their first time to sit them in a chair. don't ask me why... :LOL:

laters,

me :cool:
 

RustySocket

Active member
I was one of the first to show up years ago with a Helicopter at a club field about 20 years ago so I know the reaction you can get from some of the old boys. Eventually everybody softened up to the fact that their hobby was evolving and that there was room for everybody at the field with some understanding and a little flexibility on everybodies part.

I'm certainly interested in FPV flight myself and would love to see what could be done on a budget. Maybe a quad project for scooting around my back yard. I need to research it more. Especially the video part.

Nothing like some first hand experience to get some people interested.
 

sprzout

Knower of useless information
Mentor
i do the same thing. i always take my spare goggles when i know i'm flying FPV so anyone who wants to can come for a "ride." Just make sure if it is their first time to sit them in a chair. don't ask me why... :LOL:

laters,

me :cool:

LOL I was at a Maker Faire event about a year and a half ago and I let a mom try out the goggles while I gave her a quick ride. She was standing as I started flying, and started looking all around the place. I had to turn away because she was twisting around as I was flying GENTLY with a little micro quad, up, through, and around some of the open ceiling panels indoors. She ended up standing spread eagle with her arms out like she was trying to balance, and her kids were dying of laughter at the "dance" their mom was doing.

But when she took off the headset, the first words out of her mouth were, "Oh, that is AWESOME! How much does something like this cost?!? I gotta get involved with this!" (The dad was pretty excited too, so I'm betting the kids got some quads for Christmas that year. :) )

But that's what it's about, right? "The first hit's free!" LOL
 

sprzout

Knower of useless information
Mentor
I was one of the first to show up years ago with a Helicopter at a club field about 20 years ago so I know the reaction you can get from some of the old boys. Eventually everybody softened up to the fact that their hobby was evolving and that there was room for everybody at the field with some understanding and a little flexibility on everybodies part.

I'm certainly interested in FPV flight myself and would love to see what could be done on a budget. Maybe a quad project for scooting around my back yard. I need to research it more. Especially the video part.

Nothing like some first hand experience to get some people interested.

If you want to get into it cheaply, I'd start with a TinyWhoop/micro quad system - they're relatively cheap to get into. NewBeeDrone has an RTF kit for $200, which gives you the quad, batteries, charger, controller, and goggles, and Emax has some similar kits for a little cheaper (although, you're locked into their controllers and charging system - the NewBeeDrone kits you can swap out to a full size FrSky transmitter if you want instead, and you can tune the NewBeeDrone quads using Betaflight, so you can get more advanced as you learn).

It's really not that hard or expensive in the grand scheme of things. :)
 

RustySocket

Active member
If you want to get into it cheaply, I'd start with a TinyWhoop/micro quad system - they're relatively cheap to get into. NewBeeDrone has an RTF kit for $200, which gives you the quad, batteries, charger, controller, and goggles, and Emax has some similar kits for a little cheaper (although, you're locked into their controllers and charging system - the NewBeeDrone kits you can swap out to a full size FrSky transmitter if you want instead, and you can tune the NewBeeDrone quads using Betaflight, so you can get more advanced as you learn).

It's really not that hard or expensive in the grand scheme of things. :)

I've got a Taranis X9D+ transmitter and I have a eflite nano quad that I play around the house with. I modded the transmitter, with a orange module to be dsmx/m2 compatible. So I'd really be more interested in doing my own build that I can grow with. I've been reading a bit about flite controller stacks and frames and it seems like I could get into something for not too much. Certainly need more information on how they all get wired up, but that's just a matter of finding the right information to read. I had a DJI Phantom for a while but I got bored and gave it to my nephew. It really wasn't fpv though, It carried a go pro and just recorded video. Seems like the best place to start with quality would be the goggles....at least they don't crash.

Also, I'm looking at 5" frames so I can get a little more flight time. The little 150mah 1s batteries the nano uses are good for about 3 minutes. Obviously the cost goes up though.