Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

fpvsim.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 136 posts

Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#31

Post by bambax »

DeathArrow wrote: post #10

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.

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.

Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#32

Post by wepple »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #23
bambax wrote: post #22

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 ve…

What dedicated controllers would you recommend? Is there a FPV that works for both drones in real life and in games? Any ones in particular you like?

I’d avoid the DJI controller if you want to truly get into FPV. Eventually you’ll want to fly non-DJI quads (eg the o3 air units are too heavy for whoops, so you’ll be analog or HDZero) so stick with ELRS.

The arguably best all rounder controller at a decent price point is the radiomaster boxer at about $99. Their pocket model is only $55 and super compact, but isn’t really full sized.

Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#34

Post by wepple »

05 wrote: post #14
senectus1 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wanna give this a go. what controller would you recommend?

Radiomaster Boxer is probably the goto one for FPV quadcopters. If you want to fly LoS and autonomous missions then Radiomaster TX16S (large touchscreen, community support, all the LUA tememetry widgets you could ever want). For the link, it's either ELRS for manual flying or mLRS for Mavlink telemetry over LoRa.

+1 on the boxer. Great for everything at a pretty damn good price point.

Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#35

Post by blutack »

sofixa wrote: post #27
blutack wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I haven't personally come across one that requires a per flight permit outside of higher risk commercial operations Portugal requires approval from the coast guard if your planned flight is within certain distance from a beach/the sea, which is quite easy in a coastal and islands country.

I don't read Portuguese but there's nothing specifically regarding beaches in their courtesy translation [1] beyond avoiding areas next to SAR helicopter bases (which is fair enough) and there's nothing on their UAS restrictions map [2] that would be unusual in any other EU country.

I have flown (below 120m obviously) in Portugal near the beach with a 1: https://www.anac.pt/vPT/Generico/drones/operacoes_transfront...

2: https://uas.anac.pt/registry/explore

Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#36

Post by wepple »

z3phyr wrote: post #16

Can anyone recommend some good drones outside of DJI?

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.

Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#37

Post by 05 »

bambax wrote: post #28
z3phyr wrote: post #16

Can anyone recommend some good drones outside of DJI?

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 mo…

Skydio has abandoned its consumer business - DJI basically killed them and now they're busy lobbying to ban DJI from government use (or ideally just ban them from being used in the US altogether - yay protectionism).

iFlight is probably among the top BnF brands together with GepRC, but nowadays it's cheaper to build your own (used to be BnF/PnP ones were cheaper than parts, no longer the case).

Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#38

Post by sofixa »

blutack wrote: post #35
sofixa wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I haven't personally come across one that requires a per flight permit outside of higher risk commercial operations Portugal requires approval from the coast guard if your planned flight is within certain distance from a beach/the sea, which is quite easy in a coastal and islands country.

I don't read Portuguese but there's nothing specifically regarding beaches in their courtesy translation [1] beyond avoiding areas next to SAR helicopter bases (which is fair enough) and there's nothing on their UAS restrictions map [2] that would be unusual in any other EU country. I have flown (below 120m obviously) in Portugal near the beach with a 1: https://www.anac.pt/vPT/Generico/drones/operacoes_transfront...…

Hm, can't find anything about it now, but it was the case in 2021, at least for the Azores. If memory serves me right I even had to send some signed papers via the post because their online portal wasn't ready yet (which it seems to be).

Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#39

Post by fvdessen »

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

Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#40

Post by coldtea »

wepple wrote: post #32
NicoJuicy wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What dedicated controllers would you recommend? Is there a FPV that works for both drones in real life and in games? Any ones in particular you like?

I’d avoid the DJI controller if you want to truly get into FPV. Eventually you’ll want to fly non-DJI quads (eg the o3 air units are too heavy for whoops, so you’ll be analog or HDZero) so stick with ELRS. The arguably best all rounder controller at a decent price point is the radiomaster boxer at about $99. Their pocket model is only $55 and super compact, but isn’t really full sized.

>Eventually you’ll want to fly non-DJI quads

If you do FPV for fun, maybe. If you do it for video needs you'll most likely getting a drone, usually DJI, and sticking with it.

Post reply on HN