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Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

fpvsim.com

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Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#61

Post by tylergetsay »

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 bought a $300 fpv kit with small drone, goggles, and controller that worked in the sims. Emax tinyhawk i believe. Small enough to fly indoors

Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#62

Post by is_true »

05 wrote: post #46
fvdessen wrote: post #39

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 tar…

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…

I think the problem is with the autonomy.

Someone is gonna end up using something like a global hawk (spy drone) to deploy smaller kamikaze drones.

Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#63

Post by tylergetsay »

fvdessen wrote: post #39

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 tar…

OP is refering to this vid (which is great): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WipqeFgzdTc

Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#64

Post by matthew-wegner »

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?

Some replies to this already, but quick notes:

* "Controller" isn't used much as a term, when you start looking around. You'll see things listed under "transmitter" or "radio"

* The majority of FPV transmitters use OpenTX or EdgeTX software (EdgeTX is newer and a fork of OpenTX). Both of these support plugging the transmitter in to a host computer over USB, where it can appear as a HID joystick

* ExpressLRS (ELRS) is an open source radio protocol, with 2.4ghz and 900mhz versions. 2.4ghz is a denser waveforms, so better latency, but less penetration (unless you are going loooooong range, default to 2.4ghz). If you buy a radio today, get one with ELRS built in

* ELRS transmitters include Bluetooth. They can act as a BLE controller to a host computer, for wireless gamepad use: https://oscarliang.com/expresslrs-bluetooth-joystick/

* And there is a 3rd option for more convenience, since both HID over USB and BLE wirelessly require a tiny bit of menu fiddling: A dedicated simulator dongle. This acts as a full ELRS receiver, so you would just turn on your radio within range and play the simulator: https://www.getfpv.com/squid-stick-wireless-usb-simulator-do...

And finally, on radios themselves:

* The big split is between smaller "gamepad" style transmitters and full-size box transmitters. The larger versions usually have more inputs than you would use, for other radio control hobbyists (wings/planes/etc)

* Radiomaster is a solid recommendation. Check out the Pocket as an intro radio ($65 USD), and then the Boxer as a step up ($140 USD base, or $260 with all-metal gimbals and upgrades)

* Unless you have a strong reason to, like someone is gifting you a pile of quadcopter hardware using a different protocol, go with ELRS 2.4ghz built in

Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#65

Post by maicro »

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?

There are a lot of options out there, but from what I understand most of the common FPV controllers you'll see around will work as a HID when connected to a computer over USB.

I personally have a Team BlackSheep Tango 2 - though I haven't been flying as much as I would like, and have done little simulator time, it's worked fine for both.

If you want to get into the hobby in general, look up Joshua Bardwell on youtube - a lot of great information, including a variety of controller reviews, simulator reviews, and general "here's how to get started" videos. There are of course others, but Bardwell is the only one I'm actually subscribed to (not that I'm any great metric).

EDIT: for a lot of great information, see my sibling comment from Matthew.

Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#66

Post by poulpy123 »

coldtea wrote: post #54
poulpy123 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In france, Drone less than 250gr are legal without any documentation in autorized places (or more exctely where it's not forbidden) but you need to be able to see the drone. So FPV is legal as long as the drone isn't too far.

> but you need to be able to see the drone To have line-of-sight. Actually being able to see the drove is usually not possible - seeing a small drone at 40m high is near impossible after a couple hundrend meters away, especially as it moves. Of course nobody actually tries to be able to really see the drone.

the law translated by deepl is more strict than in my memory:

> The drone must be visible to the naked eye and remain within the pilot's field of vision. Immersion flights (FPV) and the use of follower drones are possible, provided a second person is present.

https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F35675/...

Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#67

Post by consumer451 »

is_true wrote: post #62
05 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think the problem is with the autonomy. Someone is gonna end up using something like a global hawk (spy drone) to deploy smaller kamikaze drones.

Ukraine already does the mothership thing using a larger multicopter, and there is a company working on the autonomy part. They are supposedly close to releasing the product.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40428492

Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#68

Post by exar0815 »

icegreentea2 wrote: post #55
exar0815 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Uh, I'm not sure FPVs have all of the effects that you're discussing. FPVs are significantly range limited (~10km), and have relatively small surveillance footprint. It's true that persistent ISR is significantly increasing the danger posed to all vehicles within the 10-30km (perhaps further) of the 'front line', but these are predominantly coming from different classes of drones. And yes, while FPVs can be queued on…

>>And yes, while FPVs can be queued onto SPGs (or whatever) by these other drones, so can other means of fires (like traditional artillery). As a reminder, tube artillery can usually reach out to at least 20km.

Yeah but that's the whole point thats been discussed in interested circles - the shift of the vulnerability of SPGs from the firing to the travel phase in absence of accompanying VSHORAD. (If they just had 2000 Gepards) And as Gunlorrys have to travel and fire on certain roads, that decreases the problem space.

For the M109, you are completely right. I missed that one.

I am not saying that tube artillery has a problem, but that ~10-20km around the line of contact seems to be the place you don't want to rely on mobility alone for survivability. Rheinmetall currently seems to be developing a 100km ranged base bleed grenade for 155mm pipes.

Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#69

Post by rainworld »

exar0815 wrote: post #50
fvdessen wrote: post #39

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 tar…

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…

Primary reason the 2000 fares better in terms of survival is because they are being extra careful with them. Likely the condition under which they were provided. But that means fewer missions, greater distance and so on.

Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#70

Post by wepple »

bambax wrote: post #59
coldtea wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not talking about Hollywood or high end film sets. Or something like a Nike or Superbowl ad, which has the budget of a small movie.Those can use anything, even real life helicopters. Also not familiar what they use for sports (another special case). But for millions doing content creation (professionally), news, ads, events, and such, I see DJI dominating. Again, I mean the non-FPV space (unfamiliar with that).

Content creators tend to use FPV more and more, because it lets them do tricks and "spectacular" shots not possible otherwise. But in many cases, even if the drone itself isn't DJI (and it usually isn't, for now), the video system is DJI (O3).

Yeah, DJI clearly owns the video space for FPV, with the exception of racing and a lot of freestyle where latency is king, so HDZero or analog rules.
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