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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

#121

Post by fp64 »

yardie wrote: post #107
fp64 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's crazy how the US is almost the opposite. Flying in populated areas is permitted with some restrictions (airports, ports, defense) but flying over unpopulated national parks or BLM land is illegal or restricted.

Well, at least in the City of LA it's pretty much illegal to fly FPV (unless commercially, with very involved regulations). But that's also LA so..

Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#122

Post by wyldberry »

josefresco wrote: post #114
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…

> FPV drones are a novelty I can't find the link, but I believe I read Russian doctors claiming that drones were now the #1 cause of battlefield infantry injuries.

This makes sense because of the other aspects at play in the war, namely no one having clear air dominance, which allows artillery to shape the battlefield. In the shaped battlefield, the hunter-killer type drones have a target rich environment.

Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#123

Post by kqr »

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?

Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#124

Post by hylaride »

rhombocombus wrote: post #116
hylaride wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever since ELRS 3 came out, I haven't met many people that argue that Crossfire is a superior radio link. The fact that ELRS 2.4GHz has gotten to 100KM and even now ELRS 900MHz RX's and TX's are widely available still gives that option, too. The smaller antennas for 2.4GHz are so much more convenient, as well. Also, ELRS has modes to go to higher refresh rates than crossfire in 900MHz (200Hz vs 150Hz for crossfire).…

This is my understanding of the state of the art in transmitter technology too. ELRS equipment and software offer a number of advantages over every other protocol I have used. It’s easier to pair and configure, it offers robust connectivity even in lossy signal environments, and its range exceeds that of any video downlink on any of my aircraft.

The one exception to your statement is "easier to pair". ELRS has historically been more of a pain to pair and update than crossfire.

Crossfire has OTA updates from the TX to the RX's, so you just need to update the transmitter and updates can then be pushed to RX's next time you connect. On crossfire, the button on the TX's always allowed for easy push-button binding.

ELRS was a pain having to flash and update binding phrases via wifi, which often had poor wifi chips on cheaper receivers. You often needed to take your RX, update it near a computer, update the binding phrase, update your TX, update the binding phrase on it. You had to do this for each RX individually (still do for updates).

3.4, released just last week, now allows for push-button binding on RX's (the button was originally reserved for recover modes on boot).

However, once you're configured and bound, ELRS is technically better at every turn. If they figure out a way to get OTA updates (harder for them as there's dozens of different hardware vendors with diferent designs and limited flash space on them) to RX's, there's no reason to do crossfire. The only remaining issue with ELRS is that there are bad vendors with poorer quality hardware, but it's only an occasional problem.

Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#126

Post by avidiax »

kqr wrote: post #123

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 perspec…

If you don't get motion sickness from a simple flight simulator, I'd suggest that improving your skill so that the motions are smooth might be enough.

Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#128

Post by swaginator »

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…

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.

Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#129

Post by swaginator »

kqr wrote: post #118
saidinesh5 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it takes a long time to train, and they have to be relatively close to the drone, so they're vulnerable to counter attacks. You'd think so. I mean to fly a quad properly, you'd need like 20-30 hours. To just crash a drone into a large enough target, 6-7 hours is more than enough. As for having to be relatively close to the drone, range extenders these days seem to go a long way.. or even having a receiver outside a…

> To just crash a drone into a large enough target, 6-7 hours is more than enough. I know nothing about this but this makes it sound like the target is cooperative. Isn't it harder to crash into a target that actively tries to avoid you? (E.g. listening for propeller whine, shooting at objects in sky, ducking into small openings, having signal jammers, moving/arranging personnel to limit the impact of drone damage, r…

There's plenty of footage you can see of how the FPV drones are used.

> to evade detection and interception.

I was under the impression that the Reaper was typically used where US has air superiority. There is an international combat guy on Youtube who fought with the YPG in Rojava and has been hunted by that type of loitering drone, he said they are easy enough to hide from, but the main thing is that they are almost always around-- and eventually lead to complacency. To quote the IRA: "we only have to be lucky once. You will have to be lucky always."

Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#130

Post by saidinesh5 »

kqr wrote: post #118
saidinesh5 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it takes a long time to train, and they have to be relatively close to the drone, so they're vulnerable to counter attacks. You'd think so. I mean to fly a quad properly, you'd need like 20-30 hours. To just crash a drone into a large enough target, 6-7 hours is more than enough. As for having to be relatively close to the drone, range extenders these days seem to go a long way.. or even having a receiver outside a…

> To just crash a drone into a large enough target, 6-7 hours is more than enough. I know nothing about this but this makes it sound like the target is cooperative. Isn't it harder to crash into a target that actively tries to avoid you? (E.g. listening for propeller whine, shooting at objects in sky, ducking into small openings, having signal jammers, moving/arranging personnel to limit the impact of drone damage, r…

With the predator, you're controlling a large, expensive aircraft flying at higher altitudes. But with these cheap $250 flying bricks, you're directly controlling the bullet.

You don't have to worry about stalling, latency, accuracy etc.. they are also harder to shoot down because of their size and speed.

So they simply select targets like a moving vehicle or a bunker or even a group of moving people, and go kamikaze.

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