Hello all! New to FPV and this forum. I do have questions, but first....
- Thread starter Skumdog
- Start date
choppergirl
AIR-WAR.ORG
Rotorbuilds might give you a general ideas: http://rotorbuilts.com/
The best place to start is not with actual quad hardware imho, but with a sim and a controller. Learn to fly first, before you buy anything at all. In fact, learn to fly really, really good first. It can be done for under $100 with a quad core computer and decent GPU (Nvidia 9xx or higher, or equivalent AMD card), a Realflight USB controller, Jumper T-Lite, or TX-12... and a copy of Liftoff or Velocidrone.
If you're not using a sim, you're just ****ing in the wind, imho. You can fly for thousands of hours and crash all you want with zero damaged hardware, and progress rapidly with a sim.
Once you start buying the actual hardware in real life, the cost skyrockets quickly. $500, $1,000, $1,500, $2,000, $2,500, $3,000... you'll blast past $500 pretty quickly, and then past $1000...
$100 to fly thousands of hours risk free and further cost free is unbelievably cheap. I myself find it way more fun than the real deal, actually. The real hobby... actually kind of sucks.
You can start out with the real hardware cheaply, RTF kits, tiny whoops, and all that mess, but by the time you are good at bouncing around in Angle mode outdoors, someone who started in the sim has blown way past you already... and it won't be long before they leave you in the dust.
If you are really jonesing to buy real RC hardware, though, your first purchase besides a good computer and GPU, and Liftoff and Velocidrone, is not a quad, but is a a really good transmitter that will double as your controller. Don't cheap out, get the one you want to have for the next 5-10 years. I recommend the Radiomaster TX-16s with HAL gimbals ($160). Why HAL gimbals? Because you will be putting a lot of mileage on them in the sim. There are many others though that will work just as well. Jumper, TBS Tango, Taranis, Radioking, Horus, etc.
If after 1,000 hours of flying in the sim, you're not completely bored with it, then you can start making our shopping list and get ready to put a whole lot of damage on a credit card. You better be computer literate and technically adept, and it doesn't hurt to have really decent soldering skills and a good iron (TS100, Hakko, etc).
If your only investment was in a GPU, sims, and a controller... the GPU and transmitter will hold their value, and you can put them up on ebay and get most of your money back, or even, depending on when you bought them... surprisingly now... turn a profit (both GPUS and controllers have gone up up up from the chip shortage).
Yes you can go other roads, but... there's driving Forumla 1 or a Superbike, and then there's driving the City Bus or a Golf Cart. All are driving. but all driving is not created equal. I say don't start off by going to a dealership and plunking down $40K on a brand new car you will crash before you get it home. Start out in computer game, and when you are boss at that, then... you're familiar with how it all works and operates and stepping into the real deal will be that much less alien to you.
Ditto for flying.
If you don't want to fly the Sim, and just want a tourist taste of quad flying and to get up in the sky and look around, I recommend the JJRC H68.. it has everything you need to go up, yaw look around, and come back down (what I call, balloooing) for under $100. GPS lock, angle self leveling mode, etc. But you'd be better off eschewing low end toys if you want to get into it hardcore, and instead setting up a Top Gun sim environment first and putting that money instead into a nice transmitter you are happy with. If it comes with it's own radio controller, you don't want it.
Ouch, I wrote a book, and all I wanted to do was correct some typos...
choppergirl
The best place to start is not with actual quad hardware imho, but with a sim and a controller. Learn to fly first, before you buy anything at all. In fact, learn to fly really, really good first. It can be done for under $100 with a quad core computer and decent GPU (Nvidia 9xx or higher, or equivalent AMD card), a Realflight USB controller, Jumper T-Lite, or TX-12... and a copy of Liftoff or Velocidrone.
If you're not using a sim, you're just ****ing in the wind, imho. You can fly for thousands of hours and crash all you want with zero damaged hardware, and progress rapidly with a sim.
Once you start buying the actual hardware in real life, the cost skyrockets quickly. $500, $1,000, $1,500, $2,000, $2,500, $3,000... you'll blast past $500 pretty quickly, and then past $1000...
$100 to fly thousands of hours risk free and further cost free is unbelievably cheap. I myself find it way more fun than the real deal, actually. The real hobby... actually kind of sucks.
You can start out with the real hardware cheaply, RTF kits, tiny whoops, and all that mess, but by the time you are good at bouncing around in Angle mode outdoors, someone who started in the sim has blown way past you already... and it won't be long before they leave you in the dust.
If you are really jonesing to buy real RC hardware, though, your first purchase besides a good computer and GPU, and Liftoff and Velocidrone, is not a quad, but is a a really good transmitter that will double as your controller. Don't cheap out, get the one you want to have for the next 5-10 years. I recommend the Radiomaster TX-16s with HAL gimbals ($160). Why HAL gimbals? Because you will be putting a lot of mileage on them in the sim. There are many others though that will work just as well. Jumper, TBS Tango, Taranis, Radioking, Horus, etc.
If after 1,000 hours of flying in the sim, you're not completely bored with it, then you can start making our shopping list and get ready to put a whole lot of damage on a credit card. You better be computer literate and technically adept, and it doesn't hurt to have really decent soldering skills and a good iron (TS100, Hakko, etc).
If your only investment was in a GPU, sims, and a controller... the GPU and transmitter will hold their value, and you can put them up on ebay and get most of your money back, or even, depending on when you bought them... surprisingly now... turn a profit (both GPUS and controllers have gone up up up from the chip shortage).
Yes you can go other roads, but... there's driving Forumla 1 or a Superbike, and then there's driving the City Bus or a Golf Cart. All are driving. but all driving is not created equal. I say don't start off by going to a dealership and plunking down $40K on a brand new car you will crash before you get it home. Start out in computer game, and when you are boss at that, then... you're familiar with how it all works and operates and stepping into the real deal will be that much less alien to you.
Ditto for flying.
If you don't want to fly the Sim, and just want a tourist taste of quad flying and to get up in the sky and look around, I recommend the JJRC H68.. it has everything you need to go up, yaw look around, and come back down (what I call, balloooing) for under $100. GPS lock, angle self leveling mode, etc. But you'd be better off eschewing low end toys if you want to get into it hardcore, and instead setting up a Top Gun sim environment first and putting that money instead into a nice transmitter you are happy with. If it comes with it's own radio controller, you don't want it.
Ouch, I wrote a book, and all I wanted to do was correct some typos...
choppergirl
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