As I started looking around on Amazon for quads, I noticed two main things.
First: There are far too many products for sale to figure out this hobby in a short amount of time; and
Second: There are way too many products being sold that are ‘Made in China’ - the problem isn’t China, the problem is that there are tons of copies of the exact same product that have different names and prices! How is a guy to choose?
All this confusion lead to a realization:
When first starting out,
Rule #1: Do the research.
I looked at photos of drones. I looked at hobby websites. I went to drone forums. I found some websites that talk about the Federal Rules for flying a drone. I looked at websites that offer classes for getting a Drone Piloting License. I found out how much State Farm charges for $5000 worth of Drone Insurance (about $120/year). I watched You-Tube videos of guys bouncing their drones off of their heads, the ground, trees, bushes, and flying them into the water. I also watched a lot of product reviews. Then, I went back to Amazon, and looked at their products with a little more wisdom, and I figured out what I wanted… A Mavic Pro, and an MJX Bugs 3… and a Syma X5C-1, a Phantom 4, an Inspire 2… the list just goes on and on…
I then realized that I didn’t know what I wanted!
Which lead to
Rule #2: Define the target.
I needed to understand that the hobby is broken up into logical sections, what the requirements were for participating in a particular section, and how satisfying I thought each section would be.
What I really needed was an expert who would teach me all about the hobby, answer any questions I may have, and help me choose a quadcopter setup that’s right for me. But… ain’t nobody got time for that!
So I came here! (…and I’m glad I found this place!)
After browsing QuadcopterForum for a few days, it turns out that there are 4 basic categories within the RC/Quadcopter hobby:
Noobs, Racers, Photographers, and Everyone Else:
Noobs get a noob quad, and learn to fly (and that’s fun!.. and it is very good advice!);
Racers tend to build quads and destroy them just as fast (am I overgeneralizing?);
Photographers like a quad that is smart, stable, and fault-tolerant;
and Everyone Else likes everything else (which ends up being a HUGE variety of quads, activities, and directions you can go!).
I also learned something here that I didn’t expect:
Rule #3: Flying a quad can be fairly simple, or hilariously complex, depending on what you buy.
There’s a huge difference between buying/learning to fly a Syma X5C-1, and building your own FPV racing quad from parts you ordered over the internet. There is certainly a difference in flying skill, but more importantly, it is a difference in requisite knowledge. Buying a Syma X5C-1 and learning to fly is fairly straightforward. Building and flying an FPV Racer requires patience, intelligence, coordination, dexterity, perseverance, certain kinds of required previous experience, and a reasonable amount of disposable cash. And I DO mean disposable cash… as in flushable straight down the toilet!
So, the ultimate question became, “Why do I want to fly a quad?”
I took a look at the quads I really liked; the Mavic Pro (for photography) and the MJX Bugs 3 (for fun!) and the Walkera 250 Pro (for all-out speed and tinkering).
I discovered that I wanted everything good about flying quads in one machine. That’s when I realized that just wasn’t feasible. I needed to focus on exactly what I wanted to do first.
And that is (of course!) learn to fly a quadcopter.
But where do I start?
Should I buy a Syma X5C-1, and toss it in the trash in 30 days after I (crash it) learn to fly and get bored with it?
Fairly quickly I realized that I don’t like that idea. It seems like such a waste.
Fortunately, on this very website, I found these quotes from Gyro Doctor:
“…my suggestion is to first gain some proficiency for the needed skills by using a simulator !!!
You can make tragic errors all day without ANY expense what so ever. In the virtual world, flying full speed into that tree results in nothing more than hitting the reset button ... no broken props, frames, cameras, antennas .... nada ... zero damage= zero cost.
"FPV Freerider" is a popular (and it's FREE) simulator that will do well to get you started. After you're zipping around with that I'd suggest the simulator called "Liftoff", it's not free but it has the most realistic physics of any other simms I've seen out there (you can even learn how to test and tune PIDs) and will give you real world experience flying quads before you ever even hafta buy a real one. ”…
and this one, also from Gyro Doctor:
“…Toys come with their own proprietary toy transmitters ... crude and mostly crud stuff. Save up and buy a good quality transmitter like the Taranis X9D+. I'm a huge fan of the Taranis …”
(Note: Gyro Doctor has 45 years experience as an electronics tech, and been flying RC since the ’70s.)
This is some excellent advice intended for someone who simply doesn’t have money to burn. It also focuses my learning on the things I really want to try out right now (Flying, and learning to handle a nice controller) while shielding me from the repercussions of mistakes I might make in flying (crashes) and from mistakes in the purchases I might make. If I find that I don’t like flying Racing Quads (in the simulator), I can go in a different direction. I suspect there are other simulators for ‘sporty’ quads, and still others for easy quads. A bit more research is probably necessary to determine the answer to that particular question.
(Thank You, Gyro Doctor!)
So finally, I stumbled onto:
Rule #4: Buy what you’ll keep.
Early on I was very tempted to buy an MJX Bugs 3, due to the great reviews and due to the fact that it inhabits a weird sort of middle ground (being sporty but not too complicated), and also because it was actually recommended by a couple of people as a good quad to learn with. I’m fully aware that I would need to start flying very carefully, and that it would take awhile to get up to speed with that quad because it would be so easy to make a mistake and fly it into a tree or lose control of it by flying it out of range. And, after thinking about it for a couple of days, I found that I didn’t want to risk the expense (about $130) of losing the Bugs 3 to a flyaway during my training.
So I took Gyro Doctor’s advice.
Yesterday I purchased:
1 Flight Controller: Taranis X9D+ Transmitter Bundle from Amazon for $228;
1 Flight Simulator: FPV Freerider for $4.99 from their website, and;
1 Flight Simulator: Liftoff from Steam for $19.99
The Taranis arrives on Friday. I can plug it into my desktop computer and use it as the quad controller for either of the two flight simulators. Nice!
I’m following:
Rule #5: Plan how you’ll advance, but get only what you need right now.
Regardless of how I advance in this hobby, I can use the Taranis as a controller. I may need to mod it to work with other quads (like, will it control a Bugs 3?). At some point I will probably want to increase its range, widen its feature set, and maybe even hack the software (its Open Source!). I don’t think it will become obsolete, but then again, I’m still very new to quadcopters. And, if I discover that I don’t like flying quads, I’m reasonably sure that I could sell it for a decent price (even if its not close to retail, that’s the price I pay for playing!). It is the only major expense needed to get me started, since I already own a desktop computer. I could have gone with any transmitter that will work as a flight controller in the computer simulators, and there are some very nice ones available on Amazon for far less expense (starting at around $55!). But I wanted something I could use in any scenario since I don’t know how far I will go, but I do know that I tend to dive into the deep end.
The other reason I’m going this route is that I’ve found that the less expensive quads usually use brushed motors and proprietary parts. Which means that I would be replacing motors on a regular basis, and if I crashed, I would be buying parts from the quad’s manufacturer. That could force me to spend even more money just to tread water. I’m not comfortable with that idea. I would prefer my quad(s) to be durable, reliable, and to use easily replaceable parts that are well designed for their purpose. Brushless motors are a perfect example. I’ve read that, if I take good care of them, they should last for a few years (maybe a very few years, but it sure beats replacing brushed motors every 10-20 flights!). Being equipped with brushless motors is why I liked the Bugs 3 in the first place! However, I may veer off into building my own quad first, simply due to the You-Tube videos I’ve seen of quads with carbon-fiber frames taking a ton of abuse and then bouncing right back up into the sky! I could also decide for myself precisely which features I installed in a home-built quad. Being a beginner, I particularly like the idea of battery warnings, range warnings, and possibly even pre-programmed functions in case of emergencies. HD cameras, FPV cameras, it doesn’t matter… everything would be available to me, and I really like that idea. The only thing holding me back is incomplete research on the things I want to accomplish. I just need to decide what I want to do!
But first, I think I’ll learn to fly.
