BEGINNERS GUIDE
The world of electric powered FPV Drone Racing is a world full of opportunity for pilots, race sponsors, and event organisers. The possibilities are endless and once you get past the process of learning to build and an FPV drone for the first time, the advantages far outweigh the frustrations. To speed up your learning curve we have designed a beginners guide to take you through the main aspects of FPV flying and a drone racing in general, to set you up with a good knowledge base from the beginning.
HOW DO I SEE WHERE IM GOING?
FPV stands for “First-Person-View” where you instal a camera on to your drone, with a live video feed fed into the screen in the pilots’ goggles. Outside of being a real pilot, this is the most immersive flying experience you will ever encounter, as you feel as if you are physically sitting inside the drone, as it races through designated race gates, flags and other track markers, while performing high speed loops through the air as you navigate your way around the racecourse.
HOW DO I FLY A DRONE
In the FPV hobby, we often use the word quadcopter or “Kwad”, or “Multirotor”. A multirotor is a vehicle with several “rotors” or “Propellers”. IE Motors and the most common one you will see at race events is a quadcopter with 4 motors. So how does one control a “Racing Drone”? A race drone has 4 control points; roll, pitch, yaw and thrust. As an example, if you hold your hand up, palm down to the ground – your hand is now the multirotor.
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Roll – rock your hand from side to side – this is your roll.
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Pitch – tilt your hand up and down – this is your pitch.
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Yaw – keeping your palm facing down, rotate your ha left and right – this is your yaw.
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Thrust/Throttle – lift your hand up and you have your thrust.
Using these 4 control points in tandem with one another will make your drone go in any direction you want. To move forward you need to have a combination of pitch and thrust to propel the drone forwards, if you want to tuner left or right you will need to add some roll and yaw. Remember, the faster the multirotor is travelling the more it will be pitched forwards (vertically) giving more bias towards roll being used to steer the drone left or right. Conversely, the slower you you go the more the multirotor will stay horizontal with a bias toward "Yaw" being the dominant command to steer left or right.
HOW DO I LEARN TO FLY
If you want to get a feel for FPV flying without the risk of crashing a drone, a great place to start is with an FPV flight simulator. If you are just getting started with FPV, or a pro pilot, having a good FPV simulator is a must if you want to improve your racing skills. The main purpose of an FPV simulator is to help you practice flying at race pace without the cost of crashing your new toy.
As any athlete will tell you, preparation is key if you want to improve your performance and many of the world’s best pilots fly racing simulators daily as a way of improving and training their skills. Furthermore, many of clubs now hold regulare mid week sim-races where you can get to know other pilots in their Discord servers. We have prepared a separate sim page that will help you get up to speed in a drone racing simulator. [ Click here ]
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By joining today you’ll become part of our growing drone racing community, be able to compete in Drone Sport England sanctioned events, and become eligible to participate in all club racing events, the DSE Championships and potentially the FAI World Drone Racing Championship.