Introduction to FPV and Flight Simulators

Looking to get starting in FPV Drone flying? The first step is to download a flight sim and I suggest the best ones here.

DRONESAFETY TIPSFPV DRONE

Ben Illingsworth

6/8/20233 min read

Introduction To FPV, How to Get Started and The Best FPV Simulators

Intro

The main goal for the future is to get involved in more FPV Drone Projects chasing cars, boats, planes or basically tracking anything that moves. The first person point of view delivers a more engaging experience and you can take full control of the drones movements and do flips and tricks. When shooting FPV it is important to have a spotter due to having to wear the FPV Googles as you cannot maintain Visual Line of Site with them on. Make sure you fly with a clear line of visibility to reduce the possibility of signal loss -(Sometimes flying straight down a mountain with a block of signal can cause a loss of signal - I have unfortunately had to learn the hard way with regard to this :(

Getting Started

To get started you need to understand that it is a steep learning curve from drone use. You are basically controlling every axis of the drone (Roll, Pitch, and Yaw). You need to understand voltage and current when charging batteries and ensure that you only charge the same type of batteries together when charging in parallel unless you want a house fire! I recommend the iFlight FPV Backpack as it comes with Battery protector bags, plenty of slots to organise your drones and it lights up which is pretty cool. I much prefer DJI New Googles 2 as they are much smaller and are easier to travel with and I recommend going with the new 03 Air Unit as it has a much better built in camera. I suggest going with the DJI Avata which is a Cinewhoop Drone (For flying close to things as it has prop guards) and the DJI FPV Drone 2 (When released). These will be much easier to use and are almost ready to go out of the box. I suggest getting DJI Care for these in case you have a fly away. When you get more advanced and have learnt how to use Beta Flight I recommend looking at iFlights FPV Drones if you want drones with more customization and the option to repair it yourself.

The Best FPV Simulators

Every aspiring FPV Flight should practice for at least 10 hour on a flight sim before flying for real. This means that they can protect their investment and avoid an instant crash.

Free Rider

For your android phone there is a simulator called Free Rider that works great as you can connect your controller via usb c to your phone and start flying after binding the controls. It has a few maps to select from, however It is limiting compared to the sims available on Steam.

Uncrashed

Uncrashed is the fastest FPV simulator to navigate through the menus and to switch between the different maps. You can chase cars in this simulator but that is the only thing you can chase. It is a very good simulator but I feel overall that there is nothing special about it. The only challenge you can do is flying through some hoops.

TRYP FPV

This flight simulator in my opinion has the most potential, as it is still in development stage, but stills looks amazing. The sim can crash sometimes, but the locations : The Alps Mountains, Desserts and snowy resorts look amazing. There are physical moving things to follow in this sim such as cars, paragliders and balloons. Setting it up took a while but other than that I don't really have any complaints. You can also play in lots of different challenges.

Lift Off

Lift Off is the best option if you have the DJI FPV Drone (The one that is made of glass and will shatter if you crash it) This is the most ready out of the box drone if you have this drone as you can just connect your controller and you are ready to go. The graphics are fantastic and it is the most stable out of all the available drones in terms of the main of crashes (computer crashes) It doesn't have many physical objects to follow like Uncrashed and TRYP FPV have, which can make it a little boring a times, but a great flight simulator.