Getting Airborne
Don’t try to get airborne with a real quad until you’ve got a few hours logged in the simulator. Once you’re comfortable in the sim, at some point you’re going to feel ready to fly a real quad. Before you head out to get airborne, there’s just a few things to consider: First Quad The […]
Preflight Checklist
The majority of FPV pilots I have flown with, do not have a formal “preflight” checklist that they work through – but when you’re very new, it’s worth coming up with one. It’s something you can work through before you drive to the spot to make sure you’ve got everything you need. You should run […]
The History of Drone Warfare
During the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, both sides have made significant use of cheap, self-built, FPV drones as well as consumer-level drones. Due to this, and the large amount of reporting on the conflict, this has led some to believe that this is a new type of warfare. Although, the history of this type […]
Updating the HDZero AIO5 to ELRS 4.0.0
The two whoops that I fly most often are an Air75 and a custom build based on the Air75 frame but running a HDZero AIO5. I recently updated to ELRS 4.0.0 and whilst the Air75 has a serial ELRS receiver making everything straightforward – the HDZero AIO5 has an SPI receiver. That means the receiver […]
Updating ELRS
If everything is working well for you, there’s not necessarily any good reason to update your ELRS version. However, if a new feature is released or a bug fix for a bug that’s bothering you, then you’ll want to know how to update! Note: Major versions of ELRS do not have backwards compatibility, so whilst […]
ELRS: Configuring a Binding Phrase
Quads these days generally use ExpressLRS (ELRS) for communication between the transmitter and the receiver, although other protocols such as crossfire (CRSF) do exist. With ELRS, to prevent your controller binding to another remote pilots in the area, you can configure a “Binding phrase”. It’s important to note that your bind phrase is not a […]
Installing ArduPilot
This article is the start in a series about unmanned system autonomy, we’re going to explore building a “Rover” ground vehicle, a sub-250 gram quad, and a heavy lift quad – and give them all some autonomy and the ability to control them remotely over a range of links such as radio and remote-over-IP. You […]
Counter-UAS: Jamming
jamming fpv drones I’ve previously covered the benefits and drawbacks of fibre-optic FPV strike drones, and of course one of their primary benefits is that they are resilient to jamming, and so in this article we will cover more of the specifics around the effectiveness of jamming. There is often confusion around the use of […]
Frames
Basics: Frames Note: Bigger quads (generally 2.5″ and above) are referred to by the size of their propellers. So when we say a “five inch quad”, we mean the quad has propellers that measure five inches across. However, with micro whoops and other very small quads, the measurement given is the “wheelbase”. This is the […]
Flight Controllers
Flight Controllers The flight controller (FC) is responsible for stabilising your aircraft in flight, for taking inputs from your receiver and telling the motor controller what to do to achieve those inputs, and for feeding information such as flight telemetry back to you. If you started out as a freestyle FPV pilot like me, there’s […]
Fibre-optic FPV Strike Drones: Benefits and Drawbacks
References Whilst FPV drones have been proven as a highly effective precision strike loiter munition, they are vulnerable to jamming, interference, and all of the difficulties that long range radio frequency (RF) links bring. Russia began using fibre-optic drones in Ukraine in the spring of 2024 and they have proven resistant to some of these […]
VTX Antennas
Video Antennas Most new pilots will at some point look to upgrade the antennas that come with their goggles and video transmitter and quickly fall foul of the many different options. You’ll come across terms like LHCP, RHCP, patch, omni, and crosshair – and may not know what those mean. So we’ll cover off the […]