New to FPV drones? DONT do these things unless you want to cry // Beginner tips for success 

Was a motorcycle instructor for 12 years before MS began scarring my brain. I stressed muscle memory to my students. Operating a motorcycle by muscle memory allows for keeping your attention on what’s happening around you. I have learned lots about the brain since my diagnosis. Your ‘neural pathways’ comments are spot on. And you may find this interesting … Dirtbike riders were usually harder to teach because many had to “unlearn” bad habits. New subscriber! 👍🏼

It's crazy how much learning how to crash properly changes the game for your skill improvement. When you've mastered crashing you feel a lot more confident sending it.

Been flying since 2016, this just popped up and figured I'd watch. Its really well done and I agree on all points. There's so much more useful information out there nowadays for people to get into the hobby and succeed at it faster than back then and its thanks to videos like this and people like you passing it on. Well done.

It's all the struggle and learning curve I love with the hobby, so rewarding in so many fields. 👀

My fascination with flight has always been strong and my dad was a bush pilot that always wanted to fly drones. I have basic experience with camera drones and have spent the last 2 months researching and learning freestyle fpv and how to build. I have all the parts to my first build that I will be putting together soon. Meanwhile I've been clocking hours on liftoff and it has helped train my brain a little bit. I hope to be posting a maiden flight in the next month or so. Thanks for all the valuable information and great video.

Thanks for the great advice in the video. One correction/FYI: a helicoil is not a device for removing broken screws (you’re thinking of an EZ out). A helicoil is a threaded insert that is used to repair or reinforce damaged threads 😅

Awesome video. I'm fairly new to the hobby but I'm trying to learn everything I can.

I completely agree with the title of this video! I started flying FPV drones just three months ago and it can be really discouraging when things go wrong. I actually ended up breaking my drone when I accidentally plugged it in with reverse power and burned out the FC. But I'm determined to keep learning and get back in the air soon! Thanks for the helpful tips in this video.

Thanks for the advice . All good information that I will take on board. Love your tutorials. New subscriber !

Everyone starting out in FPV should be required to watch this video. Your points about how muscle memory plays THE role in FPV is something that if you don't get it, it will get you! FPV = Muscle Memory - PERIOD! Great video! Great tips! Great advice! Thanks... but I wish I had seen this video a long time ago!

Thanks mate, loving the content. I'm years into the hobby but still learning basics as I'm not from a technical background at all. Huge thanks to everyone who helps out those of us that struggle with stuff that is very alien to us. Cheers

GUILTY! I bought the nazgul5 v2 because it flew so well out of the box, so I flashed betaflight before my maiden and never got to experience that goodness. She's back to stock now. Awesome vid!

Loved this.

Might add one thing about first time flying with a group of people. Put your quad on 25mw. Don't blast everyone with 1watt of power. Even if your on another channel, your 1w is going to kill the signal because everyone else is using 25mw. Better yet configure and use pit mode.

Thanks for the video. My first FPV Drone (2 inch toothpick Draknight ) arrives tomorrow. Been practicing on the sim with my radio for a while now and looking forward to trashing it lol!

Im already flying fpv for a few years but still enjoy these videos

Happy Thanksgiving love the video

Awesome video brother nice presentation and good points. I always say if it ain't broke don't fix it! 🤟😎👍🔥🔥🔥

Great list so true! lol I just started 😢but I love it

thanks bacon ninja, that was great. my first 65mm bnf arrives tomorrow after weeks of sim practice. cant wait!

AAAHHHH!!!!! Never thought of the sun lasers! Thanks for an awesome video 😀

Which long range goggles for beginners would you recommend either digital or Analog that out perform Dji distance wise?

If you’re a noob listen to this guy and save funds and grief. Sage advice every word.

%100 agree with learning acro right away. I started on angle mode when I got into the hobby and essentially had to relearn flying once I switched to acro

I'm not even knew to fpv, but I didn't want to cry, so I watch this, and everything is true!

great video man, thanks for posting, if I may ask, what screwdrivers does one need to be on the safe side, I am getting the Geprc cenelog 30. I understand there are some standards, if you or anyone here may point me in the right direction. highly appreciated :)

Hi Mate, "short" video much appreciated 😉👍

Liftoff is definitely good. It helped me understand what i got myself into. My first goal was learning what the sticks do. I definitely ended up upside down the whole time. Second goal was not crashing for 15minutes. Now i have to try race gates.

I’m really loving your videos mate. So engaging and very educational. JB 2.0 👏👏👏👏👏

Option 3, I always love a refresher course on the do's and don'ts its easy to develop bad building habits due to constraints of builds.

Awesome content

A crash can be very discouraging itll make you question if youre good enough you just gotta shake those thought away and do what you gotta do to get back in the air weather thats repairs a new drone or more time in the sim its all worth it in the end its the best feeling in the world when you rip a full pack and crash or land successfully

I started researching on fpv drones long time ago around 2016 and back then we didn't have Sims or guide videos. I remember the first drone I had was a brushed LOS drone that I made. Considering the size of that thing, I should have practiced soldering. Soldering is not too hard to do with the right equipment (so don't go cheap on that) but being a noob in soldering and starting my fpv life with a brushed tiny drone, alot of things was bound to go wrong. and it did. 4 brushed flight controllers broken within a month. The store owner even took pity on me and gave the fifth for free. Everything was so discouraging especially as a kid that used my saved money. eventually I did get things to work but I didn't have any luck until 2 years later when we had better parts and cheaper goggles and....tiny whoops (which honestly sparked alot of micro development). Great first quad that I got was the ladrc tiny 6s. few years later, I've flown several micro drones, have built most of them except my tinyhawk freestyle. I've also got myself a 3d printer and a cnc to design my own frames and the last 5 drones I've owned were all using frames I designed. Dont get discouraged guys....it may take time but it is a Hella fun hobby. The feeling of flight and the first dive you take just feels so refreshing. like letting off steam which is why I actually fly.

I am about to start my journey into this sport.im waiting for for my first tx in mail now its a radiomaster tx 12 i been watching u n Joshua none stop last few days i feel like i have a shot at having fun without to much getting to me quitting before i start.

Awesome video! Thanks for making this! Saving me lots of money! 😊 👏

This Video really applied to me personally, i made mistakes but thanks God have not lost Any Drones yet except for one when i tried to fly it and i had no idea how to.

An alternate way to learn for those who can afford it, is to start out with a DJI Avata. The Avata in "Manual mode", is basically Acro mode. Definitely recommend going into a SIM as a first step still, and then changing controller rates, as Avata stock rates are horrible. The advantage of the Avata is that if you ever feel out of control in manual mode, you can flick it into normal mode while in the air, and the electronics will "catch" and keep it hovering. Advantage 2, you now have DJI goggles to move onto an advanced drone that has an O3 air unit

Great video brother. I started with a Mavic mini 2 a couple of years ago and finally stumbled over a few FPV videos and fell in love with the communal aspect. Starting off with the cinematic approach, I’ve been slowly collecting the necessary tools and watching a ton of instructional video have fallen victim to the hype train a little bit so I got stuck with the Avata goggles waiting patiently flying in the sim getting motion sick on the reg now trying to decide what analog goggles I want to try while wrecking my tiny hawk 3 over and over but loving every second thus far! Fantastic info for us n00bs, I will be watching all of your content. Thank you so much🙏

Great video and thanks for sharing new subscriber and look forward to future content

I've been flying for 2 years. I have been in the hobby for 4 years. Sounds weird but I didn't have the money for the first two years but I consumed content as if I was in the hobby. First drone was a Tiny Hawk Free Style II. Now I have a fleet from whoops to 9inch. (this is me qualifying my next statement). This is the best "overview" advice I've ever seen. You managed to boil down all the nitty gritty details until you were left with Nuggets of wisdom. I particularly like the "if you can't afford two of something, you can't afford one" that particular truth has applied to basically every quad I've had from the first (THFS2) to my current build (a custom pushing the limits 9 inch long range). Your hole video is packed with things that a new pilot should take at face value until much later they understand the truth of it. Well done sir, well done. AND thank you!

I got my first beginner FPV kit, the TinyHawk 3 Freestyle. I can confirm that the included ELRS remote does work with DRL Simulator, you just need it to be fully powered on while plugged in. Some older videos describe how to set it up in the device manager. But mine was detected without doing anything. Do a full calibration, and define the halfway point of the left stick or you won't have proper throttle control.

Yes!!!

hey. Love it- what a nice picture-farewell- amigo- 😊

New guy tips from a new guy

Thanks Bacon Ninja for some excellent tips. I'm a cat person here as well. They are my friends and don't ask for much in return.

Great video!!!! Please make videos on learning fpv from start

7 Months in currently. I bought a Beta85 back in April and it took until May to work out how to get the Jumper T-Pro and Beta85 to work together (ELRS fun and games). I then managed to fly it in Angle mode in my house (barely). So my first mistake was probably buying a 2S quad. The second was thinking I had any chance of flying it outside, even in angle mode. Thankfully I did put in about 2 hours in Freerider, so i wasn't a complete noob. My first flight outside included me learning about wind, about how scary it is when you suddenly go from the ground to about 50m in the air while wearing goggles but can't tilt forward to come back down, while also worrying about people around me (no one cared enough to come over). So I dropped the throttle, did a long turn and fell out of the sky slowly, applied throttle and landed pretty well in front of myself with about 30 secs of flight and called it a day. No crash, but needed some clean underwear. I'm now 7 months later, fly acro on some level in Liftoff Micro and Freerider and am struggling to repair the 2 prebuilt drones i bought (Beta85 and Cine8) and solder the Meteor75 I am building as a winter/indoor flyer. I'll get there eventually. Joining a community for FPV pilots was a very smart idea and I've had lots of help from the members there (IntoFPV).

Only been in fpv for almost a year bought 4 and built 4 the struggle is real with the diy stuff

14:43 Impulse rc driver fixer should come in handy..! For anybody who has a bricked board!

Good video, would be great if i saw it when started. for ones want tune and learn, its good to watch chris rosser videos about filter and pid, and one advice for new pilots its, dont use dji radio with o3 air unit drones, its good only for dji drones, soon or later you can lose conection and something really bad can happen, i learned it in the bad way. And the gimbals dont give good control as others good radios with fullsize gimballs. The sim is the best tip to learn, i will also say its good to use the liftoff and the liftoff micro drones. Flying good on both make u completelly ready to fly in real world.

I made this flashing my first drone mess up. Can confirm it sucks. I have my stock configuration saved, but on the mamba f722 stack the fc now isn't paired to my esc. So I'm buying a drone to fly while I fix this first build drone

to a frame designer...crashing might actually be one of the more fun parts when you know you have a good design...I've had one design where I was already purposefully doing harder and harder tricks in hopes to either find resonance or to crash hard

Your recomendation about not flashing the latest firmware deserves top votes. I made that mistake with my first drone. I guess I learned afterwards having to flash back to an older release and find the original diff. I have the compulsion to flash any new drone I get but I resist the temptation until I have put a bunch of packs on it. Even then I think hard about it before making that change. I tell new people into the hobby that they shouldn't flash a drone to a new release unless there is a specific need to fix a known problem, or if they want a specific feature.

what is a good frame? preferably under $65

I do love your last point though - people are allowed to have differences of opinion, and we all need to learn not to hate others for having a different opinion. (Also I love that you also like cats. 😆)

Hi You are right, this is a though hobby. I recently returned to FPV after 2 years. My Nazgul5 I went to fly on a rush, And Forgot to Raise my VTX, On my First Flip, I lost Image and lost control, Broke the Frame and VTX. Bought a Crux35 HD DJI On the second flight, Got a DeSync, and Fall out of the sky and Broke a Frame. I was gutless but Kept Going bought another frame a different one as I could not get a Crux35. Small Distraction with huge cost, My Tinyhawk Connected the radio on the incorrect model, Flew to the moon broke the bottom plate I can't find this frame anywhere and EMAX fits on emax stuff mainly. MY Whoop is the one that keeps me flying when all my quads go down. I now Got my Nazgul Fixed with a TBs Source one and is Flying, my Crux now is a Knight 35 my Tinyhawk Freestyle is now a Race version. This has been though, forgetting things, rushing to fly, not setting your things right is all very easy to happen and very costly. Now Waiting for some dry days to be able to Go all out with my babies...

Within the first minute I’m thinking, “I can’t get my drone flying again without twitching and I don’t know why. Time to start all over again if another motor swap doesn’t fix it…” “Don’t be discouraged…”, I was just talking about this. I had one motor burn and then the next week one literally flew off the quad. Since then I swapped motors and now it twitches. The hardest part of the hobby I’ve found difficult to accept is, things happen for no reason. I watch your videos and some other pilots and we rarely see the troubleshooting. The hours of trying to figure out why this happened. It’s also hard to not compare my simple crash to Phantom’s huge wreck where he just flips over and flies away. Meanwhile, mine just fell out of the sky and is essentially inoperable now. You have to learn to enjoy soldering, have parts and tools on hand, and follow a method for troubleshooting. I’ve learned just enough so far to cost me more money. lol My problems are sometimes hard to explain and even harder to find a “perfect video” to fix… so learn to enjoy the journey. It is satisfying though when the one piece you repaired or replaced fixes all problems (until the next).

Don't try inverted yaw spins too low, too soon. It leads to an explosion of parts. 😢 I took it alot slower after my first -500.00

24:00 Umm, no. Props *do* need to be "grip death tight". I put mine on as tight as I can get them, and then I try to push it a bit tighter. If I don't, I can easily get a prop coming loose in flight (which has happened to me more than once). Never had a problem from putting props on really tightly.

Good tips I’ve been flying about 7 months. Started with dji fpv. Did cinematic stuff learned acro, broke it. Moved on to 5” and cinewhoops and never been happier!

You actually care about noob FPV pilots... awesome work bro

Great video, and yes the new ppl flashing betaflight, you say to not do that, warning them and they are like bah, im not stupid so they go n flash and then totally stuck. Hard lesson for them to learn. I wasn’t so lucky starting out as I built my first quad and used the speedybee f4 with airbot wraith escs “individual escs” I had to try to learn betaflight and was not fun. Betaflight 3.5.7 was the big thing back then 🤣🤣

7:00 Nah... I flew my real drone long before I could put the sim drone through a full race course. Didn't crash the drone until I was quite a few flights in. Maybe that was in part to my using ArduPilot instead of Betaflight, which means I had the option to switch immediately to GPS position hold if anything went badly (which I mostly just used for takeoffs and landings).

Inches per foot is always 12. Got it

Your multimeter will beep when on the continuity setting until the capacitor is charged so saying that it shouldn’t beep at all is misleading. Your ohm meter uses voltage from the meter battery to sense a potential difference. Once the capacitor is charged there really is not much of a potential difference so it stops beeping. Switch the leads around and it will momentarily beep again. A good meter set on the 200k ohm setting will probably still read some resistance across the XT60, but that’s not an indicator of a dead short. 199,000 Ohms of resistance is not a problem. 2 ohms would be a problem. When your meter is set on the continuity mode (beeper) it’s looking for paths to ground that have very small amounts of resistance like less than 40 ohms for example. There are paths to ground in the electronics when the board is off. We don’t need to go into a deep dive on ohms law and how a meter works but telling people that a beep means they have a dead short to track down is pretty confusing for a new guy. If you get a continuous beep then you might have a problem. If it beeps for a split second then stops it’s more than likely the capacitor charging. Please make a video on how to back out a screw with a helicoil. A helicoil is a threaded insert and it’s not something you would use on a stand-off. It’s something I would use to repair the threads in and engine block, but I wouldn’t use it to extract a screw from a stand-off. I would bet they don’t make a helicoil to repair the threads in a stand off. My guess is you don’t own a helicoil kit and have never repaired the threads in an engine block. 🤓. Most guys would grind the head off the screw and try to turn it out with a pliers or a small vice grip if not just pitch it.

Wow! Learning to racing first is so frustrating! Because the gates are very close to the ground so I spend all time crashing against it. Isn't it better to do kind of freestyle as "explorer" first? At least that way you are able to know the general basics of controlling a drone and discover a way to very smoothly fly fpv

being a risk taker, I have never bothered with a smoke stopper, so far so good :)

I started out with an old hubsan h501 back in 2017. Now I've got a 7", 10" that i built after killing many other drones in between. Happy Thanksgiving!

I’m sitting in the living room watching and my wife says “is that Seth Rogan?” Hahaha. Great video man. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I learned that the hard way

wonderful video! and u funny!

thumb up just for the no apple in my home comment lol

Sometimes you have to flash your drone. Elrs 2 and 3 compatibility issues force this

Been flying the dji fpv in Manuel for 2 years wanting to get the evoque am I jumping the gun I know how to solder but that’s all I know

gemfan mck V2 and most other gemfans you can tighten them super tight no problerms. Some props it matters if the nuts are too tight and they can break at the center, but not modern gemfans.

Thanks!

You're one of my kind.. No Apple products... Ever!

Good day sir. I followed your tutorial on how to flash ESC and it was successful but later it suddenly not functioning appearing on the speedybee app was ESC/Motor Protocol not configured, then I try to flash it again on ESC configurator but my esc cannot configure when i hit readsettings its hanging? I used Speedybee BLS 50A 4-in-1 ESC Hope you can help me, thank you in advance.

Happy Thanksgiving

I'm a Year in fpv I started out with the Dji system digital. Only way to go I own 3 iflights & 1 mark 5

The goggle burn in thing is definitely something i wouldn't have thought of. thankyou for potentially saving me from ruining my goggles when i eventually get a pair.

I started about 8 years ago with a micro walkera 3d helicopter I smashed that thing apart and rebuilt it probably 6 times over simulators we're not as easy to interface with then ha now have 2m long range wing and a 12" quad with a kk2 board haha and three 3" quads

Great video I've been flying fpv over a year but still learned a few tips 👍

So, update Betaflight or downgrade the TX module when they have different ELRS versions? My Mobula7 has ELRS 2.x while my Radiomaster module has 3.x. You have absolutely right in the learning curve part. 😄

What’s up bro, The things you should do, many things I did in the beginning because I didn’t have any one to get help from until I found RU-vid 🤣 but I started with Velocidrone and just started flying in acro, it sucked big time for days, until it clicked. Testing with the multimeter with a capacitor, it can beeb shortly Great video as always 👍🏻👍🏻 stay safe

Pilot distance is important too because if everything goes well you are going to land close to where you are, and maybe the person right next to you is flying far away, and your quad can still mess up a litte his video if you land next to him.

Only advice I have is learn to solder, use a multimeter, and practice on sims.

Great vid! In following them as I try and make my first drone (with speedy bee) I’ve tried everything to discover a short but can’t find it 😭 and just want to get airborn, there is a vote from me to do a “how to find a short video!” Thanks, Sam

DJI 03 is the current hype train. Vista's are amazing and tough and work great.. but everyone just HAS to have the 03. Never got hyped trains..

3:25 This definitely applies to any part of the drone, but it shouldn't apply to radio, goggles etc. Crashing an FPV drone is normal, but if someone's frequently breaking goggles, then probably something's quite wrong...

Great video! The easy way to learn is from someone else's mistakes. They hard way is to learn from our own.

Sun is a deadly laser! XD

I’ve been mostly Helicopters then planes along with a few boats so it’s been so-called fast dones until recently that I’ve stepped up to a real quad and it’s really taking some effort learning all this Beta flight , flash and going to my laptop and all the firmware, protocol and all the rest of this and just seems to be so confusing so far maybe it’s that I need to slow down i’am 65 ain’t got a lot of time ok, thanks!

Shit I'm must just be lucky... completed my first build today, and then just plugged a battery in 😅 I did double check every point of solder and nothing was touching so I thought... here goes. I will be sure to get a multimeter for the next build lol. I was excited to build after being at work all week thought 😂 about it

When I started I was so stupid, when I heard do not put your goggles in the sun...I would never face the sun when I flew....my buddy said no sun where the lenses are dumb arse hahahah 😅😂😊

Thanks for your tips. BTW Joshua Bardwell removed all my comments and blocked me from commenting on his channel.

Thanks for the tips from somebody who is working on hour 25 in liftoff and has ordered his first drone. But to be honest "there are no apple products in my home" is what got you the sub 😂

LOL! ive been flying for 5 months now... i did LITERALLY everything you said NOT to do.. ive been flying RC helis and airplanes since i was 12 so i had a head start and just went strait to acro mode with 0 sim time.. havn't crashed yet... i am also 12 drones deep and 3 new ones on the way O_O.. HELP ME!

Flashing a FC is required in Betaflight 4.3 before checking motor rotation. Ask me how I know? 😉

I skipped the sim and started with angle mode

I thought angle mode was not the same a horizon mode, since horizon mode does let me do flips and rolls just a lot slower... now I am confused