Editors Note: This is an old blog post of mine from 2018. I put my drone racing hobby on hold right before covid hit.

Why I'm hooked...

FPV (first person view) drone racing is a new hobby and sport that recently has started to gain a lot of traction and attention. So much so that there are now national and international competitions; ESPN even created a Drone Racing League of its own that airs on national television featuring some of the best FPV flyers in the country.

I got into drone racing during the winter of 2015. I was simply looking for something new to do outside of work since I was finding myself often bored. I started watching these crazy YouTube videos of people flying these drones through obstacles, doing insane tricks, and racing each other; all while making really cool videos.

Immediately I was hooked and knew this was something I would really enjoy. I did some research on what I needed and ignored some of the advice on getting a cheap basic drone to learn on before purchasing a full fledged racing drone. That was a mistake. I had bought a pre-built $550 drone and thought..

How hard could it be? I watched a ton of beginner flying videos.

Well long story short, there is a very high learning curve, I had done maybe 6 or 7 different flights before I tried doing a backflip and slammed it into concrete at a very high speed. The drone was a total loss.

After that I bought another pre-built drone for roughly the same cost, I figured I had the basics down from my 6 previous flights and decided this time I would take it easy and not do any tricks until I have mastered basic control.

Fast forward two and a half years of many flights and lots of money spent and I am now fairly confident in my flying ability. However since I live in Montana and there are not really any groups for drone racing here I primarily have been doing freestyle. Freestyle is basically just doing tricks with the drone, flying through obstacles, and pretty much everything thats not racing.

Building your own FPV Drone

The hobby is not as expensive as you might think, especially now. I started out buying expensive pre-built drones but now I build them myself. There are a ton of tutorials and walk throughs on building your own drone and honestly its half the fun. Knowing that you have a unique drone that you built and are racing around at 90+ mph. A $500 pre-built drone might only cost $150-200 if you built it yourself.

All of the parts for my latest build. Carbon fiber frame, motors, camera, flight controller, video transmitter, and receiver.

I decided to surround the motors wires in red paracord. These help protect them during crashes and also makes the drone look super cool.

At this point I have attached the 4 in 1 ESC (electronic speed controller) and plugged in the wires that will go to the flight controller and the cable for the battery.

The flight controller goes on top of the ESC. I have soldered all the wires to their respective locations.

I attached the video transmitter, FPV camera, and receiver. At this point the build is basically done.

Finally, I put some tri-blades on it and it’s ready for a test flight! Tri-blades are nice because they allow for much smoother flight with increased lift.

As you can kinda see, building an fpv drone is fairly simple and there is a lot of online help and walkthroughs. The equipment has also drastically dropped in price, when I started there was only a small handful of choices for the goggles you wear to see from the drone. Those goggles cost me $400, and I still use them today. Because it has become such a popular hobby, there has been lots of competition in the market. You can get decent goggles now for under $100.

The End Result

After many months of practicing, crashing, breaking, and fixing your drone you will eventually get to the point where you can go out and fly for multiple sessions without crashing once. You reach a point where you fully understand your skill level and what you can and can’t do. This makes it infinitely more fun because now you are spending more time flying and less time repairing. Of course, to improve you have to push your limits and in doing so you will occasionally crash; but at this point you should be able to safely practice maneuvers without much fear of crashing.

Freestyle Flying My Drone

Here is a sample of a more recent freestyle I did. It doesn’t take long to get the hang of flying them and while you will definitely crash a lot they are very durable and can take some hard wrecks. Just be sure to practice over a grass field rather than a paved parking lot like I did my first time.

Racing Example

While racing takes a bit more practice and I am nowhere near fantastic at it yet; I have improved a lot. I generally set up my own course and practice doing laps as seen in this video.