 What's going on everybody? Welcome to Rotor Riot and welcome back to Learn to FPV with your host Jeff aka Vortex. Today we're going to talk about where to get started. What are the first things you should buy? Which kind of path should you take? And this is always a tricky thing because it really depends on the person. It depends on a few things. I would say do you have any flying experience? Have you ever flown anything RC before? Have you ever played with a toy drone or RC airplane? Have you ever played with RC cars? Do you have any kind of knowledge of that? It depends on how much money you have to spend, how much are you looking to invest right away. And it also depends on what your ultimate goals and FPV are. So for some people maybe they want to get a drone like this, they want to get a GoPro and they want to start making YouTube videos. Other people maybe they never really want to get beyond this. Maybe they just want to fly a small drone around the house and that's all the fun they're trying to have is do that. Maybe other people are trying to get into racing and be competitive and try to just go as fast as they possibly can. So the more of a clear path you have in the beginning of what your ultimate goal is, it makes it a little bit easier to just start right away by buying the right things. Depending on your background and your goals and FPV, I can't tell you the exact way that you should get into the hobby because it's gonna be a little bit different for everybody. But I will give you four different paths that should cover just about everyone. So for some people maybe you've never touched anything RC at all before and you don't want to just drop a thousand dollars day one and just get right into it and just buy goggles and radios and batteries and chargers and everything. So for people like that there's really no shame at all in just going and getting like a little toy drone from Walmart or 7-Eleven or whatever and just play with it and get the feel for what the sticks do and get a sense of are you really hooked on this and this is something you really want to do or is it something you're kind of bored of after a day and you're glad you didn't go and buy all that other stuff. So definitely no shame in starting off on a toy grade. The first RC thing that I ever flew was a little cheap toy helicopter that a guy brought into work and I started playing with that and then I got a little bit better one and then from there I got a little bit better one and it just kept escalating and then over time I just had a huge helicopter and then I found drones. So for me personally by the time I got into drones I had already had some flying experience so I didn't ever get like little toy drones. I kind of went right into something like this because I was already experienced in flying something big and dangerous. I had a good understanding of how all the electronics work and batteries and charging. So if you don't know anything about any of that stuff that can be a really good cheap way to get into it without much risk. If you do go that route I would definitely recommend stay away from any toy grade drone that's like over $50. You don't want to spend too much because you could really get into something more like this more like something that's really in the FPV hobby would actually be flying on a regular basis for pretty close to that. So I wouldn't you don't want to you don't want to keep rebuying things. You don't want to get a toy drone and then get a slightly better toy drone and a slightly better toy drone and next thing you know you bought all these things that you're not playing with anymore. So I would go for something $50 or less just to dabble in it and get the feel for if you really are into drones or not before moving on to the next step. So another path you could take is you can get one of these little micro drones around this size and you can either get this and pair it up with like a real full-size controller that will grow with you the rest of your hobby or there's packages that come together with a drone ant controller or a drone controller and goggles and charger and batteries and everything. So that's another way you can get into it too and there's a ton of different packages for a small-sized drone like this. There's different types there this is a brushed motor one there's also brushless motor micro drones and without going too deep into that basically a brushless motor is gonna have more power more responsiveness that's that's what a drone this size is gonna run but the upside to a brushed motor is that they're super light and really more maneuverable and tight space because it's not so powerful and the weight is really low. So that's definitely another really good way to get into it with a fairly low budget like under $200 there's several different packages that we can link down in the description that will get you everything you need. Some of the downsides to going with some of those packages are that you're gonna get gear that may not grow with you as you continue on an FPV so you can get a nice bundle for you know a $150-$200 but this controller is not going to give you the range and the customization that you would get out of something like this. So again it kind of falls into that you don't want to buy something that you're gonna have to rebuy later but again it just depends on you like you may be only happy with just flying that and you don't want to go any further so maybe that was a good choice. So this is why I say it's really a good idea to try to figure out how far you want to take this as early as possible and that'll prevent you from having to rebuy things later on. So that's an option. So another path that you could take is maybe you do have some flying experience and you just want to get straight in and build something like this. I've walked plenty of people through getting everything they need in one day because before my time with Rotorite I actually worked at a hobby shop that specialized in drone stuff so you get guys that are just fully committed they're ready to go and they'll spend a thousand dollars in one day to get their radio all the parts for their drone a charger a bunch of batteries high-end goggles so for some people that may make sense to just jump right in get everything you need it can be pretty expensive to get in like that some of the more expensive purchases you're gonna make or the radio and the goggles goggles especially can run up to like $500 but for some people they know they want to do it they know what they want they want the best of everything and they have the money to spend so that makes sense for other people that might not make sense maybe they don't have a thousand to spend right away maybe they need to be a little more strategic and how they kind of build up their gear over time so if it doesn't seem like you're gonna just jump in get all the parts build a whole quad and get the radio and the goggles and the batteries and everything all at once then probably overall the very best way to start off in this hobby is to get a radio like this in a simulator so there's a few different radios in this price range around a hundred bucks that will work with a simulator but overall best bang for your buck radio you can get is the QX7 it's gonna be really easy to hook up to a simulator it's it's got full range it's got all the customization you can need switches this will last you won't need to upgrade this this is the only radio you'll really ever need and then in fact this is the radio that I'm using you get the radio you download a simulator on your computer your PC your laptop your Mac whatever you plug in a USB cable do a little bit of configuration in the radio and in the simulator and you can start flying right away and you don't have to worry about crashing your drone into the street or getting stuck in a tree and having a bunch of expensive repairs to do before you ever actually learn how to fly and there's been a lot of people that give them a couple weeks on the simulator and by the time you put them in something like this they can just fly it because it's very similar no simulator is going to be exactly like the real thing it's there's just too many variables I think to calculate into make it exactly perfect but it's definitely close enough that if you can fly the simulator without crashing I think no problem you can pick up a drone like this and get this to fly without crashing hopefully that gives you guys a better idea maybe where you want to get started in FPV again it depends on the person it depends on your experience level and how much money you want to invest right away I really think that the best way is going to be to get the radio and get a simulator so on the next episode I'm going to show you guys how to set the radio up how to set a simulator up and I'll give you a little overview of the few different simulators that are out there they're all roughly about the same they're kind of in the same price range the feel of them is all pretty similar it comes down to personal preference but hopefully I'll help you guys get an idea of which one that you want to get so to learn more about simulators and how to do the configuration in the radio and get the simulator set up tune into the next episode of learn to FPV thanks for watching