This article was submitted through the GetFPV Community Program by Aidan Henriques.
Disclaimer: This article was written solely by a member of the FPV Community. Views and advice in this article are that of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion or views of GetFPV.
Last summer I started the whole process of flying fpv drones. I bought the TBS Tango 2 controller and practiced over 70 hours in the simulator. It was late October now and time to buy my first drone. I bought the Diatone Roma F5 power kit meaning it was pre-built without the air unit. I installed the air unit and did some very rough soldering to get crossfire to work. Now, I expected everything to work fine, but what I didn’t know were all the extra costs that were creeping into my wallet. After I did a day’s work of Betaflight and battery charging I was ready to go. Then, I realized that the battery straps were too small. Ugh, that was the worst feeling, so I ordered some more online and after three days, the drone climbed into the air and everything went well until I landed sideways and broke a prop. Now I realized I had made a terrible mistake, I hadn’t ordered any spare props, so a week later I got the props and everything went well. Although most things went well for me, there were still costs that I didn’t expect. If you were like me a month ago, ordering all of the parts then I have a quick list of things you should make sure you have when flying FPV.
- Additional props – always an essential as they are easy to break and it is important that you don’t use broken ones as they will affect the drone’s performance.
- The right battery straps – You can’t fly without these. I would recommend getting some longer ones that fit around the bottom of your drone so that you don’t have to worry about breaking any electronics.
- Batteries and a charger – FPV drones are not like DJI Mavics. They don’t come with a battery or a charger so you’ll have to buy your own. Also you should probably buy multiple batteries because they last around 3-4 minutes each depending how you fly.
- Soldering tools – Even if you buy a drone fully built and ready to go (RTF) you will crash. This means that you will have to fix wires and put things back together. Invest in a good soldering iron and tools as it will let you build your own drones as well as repair them.
- Prop tool – get a good prop tool that makes it easy to get your props on and off. It is a pain to use a wrench to get your props on and off every time.
- Action Camera – You may also want to purchase a camera like a GoPro to put on top of your drone and record high quality video.
If you are an absolute beginner I would recommend buying a fully ready to go kit.