Building an FPV drone with zero experience.

iFlight Nazgul Evoque F5 “deadcat” before the dreaded soldering of motor wires to ESC. Image by author.

Multicopter, Quadcopter, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS), Ready-To-Fly (RTF), Bind-And-Fly (BNF), ESC, FC, ELRS, FPV, LOS, WTF?

These are some of the terms and abbreviations you will get familiar with after deciding to build a drone (especially the last one). It can be a lot, it is a lot, and there is no way I will be able to cover everything here. I can however condense my personal experience of building an FPV drone without any prior experience into a short read and give some hopefully useful pointers to any newbie drone enthusiasts out there.

When getting started you should first think about what type of pilot you are. A racing drone requires a different build compared to a long range cinematic drone so you want to make sure you build the right type for your need. Since this is not a build guide (I have some references at the end for those) the following chapters will be quite general. Consider this as an appetizer before the main course.

Motivation

First and foremost you are going to need motivation. Without it you will not make it and just end up wasting your time and money. My motivation was a combination of three things:

• Recreational. Flying an FPV drone might be fun! Spoiler alert…it is.