The Cheapest and Quickest Way To Get Into FPV

Flying FPV drones is everything I love about racing Zero-G craft in games like WipEout and F-Zero GX except you can do it in real life. That's awesome! Plus it comes with the technical complexity of needing to maintain, fix and potentially upgrade the drone which is also an aspect of flying I love.

There are a few different types of FPV drones:

Freestyle drones
Racing drones
Cinematic drones

Freestyle and racing types are similar, and in both cases these drones are meant to fly fast and maybe crash some. Cinematic drones are generally not designed with high-speed crashing in mind and will often be heavier than freestyle or racing drones.

While there are cheap cinematic drones out there, they're not a great way to evaluate if the FPV hobby is for you because they need a camera. What I'm highlighting today is the cheapest way to get into an FPV.

Bind + Fly Kits

A few companies sell all-in-one kits for FPV. The premise is that, you buy this bundle, then you can immediately go out to the field and fly. Such kits include all necessary components, like:

Quadcopter
Batteries
Controller
FPV Headset

This is how I made my way into the hobby 6 months ago and it's how I'd recommend you do it too. You can take any of these components along with you as you upgrade, lessening the burden of the things you need to buy if you do upgrade beyond the all-in-one. But if you decide you don't like the hobby after all, you're not out a lot of money. Especially if you resell!

Recommendation

What I started with and what I recommend to start with is the BetaFPV Cetus X FPV Kit.

BetaFPV Cetus X FPV Kit

It's the perfect, cheapest, best all-in-one, hands-down. The video is analog and contributes to an interesting look. The headset has a DVR for easy recording with a micro SD. Right now it's $240 US.

The kit comes with 4 batteries, each flight takes 2. You can buy some extra 1S batteries for not that much more from BetaFPV. 4 extra batteries is well-worth the extra $14.74 if you even think you might plan to take the quad out often. In my experience, with hard flying, a set of 2x 450mAH batteries yields 3 minutes of flight time. If you want to go somewhere interesting and stay for longer, pack a USB powerbank and you can stay as long as you'd like by charging the other batteries while you fly.

Pick up some spare propellers too (cheap) because you will lose some, break some or chip some, compromising their airfoil profile. Additionally I've personally lost a rotor because it was coupled too tightly to the prop and when the prop flew off the rotor did too, meaning I needed to buy a new set of motors too. You can handle these things as they come up so I wouldn't buy a new set of motors right away. Anyway, for the kit, there's 2 choices: Betaflight FC vs Cetus FC.

Get the Betaflight FC version

Betaflight is standard firmware for most flight controllers. The Cetus FC version from BetaFPV has a barometer-assisted altitude hold and though the Betaflight FC version lacks this the Betaflight FC will set you free. Its PID controller is infinitely tunable using Betaflight Configurator and is universal even among high-end prebuilts. For those building a custom drone Betaflight is the assumed choice. Betaflight is open-source and widely used while Cetus is only used on BetaFPV (no relation to Betaflight) quadcopters.

Now That You Have The Quadcopter...

... don't fly it. Flying is hard and crashing is expensive. Watch the first few episodes of this great tutorial series from Joshua Bardwell and download a simulator like Liftoff or Tryp to actually practice the lessons. You can use the controller that came with the bundle to fly in the simulator, it should Just Work. Even now when I try new tricks I practice them in the simulator until I'm comfortable enough with them to not crash (hard) IRL. Bardwell's tutorial will get you comfortable with flying FPV. When you take your own drone out to the field, you'll know how to move in 3D space in full acro mode. It will take some practice, like any new skill.

When You Are Ready To Fly IRL...

... increase the quad's VTX output power to 400mW. From the factory it is set to 25mW. This greatly limits the quadcopter's range. Range falls off with the square root of power, so this yields approximately a 4x increase in range under similar conditions. Impact on flight time is minimal because most drain is through motors, not VTX. VTX power can be adjusted either in the OSD or in Betaflight Configurator by connecting the FC via USB. With 400mW VTX I can comfortably go up to 400ft above ground level (FAA limit) and quite far in general, even among obstacles.

With this kit you can pick up any of BetaFPV's tinywhoops like the Air65 or Air75 for not a lot of money and they will just work with your existing controller and goggles. Below is me flying the Air65, and the feed along with the artifacting is exactly what I see. The video is much sharper when flying than YouTube makes it out to be.