Intro
The top 4 drone pilots I take inspiration from are: Joshua Bardwell, The RCAddict, Mr Steele, and quadmovr. They all have one problem though--they are all experts.
These guys are good. They are seriously good…and their content is top notch. They must have thousands of hours of stick time each. As for me? I have less that 50 spread out over years, and I quit the hobby multiple times, the first after just a few hours.
But you can't listen to these guys if you are just starting out, and I'll tell you why.
The Problem
I started out on the wrong quad. It was a BetaFPV X-Knight 4". Wow what a mistake. I figured everyone was on these huge 5" setups, I'll just try something one step down, light weight, and get a feel for the hobby. Without knowing how to tune it I just took it straight up on whatever stock rates it had, etc. Holy crap! WAY overpowered. I mean, overpowered was an understatement. And why the heck was it so twitchy? Oh, and FPV? I took one flight in the goggles, got so disoriented that I spiraled out of control into the ground, broke the camera, and immediately sold the goggles. It all of a sudden became clear how good the YouTubers are out there making epic FPV videos. I crashed that thing so many times it literally blew up and shot flames out. I threw it in the trash and basically gave up on the hobby. How the heck was I supposed to get anywhere when it's that hard?
That was my first mistake--trying to fly something close to what I see all the experts flying.
See, these guys are deep into the rabbit hole. Of course they are flying insane setups. They just don't seem "insane" because they are experts at flying them. They get normalized because you get exposed to it so much. You think you need high KV motors, high pitch props, etc. What even is a high KV? Answer: any KV, lol. That 4" X-Knight was ridiculously overpowered for me, and due to the price and the marketing I thought it was a somewhat less insane setup that I could maybe learn on. Boy was I wrong. I still don't know what a proper beginner setup should be, but I'll tell you what I built next.
Armattan Tadpole 3"
After crashing my 4" setup into everything except a car, my goal was clear on the next build: smaller. The idea was less mass so that when I inevitably lost control the damage that could be done to inanimate (or animate) objects would be minimal. I settled on a 3" freestyle concept, because smaller than that and…I mean who the heck just wants to fly around a little micro whoop indoors or whatever. Psshhhh, not me! (Spoiler: probably should)
Crashing was the name of the game, and that game led to Armattan. Strength is written all over their marketing, with copious amounts of "lifetime warranty" mixed in. Excellent. I'm gonna crash the shit out of this thing, might as well be strong, amirite? The other problem I had with the X-Knight 4" was the toothpick design with the battery on the bottom. With my frequent hard landings on hard surfaces (no grass grows here) I kept smashing the battery. So I knew I wanted the battery on top. Enter the Tadpole 3". Seemed like a popular platform to build too, during my research.
Completely lost on how to spec it out, I took most my inspiration from their prebuilt models, what they had listed in their configurator, what they recommended in the product description, and what other people had done on their builds. I went with 1106 4500KV motors, Gemfan WinDancer 3028 props with a medium pitch, and a 550mAH 3S to keep the weight down. I could have definitely spec'd it out with more power, but I thought I was building it on the lower power side, you know…to learn on. How much power could a stupid 3" have anyway?
That was a repeat of my first mistake--trying to build and fly something close to what other experts were flying or recommending.
I flashed Betaflight 4.2 on it with Betaflight Configurator and proceeded to spend the next 3 days trying to get the damn thing to work at all. Barrier to entry number 967: Betaflight. Don't get me wrong, now I understand and love Betaflight (Configurator), but it is not made for beginners at all. I mean, I was an IT guy for large companies for a long time, I've been into computers since I was 13, heck I can even do some programming. But you aren't just plugging the FC in and going flying after 5 minutes of setup your first time. Bonus moment when I armed the quad and it went full throttle immediately. Luckily all the props were on backwards! Ear drums were blown, but at least it pushed into my bed instead of making a hole in my damn ceiling!
So I took my shiny new Tadpole up with stock PID's and what I thought were stock rates at the time (more on that later). Holy crap did I build a monster. "This thing is only 3"! How the hell does it have so much power? I put the small motors on! It climbs 100 feet in like less than a second!"
And I crashed it. And crashed it again. And ordered a whole bunch of props and crashed it again, and again…and again. Angle mode, horizon mode, and the dreaded acro mode, didn't matter. Nothing was clicking. I could do a flip, barely. I tried some yaw, instant disorientation--crash. I tried copying The RCAddict's tutorials on LOS: nope, nope, nope. (Mind you, I'm only flying LOS. I decided FPV was not for me, for a while at least.)
I hung the Tadpole up on my wall and it sat there collecting dust, for about 6 months, figuring I would probably never fly LOS or FPV ever again, but then I had an r/showerthoughts moment.
The Solution
I'm old. At least, I'm getting old. I'm almost 40. I'm no Quake 2 champion anymore. My reaction times suck now, I don't even like high paced games nowadays. So, while I like watching drone pilots do 14 tricks in 3 seconds, flipping 8 times off-axis before shooting a 4-inch concrete gap 1 second later at 130 mph…backwards…I can't do that shit. So why am I taking advice from them? Why am I building and tuning like them? Why am I trying to fly like them?
I needed a fresh approach. What if I turned everything down? Like way down. Like grandpa down. And what if I throw all the training wheels on? Like every training wheel Betaflight has.
That was the first sucessful idea I had in this hobby, and subsequent discovery of another mistake I was making. You see, these experts I took influence from, they were all throwing around similar numbers in the rates department. Every other video was like "Yeah, I fly 1000 deg/s, but Mr Steele is crazy man, he flies like 2,000 deg/s". That was my problem. I had my quads tuned to like 900 deg/s (with very little expo or center resolution) thinking I'm a bit under what the big boys fly, should be good…right?
Nah. You have to turn that shit down. Like way down. Like grandpa down. (Is there an echo in here?)
- How about something that makes sense? How about 360 deg/s for roll and pitch? You know, so if you do a flip it takes 1 whole second and you can catch it on the level? Yes.
- Now how about something to fix my yaw problem? I lose orientation super easy, so how about slowing it WAY down. How about 180 deg/s? Now it will take 2 entire seconds at full stick to do a whole circle. That makes sense, kinda, right? Turns out, yes. But there's more.
- How about deadening the frick out of yaw in the center travel of the stick, because my beginner fingers keep accidentally yawing during throttle movements? Yes! Now I'm locked in on heading! Wow!
- Now how about throwing some massive expo on all 3 rates? Yep! That's working! Now I'm flying like a grandpa, the grandpa I am.
My Tadpole build is an incredibly powerful rig (at least to me), so I also decided to grandpa the throttle. I had to cap that sucker down to 50% and then find the hover point and throw expo in at that point. Lots of time was spent fine tuning the throttle expo and throttle mid so that I could do some extended hovering with enough throttle resolution within that range. Despite thinking I built something conservative, I had not, so it took a lot of tweaking to tame it. Who would have ever thought putting the "smaller" motors on would still need to be capped all the way down to 50% power just to barely be able to learn on? Well, not the pilots I was influenced by, that's for sure.
All of a sudden I was flying LOS. Actually learning. And what was the key? To stop listening to the experts. Seriously. I had my rates so low I've never seen a screenshot or seen a discussion of anybody flying rates this low.
Acro
And what about acro? Yeah, forget about it…for a while. That's the other r/showerthoughts moment I had. I was listening to all the experts, who had thousands of hours of stick time, mostly say the same thing: "Don't fly angle/horizon, you'll learn bad habits. Just fly acro. C'mon, all the cool kids are doing it."
For me, I needed the training wheels. If not just to get my stick time up. And it worked. I had my beast in kiddie Angle mode forever. I even turned down the angle limit. The stock Betaflight suggestion for the angle limit seems crazy to me now. Again I noticed a theme. Betaflight has been created by and for experts. The suggested values in multiple places are way too bonkers for a beginner. So don't be afraid to crank that angle limit way down while you are learning. Even 30-35 degrees is enough to get some serious speed going and if you aren't careful a buzz right over your head trying to do LOS (where you immediately lose orientation and crash). Bump it up slowly over time. I still think 40 degrees is pretty crazy, and it can get you in trouble pretty fast, but it finally lets you do some speed runs and gives you more authority when you need it. I think the stock suggested value is like 45 degrees? That's nuts. No wonder why some people just give up right away.
After many packs in grandpa mode I finally upped my throttle cap for impressive punch outs. Every 10 packs I went up like 5%. I'm now at 80% and it's enough. That blows my mind. Why is 80% on a low spec'd 3" "enough" for me? What an insane amount of power in such a little machine. And that is what I had to start realizing. When I was looking at expert's builds I was looking at insanely overpowered machines. It's all that gets posted, though! That's the problem! It's normalized to the point where it's what you think you need. You watch 150 Joshua Bardwell videos and you think "Man, I need that sweet 5" Ummagawd build". No, you don't. You need something half the size with 1/10th the power and you need to turn it down in Betaflight to rates and settings you've never seen posted anywhere. And then get stick time.
After what seemed like 100 packs and weeks of boring Angle mode flights, I was finally getting comfortable flying little patterns and stuff around me. I finally started flicking that Horizon mode switch on my TX and doing some flips. Crappy flips, but hey, flips man! It's a crowd pleaser! That's all I really use the Horizon mode for, is to do a flip. Works surprisingly well, just let go of the right stick when you are anywhere close to level. Practice your flips in all directions when you start to get more comfortable. And trust me, I still have lost orientation and control and crashed, even with the training wheels on. So don't give up. Get that stick time.
At this point I am finally getting really comfortable flying. I can do runs up and down my street with yaw as I go past me. I'm starting to get my bearings. Forward flight in almost all directions is now possible, just not the the front of the quad pointed directly at me. I'm still no LOS orientation-god like The RCAddict or quadmovr. They are inhuman. Just stop trying to be like them. Barely anybody on the planet is that good from what I gather.
Training
One thing that helped me is to imagine you are flying spokes on a bicycle wheel. Start off close to yourself, zip the quad away from you and return it back trying to minimize yaw to zero and if there's no wind or other factors you shouldn't have to roll much either. Basically you are just learning throttle and pitch control, locked in on a heading exactly where your eyes are pointed. Run that pattern for a while. Every time you come back close to yourself, while hovering, yaw somewhere else, then throw that thing on a speed run on a new "spoke" and come back. Don't worry about changing heading while doing any maneuver. If you try to add yaw and try forward flight at something like 90 degrees to your eye's "normal" while you are new you are just going to lose it. At least for me, I did not have the skills at first to have my heading anywhere except for my normal (I realize there is a "headless" mode for this, but you need GPS or a magnetometer). If you have your motors turned up, and your angle limit set right (in angle mode) you can just go full throttle, full pitch forward and hold it there for 2 second for an impressive speed run. All it takes is holding the pitch halfway back at the end of the run and careful throttle control to get it back to yourself. Take note that at the end of the run while the quad is transitioning to level and slowing down it will generate a lot of upwards velocity. So your speed run will turn into 25 feet of altitude really quick until you learn to chop the throttle at the right moment. These speed runs I do generate an awesome sound. I love it!
Where I'm At Now
I'm now flying LOS acro. Barely. And guess what, I'm using the training wheels for that, too. I have Acro Trainer mode turned on and my angle limit for that is back down to 30 degrees. I think I've only seen that feature casually mentioned like once, because what noob flies Acro Trainer? Pshhh. Honestly though, it helps me when I do my long runs away from myself. I know that even if I can't see my yellow rear props I can just keep pitching back towards myself and she will probably come home. Probably.
Angle mode was holding me back on some of the new tricks I was trying to do. That's how I knew I had finally put in some good stick time. I finally felt a little hampered by my yaw rates and bumped them up a little bit, too. But don't be tempted to bump them up too fast. Does flying acro after tons of angle/horizon mode suck because of bad habits like everyone says? Meh, not that much. I'm only 3 packs in to trying acro again after 6 months away from it, and I can feel it soaking in pretty fast. There's nothing wrong with flying angle/horizon mode LOS for a long time, maybe forever. I'll do the same if I ever go FPV again. Don't feel bad about having the training wheels on. It's the experts in your head giving you somewhat misguided advice. They've been in the game so long they kinda forgot what it was like when they were learning I guess. Or at least, they never really posted much content while they were learning. It seems like poof they were really good pilots all of a sudden.
It's not like that for everybody. Hopefully the story of my journey helps you get in to the hobby, learn, and stay, because man is it fun to fly these things.
Me attempting to learn LOS Acro
Horizon Mode flips on my 4" before it exploded
Conclusion
tl;dr Lower your rates way the hell down and turn the training wheels on.
Fake Edit: I realize the irony of the title versus me now being the "expert" you are supposed to listen to. Really, I'm no expert. I still suck at flying.
Fake Edit2: I obviously love the expert pilots mentioned in my article. I have learned mountains of information from them and I encourage people to watch their content and learn from them as well. This article in no way means you should boycott these content creators.