Late 2015 I watched this video from the perspective of a quadcopter, the quadcopter, flew through an abandoned industrial building, threading its way through windows, doing flips and corkscrews, racing through the buildings pillars, doors and openings. It was incredible and it was called FPV, or First person view. FPV is placing a small security camera at the front of a quadcopter, in this case a ‘Mini Quad’ being roughly 250 mm from motor to motor. Using a radio transmitter on the Mini Quad it sends the video signal to either a small monitor or goggles (with little screens for each eye) with a radio signal receiver, giving you a live view of what the quad sees. The experience is of flying, with a pair of goggles you are completely immersed, feeling as though you are in the cockpit and being able to fly it as such.
The first quadcopter I built was in late 2015 and it was a lot of fun and a great gentle entry into the hobby. You learn quickly with a mini quad, crashing is common and rebuilding and fixing is frequent. Such as learning to properly monitor your battery and how much juice or flying time you have left and the effects of a battery about to go dead. I learnt this when trying to fly up and over a pool fence, with no juice left in the battery, I saw myself fly into the pool fence, spin rapidly, a sudden bright flash of blue before firmly seeing static.
It took me awhile to round up the parts for my next Mini quad, but I knew I wanted something a little more powerful. In mid 2016 I built my second mini quad, this one faster, with bigger motors and more programmable. I learnt with this one quickly as well. This time that you truly get what you pay for with radio controllers. Flying above a valley, I dropped out of my Radio transmitters or controllers line of sight, losing a control signal, I see through my goggles the quad dip towards the ground, before, once more, static. I searched the valley for an hour, occasionally getting a video signal, but was unable to find it in the rough and steep bushed area.
I’m now onto my third and it flies like a dream.