I’m thrilled to have discovered the GADC community a few months ago and have picked up a lot from reading numerous posts. I’m a relatively new drone pilot living in the Ruislip area of West London and I’ve recently rekindled my excitement (or perhaps, obsession) for drones since April 2023.
About seven years ago, I delved into FPV with an ImmersionRC Vortex Mini 150, but life’s demands meant it was short-lived fun. Now, armed with my Operator and Flyer IDs, I’m back in the skies, flying under Article 16 with my (not-so-lucky) partner as my trusty spotter! I’ve also been doing a fair amount of simulator practice.
My fleet includes the Vortex 150 (it’s hanging in there), a GEPRC MARK5 O3 HD, a DJI M3P, and a Mobula7 for indoor shenanigans. While I love them all, FPV freestyle is where my true joy lies, with the M3P reserved mostly for travel adventures.
Living in close proximity to RAF Northolt, Heathrow Airport and other aerodromes presents challenges in finding suitable flying spots. The Vortex and MARK5 are also above 250 grams, so space is key! If anyone has suggestions for nearby locations or is up for a meet-up when the weather allows, I’m all ears!
In the coming months, I’m gearing up for my first build, contemplating a 3 to 3.5 inch sub-250 creation. This would be a new frontier for me, so I suspect I’ll be posting about it soon to get some advice from the community.
Looking forward to connecting with some like-minded people here.
Looking for recommendations of places to fly? Check out our interactive map on Drone Scene - be sure to log in to gain access to the full suite of features and map layers:
And please feel free to add locations of your own too!
Looking for Public Liability Insurance? Then look no further, we offer £5,000,000 worth of cover to our Insured Members! Details of our insurance can be found at:
Wondering whether you can fly a particular model of drone under particular circumstances? Check out Good 2 Go where you’ll soon find the answer
Have you seen our members map? (Click the burger-menu in the top right) You may find some pilots living near you. Feel free to add yourself to the members map too
We’re a well established club with many knowledgeable members so it’s very likely that any issues you come across will have been discussed here before. Our discussion forum has very powerful search features which should help you find what you need but if you get stuck you can post a new question in the Questions & Answers category.
Our Associates are able to enjoy a lot of great services for free but our Members are eligible for a whole lot more! You can find all the details about our Membership Benefits on our FAQ
And finally, if you are new to drones and wondering what it’s all about, have a look at Resources for a beginner.
Hi @Spondes Kyri welcome to the madhouse, you’ll love it here for sure. Why not add a vlog of your FPV Build as a new topic in one of the cat’s so we can see your progress, anguish and delights as you go along.
It’s great to hear that you have rekindled the obsession and found our forum.
We have a fairly active and growing @group-fpv here with some very experienced members both on the technical side and the flying side too.
I know some of the southern members meet fairly frequently and we have an active group both in the midlands and northern england who meet every month or two.
Thanks for all the warm welcomes and tips already!
This isn’t a bad shout, even if just for the entertainment of seeing my frustration and bad soldering skills, haha!
I absolutely love it. I just wish there were more accessible flying spots suitable for it. This is partly why I’m considering trying to build a sub-250 3.5" freestyle alternative.
Nice! I will keep an eye out for meet-ups, thanks!
Thanks for the heads up. I’ve joined the FPV group. I’ll be sure to checkout some threads in the Racing Quads, Self-builds & FPV and will keep an eye out for the various events/meet-ups!
I was umming and arriving over getting the GEPRC Mark5; hopefully catch you at a meetup and we can compare (got an iFlight Evoque F6D on order and half built 5" Volador in the making)!
There is…? Did I miss a thread? Happy to travel up to Knockholt again, even happier if you’re looking to sort something more my way!
Not sure if that’s accessible for you, @Spondes? (apologies for hijacking your welcome but hopefully you get a meetup out of it! )
If it’s on a weekend, for me, a couple days notice? Anything more than that is fairly easy; for weekdays maybe a week’s notice - having to burn through unspent holiday at work so got a week off per month til April so going to do some research into the correct way to pray to the sun gods for weather while I’m off! Weekend preferable still though
I very nearly bought the Evoque F6 instead of the Mark5. They seemed equally good based on all the reviews and videos I watched but something just drew me to the Mark5 in the end.
I just read your thread Advice for first Self-Build (5”) about preparing for your Volador build - how’s that going? Reading through has just made me more eager to get my first build going!
)