Where does this club meet and when near Southampton

I have just joined the drone club and I live in Southampton. I was rather hoping to find a club that have meetings or local get togethers.
I have built my own open source drone more as a project and a learning curve.
However, obtaining reasonable priced and available parts seems to be something of a chore in waiting. So I was thinking maybe a drone club would have a few drone parts vendor businesses available.

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Hi John / @Mrcrusty, and welcome to GADC. If you have a moment, nip over the introductions page and say hello properly and tell us a bit about yourself. :+1:


In response to the question within your thread title, the answer could be “Wherever/whenever you would like to arrange one.”

That sounds a little like a copout answer, but let me elaborate …

The majority of our active members fly camera drones, and their interest is more photography/videography requiring somewhere photogenic and “pretty”. With your type of drone it’s more finding a suitable space and zapping about it.
Therein lies a slight “incompatibility” in the location requirements for the two factions.

And - as intimated by the “majority” in that, whilst not minimising your interest in the slightest - FPV pilots are the relative minority within GADC. So - within their fewer number of active members there’s usually not a significant number in any one area that precipitates a “meeting”. … until someone actually starts one and sees who wants to join in. And hence the “Wherever/whenever you would like to arrange one.” response.

Again - that doesn’t mean there aren’t any, read/watch the #club-meetups category and you’ll see they do exist - but they do tend to be rare in most areas.

And, of course, in relation to “Southampton”, so much of it falls within the Southampton Airport FRZ (in which I live) that adds a few hurdles to arranging one too locally.

However - all that said - and probably short notice - there is the one that @Steviegeek has linked to which happens to be tomorrow, has been proposed by an FPV flyer, and is in Bournemouth … which if the notice isn’t too short, might be just further than would interest you. But - feel free to pop along - I may also be there. (Don’t forget to mention within that thread that you may be along … and watch in case the weather turns against us.)

Also - of possible interest later in the year - there is GADC’s Big Meet Weekend 2023 - 9th-11th June at Corby.
Quite a turnout is expected and I know there will be a strong FPV contingent amongst them … and you’d be more than welcome to attend.


As for parts, the club doesn’t stock any (for either type drone), there are just way too many items that evolve and move on to make that at all feasible.

But #racing-quads-self-builds-and-fpv is a great source of information from the many very clued up members that fly FPV. So don’t hesitate to post your needs, and I’m sure other FPV enthusiasts will be able to help.


Welcome, again.

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Sorry but first of all I don’t have a vehicle to drive to Dorset but I would love to if I could.

I was actually looking in Southampton for a meet.

I have built my own quadcopter drone using a Raspberry Pi and Pixhawk assembly.
It also has a GPS and Compass.
I am now just starting to code the electronics using Ardupilot.

I am looking for parts stores that can deliver withing a reasonable time and at a decent price without having to use Amazon and China or the USA.

I would love to keep in touch if you are interested?

Jon Taberner

Here are the ones I use:

https://www.hobbyrc.co.uk/

Those are all more around FPV drones rather than the complete start from scratch style that you are working on, but they probably have stuff that you are interested in and are all in the UK and are reliable and quick

We do have a few members that have built more custom drones like you are describing, but most of the home-built ones tend to be based around off-the-shelf flight controllers running something like Betaflight, iNav, etc…

As for meet-ups in Southampton and no further. There may be someone in Southampton, but you would probably have to travel a bit further. There’s not actually that many of us really.

I know how it is starting up from scratch. I’ve been at this for just over 18 months. I did manage to find a few people in my area, but we still generally have to drive around an hour to meet up.

(Oh and I’m waaaay far from you. Derbyshire. I will be at the big meet though!)

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Buy a 75/85mm whoop and go fly with the FPV crowd if you can. A cheapish setup like a 2S Meteor or Mobula would suffice. Even if you fly a camera drone. Keep a foot in each side of the pond and you will always have people to go fly with and find loads of places to fly.

FPV pilots tend to fly bandos of which there are some down your way. Technically, even inside FRZ’s you can fly a 75mm whoop in say a car park or bando. You aren’t supposed to, but the chances of you flying at a height where you might hit an aircraft with a quad, inside a building or inside a car park, is exceptionally unlikely unless the plane is about to crash. Basically use common sense and you will be fine. If you don’t possess common sense, don’t get into this hobby. :wink:

I’m also, like Yith, up north, so can’t meet up.

One upside, is the New Forest is fairly near to you. Lots of places you can fly around there.

But not within the perambulation boundary. I’ve previously contacted Foresty England who replied with a detailed reasons of why it’s not allowed, not to mention byelaws thrown in for good measure.

Lot’s of places outside of it’s boundary though. :grinning:

What about areas in the forest owned by Crown Estates? We already know that certain beach areas that are Crown Estates allow drone use, does the same hold true for any Crown Estate owned land?

Don’t forget the disclaimer the CE have on their website :

On occasions, third parties such as Government agencies or local authorities may restrict the flying of UAD’s on Crown Estate land. We therefore recommend checking with the appropriate authority to ensure that no such restrictions are in place.

You can however fly on private land within the forest with said landowners permission.

Yeah I’m not saying just go out and do it, well, I think a camera drone is going to stand out a lot. You would probably get away with a whoop or small craft in the 75/85mm size.

Ahh well it was just a thought. People fly all over the place around Southampton. CurryKitten on YT lives somewhere down that way AFAIK and could probably make suggestions.

My main suggestion is probably to still hit geograph.org.uk and just set the map over the area around Southampton and then look through the photos until you find something you want to look at that might also suit some flying. Then go have a look at it. If you are lucky, you might find a few places to fly that others don’t frequent.

This one for me is like power loop heaven.

I live in the New Forest Area. :wink:

To be honest there’s far more interesting areas to fly outside the Forest and as a costal flyer, Southampton Water / Solent is a great location to capture some great footage. :grinning:

Hi John,

I could probably come over your way if you wanted to suggest a location. We could post something here to see if others would be interested too.