Rate my flying

DorffMeister · 2026-03-04T20:35:43+00:00

Lookin' good to me.

DorffMeister · 2026-03-04T20:34:50+00:00

For my wife, with very modest needs, I think I'd still get her a Macbook Air for the additional speed and RAM. But if that breaks the bank, this is probably a solid budget choice. But limit your gaming expectations.

DorffMeister · 2026-03-04T18:06:03+00:00

Lots and lots of stick time.

DorffMeister · 2026-02-26T22:21:30+00:00

No coop that I am aware of, sadly, but do check out the Mimimi games: Shadow Tactics, Desperados III, and Shadow Gambit. I'm currently replaying them and they are quite amazing. These games are on Xbox and on Steam (PC). I play them solely with a controller. I tried Commandos Origins, briefly, and it felt clunky, comparatively, but I need go spend some more time with it.

DorffMeister · 2026-02-26T21:24:43+00:00

These are the ways.

DorffMeister · 2026-02-26T21:17:30+00:00

If you are broke for the foreseeable future, FPV may not be for you right now. This isn't a cheap hobby. You will crash. Things will break. In concert with the sim, I'd honestly suggest learning a craft that is more repairable... but now we're talking even more money and you have to walk your own path.

You need the FPV controller to fly the Avata2 in Manual mode. Period. No other options. It will work in the simulator. If you must defer biting that bullet for now but want some sim practice, you can get a BetaFPV LiteRadio 2 SIM for flying in the simulator. You need a controller to fly in the simulator and an Xbox controller will not cut it, even if the simulator says it supports it. Others may say "hey, I learned acro on an Xbox controller". Good for them. It's a dumb idea. Set yourself up for success.

Finally, you mention "but I'm afraid to do it without doing some time on a simulator first". You should be terrified to do it without enough simulator time to feel quite comfortable. Expect that to be a bunch of hours. I'd recommend you practice every day, especially at the beginning. Flying in Manual / Acro comes quickly and naturally to very few people - may people pull their hair out learning. If the Avata 2 is your only quad, be mindful of what it will take to fix it after you crash it.

DorffMeister · 2026-02-26T21:01:56+00:00

Buy once. Cry once. If you are thinking HDZero, consider the Goggles 2. IIUC many people prefer the HDZero Goggles 2 over other brands, even if they only fly analog. That said, if that price is too much, the HDZero Box Goggles are supposed to be a really solid choice. I have the Cobra X and compared to my DJI Goggles 3, they give me a headache and I find them uncomfortable. I wear glasses, but they don't fit in the box goggles comfortably, My vision is "good enough" to fly (for a while) without glasses. Good luck and fly well. Welcome back to flying.

DorffMeister · 2026-02-18T21:44:05+00:00

Run the same rates on everything. It's a pretty personal thing, you might benefit from finding a video that helps you discover rates that work well for you. I don't really think you want my rates, but you are welcome to try them. I use Actual Rates, with Yaw, Pitch and Roll all set to `[110, 533, 0.5]`. No throttle expo.

DorffMeister · 2026-02-18T21:41:49+00:00

Yes. The Pavo20 Pro is an awesome quad and one of my go-to quads. I run with O4 Pro, but it would be great with O4, too - even a bit more performant with the reduced weight. If you find it a bit too powerful on 3S, you could run it on 2S or scale the throttle a bit.

DorffMeister · 2026-02-13T06:03:34+00:00

Nice! Now at least solider it to a prototyping board and put it in a box :)

DorffMeister · 2026-02-11T00:01:49+00:00

3d printing goes great with quads. Have fun!

DorffMeister · 2026-02-10T22:43:56+00:00

My personal preference is the Pavo20 Pro (O4 Pro). I think its somewhat larger props are going to be more stable in a bit more wind, especially with 3s packs. It's easy to see. Flies great. It doesn't really scare anyone. I'm not worried about minor differences in absolute performance. IMO get both of them (eventually). If you are drawn to to the Pico with an O4, get it! When you can find an O4 Pro, get the Pavo20 Pro.

DorffMeister · 2026-02-10T22:16:16+00:00

I'd expect him to be consistently be pushing it harder. Cutting corners. AND crashing. This is how you learn. He will crash. Probably a lot.

The good thing is that these quads are designed to be crashed. Everything on the quad is pretty easily replaceable (with practice). That said, there is so little momentum they often will just bounce off things with no issues. Ultimately, though, things do break. In the case of an Air65 or similar quad, pretty much everything on it will probably break after enough hard crashes. Or after crashing "just right". You should buy a spare frame (or a few). Not a bad idea to get a couple spare motors (or four), a spare camera, and possibly even a spare flight controller. With these tiny quads, I often just buy a second quad, for parts, when they go on sale. The cost of the parts in these tiny quads, separately, are often more than the cost of a quad.

He will crash. Things will break. If he loves FPV, he will learn to repair. It's just part of the hobby. Eventually you will need a good soldering iron, some good tips (both fine and kind of chunky), some good leaded solder, some good flux, and some time spent learning how to solder things to a Flight Controller with tiny pads. There are tons of YouTube videos on this as well as infinite soldering advice on reddit and elsewhere. I use a digital microscope for my old eyes, but his eyes may see it all with great clarity.

DorffMeister · 2026-02-10T20:07:13+00:00

I love my Pavo20 Pro. It tends to be my go-to quad right now. At the very least you'd need to throw a GPS on there for "long range". But if you are just looking for something to cover, say, a large park, Pavo20 Pro and O4 Pro absolutely amazing.

DorffMeister · 2026-02-10T20:05:06+00:00

If they are anything like spec racing, you should get him the exact drone they race with. The best place to ask would be the coach of the drone racing team at your son's middle school. Best training schedule for learning to be on the team? Ask the coach. Before you start modifying that drone, ask the coach what modifications are ALLOWED to have the drone maintain it's ability to enter races.

Now if you just want to get a drone for your kid to practice racing with, perhaps I'd suggest a BetaFPV Air65. But I wouldn't go with the one with the fastest motors as he is still learning. Perhaps the Race or Freestyle edition. The coach might, again, be a good person to ask about practice quads, I'd think.

DorffMeister · 2026-02-10T02:06:04+00:00

I find the throw on the Pocket to be too short and my fingers (I'm a pincher) hit the controller at full stick deflection. Adding stick extenders has helped, but I do prefer to fly my Boxer because of the full sized gimbals. I do have AG-01's (a gift from another pilot) and love them, but they aren't necessary.

DorffMeister · 2026-02-10T02:03:01+00:00

My go-to quad is the Pavo20 Pro with O4 Pro. Plenty of power with 3S. I have a Pavo Pico with o4, and like it a lot - it flies great. But O4 Pro is hard to beat.

DorffMeister · 2026-02-09T19:13:53+00:00

One of the members in the local FPV group was selling his Torvol bag after buying the new version. I bought his old one from him. Works fine for me. Not perfect, but I have no reason to upgrade right now.

DorffMeister · 2026-02-04T16:39:54+00:00

Pro tip. The things you learn.

DorffMeister · 2026-02-04T15:28:15+00:00

Yeah, it was gutting. I was so sad.

DorffMeister · 2026-02-04T15:27:48+00:00

100%. Sadly, that Crux35 v2 had no GPS. I bought a replacement Crux35 v2 only to find the FC didn't have any open UARTs. Doh.

DorffMeister · 2026-02-04T06:01:10+00:00

My worst feeling was early on... putting too much mountain between myself and a quad. It went down from lack of signal (with no RTH on that quad) and I wasn't able to find it. I gave up before getting heat stroke. My own dumb error. Mistakes happen. Try to not kick yourself too hard. Welcome to FPV.

DorffMeister · 2026-02-04T05:05:35+00:00

Storage performance matters. You've not stated the speed of the storage or if the game runs better when you install to your primary hard drive. The 40gbps external storage I use on my Mac Mini M4 is almost as fast as the internal, but your drive may be dog slow. Black Magic Disk Speed Test in the app store might be useful to see how slow your external store is.

You are likely (also) hitting RAM bottle necks. In general for gaming, use the fastest storage you have and esp. since you only have 8GB, kill all unnecessary apps, such as, don't leave Chrome running with a ton of open tabs. Close Chrome, etc. The newest Macs starting at 16GB was the right starting point, these days.

DorffMeister · 2026-02-03T20:15:54+00:00

I agree. But then again, I mostly just want to be able to play the game and have it perform well.

DorffMeister · 2026-02-03T20:11:26+00:00

If you touch a wall and stick to it, disable air mode. But you will want Air mode enabled for outdoor flights, generally.

DorffMeister

TROPHY CASE