There is a lot of drone lingo (acronyms) in drone racing that can be overwhelming when starting in the sport

We have tried to gather many of the common terms pertaining to FPV drones that often refers to specific items that make up an FPV drone. Hope these help you to get a better understanding of FPV flying and hope to see you are a race soon

 

FPV – First Person View (this includes an on-board camera that is transmitted to a receiver “goggles” allowing the view as if you are onboard)

LOS – Line of Sight (This is a flight that the pilot views their craft  with the naked eye without any video transmission)

RTF – Ready To Fly (this is a drone that is prebuilt by either a builder or the manufacturer and takes minimal effort to get your drone in the air. These include all parts needed to fly including the controller, RC receiver and sometimes the FPV goggles). Most pilots buy parts individually and build their own however if you are new to flying a Ready to Fly might be a great way to start out)

BNF – Bind N Fly (This is a drone that is prebuilt but often is just the drone unlike RTFs. It also usually comes without a RC receiver or controller. Items that are still needed is a controller, receiver and FPV goggles. Once the receiver is installed and bound to the controller the drone will be ready to fly)

Arm/Disarm – This is the process of enabling your drone for flight or shutting down the props. Unlike many devices that simply start functioning when the battery is plugged in drones do power up but the props will not start until the drone is armed.

Failsafe – Without a failsafe being configured on a drone if at any time your drone looses the controller signal it becomes unpredictable which is what failsafe avoids. This configuration allows you to dictate what the drone will do as well as how long it will wait to failsafe. Many pilots configure their drone to simply disarm if the signal is lost which falling out of the sky is much better than watching your drone head for the horizon

VTX – Video Transmitter (This is the device mounted on the drone that transmits the video signal from the onboard camera)

ESC – Electronic Speed Controller (This is a device on the drone that provides the variable speed of the props of the drone. Each ESC controls a single motor and can come individually or can be built onto a single board known as a 4-in-1 ESC.

FC – Flight controller (This is the brains of the drone which has firmware providing instruction to the ESCs and many configuration options including onscreen display, tuning, mode control, filtering, failsafe setting, and many others. FCs also generally have on board Accelerometers and sometimes other devices like Gyros etc.)

PID – Proportional Integral Derivative ( These are the tuning to improve the responsiveness of your drone)

FW – Firmware

ACC – Accelerometer

RSSI – Received Signal Strength Indicator (This is an estimated indicator of the signal strength being received from your controller)

OSD – Onscreen Display ( This can be configured to include details in the display such as battery power, flight time, error codes and signal strength among many other options.

Air Mode – Air mode is a preferred feature on BetaFlight that causes the props to spin at a speed that allows for stability and slight authority when the throttle is at its lowest level.

Acro/Rate mode – Acro mode is a setting that allows the pilot complete control of the drones movement and eliminates the drone to auto-level. This mode is the more challenging mode to master however most all pilots fly in this mode to allow for all maneuvers needed for racing.

DVR – Digital Video Recording (Recording device that stores the video signal received from your drone. This can be either a standalone device or can be built into your goggles)

Kv – Represents the constant velocity of a motor (this is not “kV,” the abbreviation for kilovolt). This value identifies the number of revolutions per minute (rpm) a motor will turn when one volt is applied with no load

Batteries

LiPo – Lithium Polymer Battery 

mAh – MilliAmp Hour (capacity of a battery which generally will effect its physical size and weight of the battery. Higher capacity the heaver it is)

C Rating – The C rating pertains to the continuous discharge rate of a LiPo. Most LiPos provide a C rating allowing you to know the max power a battery can provide until it becomes discharged. The higher the C rating the more power a battery can expel at one time

S Rating – S rating represents the amount of cells that are combined in the battery. A single cell provides 4.2 volts fully charged therefore the amount of cells added to a battery the volts are multiplied by the cell count. Example: 1S= 1 Cell(4.2V) 2S= 2 Cells(8.4V) 3S=3 cell(12.6V) 4S= 4 cell(16.8V) 5S= 5 Cell(21V) 6S= 6 Cell(25.2)

Minimal LiPo Discharge – Unlike other batteries your LiPo cells have a minimal voltage that needs to be maintained to avoid battery damage. Most pilots suggest that you do not allow your battery to fall below 3.5V per cell otherwise, damage can occur shortening the life of the battery. Batteries that are discharged below 3 volts per cell sometimes do not recovery even when being recharged. Even if they recover however they are still damaged due to the low voltage level

I hope this information gets you up to speed with the drone lingo used at many races and hope to see you at a race soon