Written by an individual who has spent 6 months as a foreign volunteer FPV pilot looking into effectivity of these drones on the frontline. He claims they are pretty much a fad with limited impact. The issues are:
- unreliable / cheap hw
- limited amount of radio channels for video / control (I thought they were running custom FCs - they aren’t!)
- weather and light conditions dependent
- suseptible to electronic warfare
- lack of qualified pilots / hard to fly
- not always the chapest or quickest option
Note: I am something of an FPV “pilot” myself, I am not sure I agree with everything being said (eg imo fpv drones aren’t toys for rich people - I am definitely not rich), but interresting reading anyway. Also - I’ve never been to a war - I know crap.
AFAIK betaflight (IMO the most coommon fc fw) will only start supporting
POSHOLD
/ALTHOLD
from yet unreleased version 4.6. I’ve recently seen a video about it from Joshua Bardwell - its far from perfect and relies on GPS module that Ukrainians don’t use (according to the article above) to keep the cost as low as possible.I agree that there is a difference between learning to fly and learning to fly well.
Damn they’re behind. I was using emuflight for a bit and iNAV. Wonder why they aren’t using iNAV. Great for long distance. You also need a barometer for altitude.