[Liftoff] FPV Drone Beginner Tips – A Simple Setup Guide for Faster Skill Improvement

1. FPV Is Definitely Hard — But With the Wrong Initial Setup, It Becomes Twice as Hard.

From indoor practice to choosing the right drone,
this article breaks down the points where beginners get stuck most often.

Here’s a gameplay clip of my racing drone in action.

It has now been 20 hours since I started learning FPV drones.
I practiced for about 30 minutes to an hour every Saturday and Sunday.

At this point, on easier tracks, I can complete a lap in the 40-second range while maintaining an average speed of 110–120 km/h.

Of course, skilled pilots can finish the same track in the mid-20-second range.

With lap times in the 40s, I’d say my skill level is somewhere between lower-intermediate and mid-intermediate.

To get into the 20–30 second range, you need to memorize the most efficient racing line and fly while keeping your speed up, avoiding unnecessary slowdowns.
That also means your drone settings and camera angle need to be much more speed-oriented.

If you watch my footage, you’ll notice that I still have very unstable leveling and inconsistent lines through the course.

Honestly, I believe that if you’ve spent 20 total hours in an FPV simulator, you’d probably be flying better than I am.
I started FPV at a slightly later age, after all.

While repetitive practice definitely helped, I think my biggest improvement came after I learned how to properly set up the drone.

From here on, I’d like to share some tips for beginners based on my own experience.

If you’ve been flying longer than I have, or if you’re already at an intermediate or advanced level, this probably won’t be very helpful for you.

1. Don’t Stick With the Default Drone — Choose One That Fits You.

When you’re just starting out, even understanding the names of drone parts is difficult,
and controlling the drone itself already feels overwhelming.
Being told that you also need to know how to set up a drone at this stage honestly makes no sense.

You don’t need to choose the best drone out there.

But you do need to make sure your drone isn’t set up the wrong way.

An Example of a Bad Drone Setup) When I first started, I was so eager to finish building my drone that I rushed through everything and threw it together without much thought.

As a result, I ended up flying my FPV drone with a heavy action camera mounted on it.

And I did that… for an entire month.

If your drone has a heavy action camera mounted on it,
or if your camera angle is outside the 20–30° range, make sure to check that first.

When the camera angle is too low, the drone feels sluggish and struggles to move forward.
On the other hand, if the camera angle is too high, the drone loses stability—
because it constantly wants to surge forward.

If you’re reading this and actually trying it right now,
open GPT immediately and ask for help with a racing-focused FPV setup.

Take screenshots of your drone model and motors and ask GPT whether there’s a better setup it can recommend.

With a setup that takes less than 10 minutes to configure,
you can turn hours of frustrating flying into a much more enjoyable experience.

*That said, once you become more comfortable, I recommend making small adjustments yourself through trial and error.
I built both my racing drone and indoor drone setups by asking GPT for help.
While the racing setup worked great, the indoor drone setup felt slightly off at first.
After I later swapped out the motors and propellers, the flight experience became noticeably smoother.

2. Are You Flying Indoor-Friendly Courses With a Racing Drone?
Separate Your Indoor Drone Setup From Your Racing Setup.

If you’re an experienced pilot, you can probably get solid performance indoors even with a racing drone.
But if you’re a beginner and indoor maps are causing you a huge amount of stress, take a step back and check your setup.

You might be flying indoor maps with a racing drone,
or practicing on maps that are too tight, technical, or unpredictable for your current skill level.

For beginners, separating indoor-course drones and racing-course drones can dramatically reduce frustration and make practice far more effective.

This is my indoor drone.

I initially set it up following GPT’s recommendations, but it struggled to exceed a top speed of 70 km/h and barely generated enough lift to fly properly.
Because of that, I ended up changing both the battery and the motors.

While indoor maps rarely require speeds above 70 km/h, the real problem was low output.
Even at 30–40 km/h, the drone felt like it was constantly glued to the ground, lacking the punch needed for smooth control.

That said, this indoor drone has a major advantage: it’s extremely durable.

Unlike racing drones, which can shatter from even a light bump into a wall, this drone remained stable and resilient even after multiple collisions in complex indoor maps.
It was also far easier to make tight turns in narrow spaces.

As a result, tracks that used to take 1–2 minutes to finish with a racing drone could now be completed in under 50 seconds.

More importantly, its durability and stability significantly reduce the terrible stress many beginners experience when flying indoor maps.

I don’t think a slightly slower speed on indoor maps is a bad thing.

Every time I tried indoor maps with a racing drone, I felt constant stress.
But once I set up a separate indoor drone, everything changed.

The speed was no longer overwhelming, altitude control became much easier,
and because the drone was durable enough to survive multiple collisions,
my overall completion times actually became shorter.

I’ve seen truly skilled pilots finish a lap in the high-to-mid 10-second range,
but I don’t think I’ll ever reach that level—and that’s okay.

In the end, the choice is yours.

You can absolutely fly indoor and complex maps with a racing drone,
or you can create one versatile setup that works for both racing and indoor tracks.

This approach helped me finally clear underground parking garage maps
and several notoriously difficult courses that I simply couldn’t finish even after 20 hours of practice.

For anyone who has started FPV with genuine interest and passion,
simulators are an excellent way to save both money and time.
And someday soon, I’m sure I’ll be flying a real FPV drone as well.

So if you’ve installed a drone simulator—including Liftoff—
remember this: good practice matters, but even simple adjustments to your drone setup
can make your progress feel far smoother and more natural.