Over the past couple of months I've been looking at the vast range of FPV drones and kit available in the hope of finding something that would suit me for my first foray into FPV drones.

What I'm finding, particularly for UK sites and ones that ship to the UK, is that much of what they list is shown as out of stock, often with indefinite restock times. Is there a huge shortage of stock for all things FPV, or something else going on?

Products change by the day. Resellers are being super careful not to get stuck with "yesterdays must have" expensive item (can you blame them at current prices??). So stock in sells out straight away (unless its rubbish!)

Tell us more on what you would like to do FPV wise. indoor/outdoor/size/weight/flying style (scenic, aerobatic, etc) and we'll advise......................

In addition to what has already been said, there is currently very high demand for FPV components in military applications (I'm sure you know exactly what I'm talking about), so that probably also contributes as a reason to why the supply chain is currently being starved of a number of products.

It seems like a fair explanation of what is going on, although I've never seen this extent of "out of stock" from online retailers in the past, even for relatively fast moving tech. I did wonder if current "world events" was affecting supplies too. I guess if you want to actually buy something you basically need to request notification for when it comes back in stock and wait patiently?

A for what exactly I want, I've not fully landed (scuse the pun) that yet. A quad that does everything I ultimately would like doesn't exist so I need to whittle down on my top priorities, and decide what compromises I'm happy with. I've had a fair bit of discussion on another thread here and am gravitating towards a 1 or 2s whoop, possibly HD, and a future expansion to a 3" long range quad. I have a few other things going on that mean I probably won't be actually buying anything for a few months yet, but can take my time researching the options and building some muscle memory on simulators.

Racedayquads is a US shop, but they recently advertised offering inexpensive international shipping. Not everything is in stock either, but they still have a decent offering and I've always had good after sales support from them. Might be worth having a look. They also sell the Emax Nanohawk BNF for $50 if you really wanted a Frsky 1S bnf.

https://www.racedayquads.com/collections...uads-wings

Unfortunately we get shafted for VAT and import taxes in the UK when buying anything from the US, so more often than not it's not really worth it unless the product is on a huge discount and shipping is dirt cheap, or you are so desperate that you will just pay whatever it costs. It's why people here tend to buy stuff direct from China rather than the US.

Wow, with US and UK being such "good" trade partners you would have thought someone would have sorted this out. So you don't need to pay VAT and duty on goods from China?! Well there are certainly a lot more choices and much lower prices if you are comfortable buying from China, probably just more of a pain if you ever had to return something. I've been getting a lot of parts off Aliexpress, but keep in mind each shop is an independent seller. Most have been very good and replaced lost packages, missing parts, defective items, etc. some others drag their feet and try to brush off issues.

Yep. So much for the UK striking up a trade deal with the US after Brexit. Like many other post-Brexit promises, it never happened.

Prior to 2021 most UK buyers got away without paying VAT and other import taxes on any parcels coming in from China. I certainly never got stung for any additional fees by customs & excise. Unfortunately, since the beginning of 2021 some of the Chinese companies started charging UK VAT at the checkout for any purchases destined for the UK that totalled under 135 GBP (including the postage costs) so there is no way to avoid paying those taxes (see another post HERE about that). I tend not to buy expensive items from China anymore due to the problems with warranty (general lack of it) and no UK consumer protection laws in the event of something going wrong, which would also be the case if buying from the US. I have however bought a couple of items worth more than 135 GBP from Chinese vendors in the past 18 months and both parcels got through customs without attracting and additional taxes.

People I know who have bought stuff from the US say that their parcels have always been flagged by customs for additional tax and import fees. I don't know why the US parcels and not ones from China, but that is just how it seems to be.

AliExpress is essentially just a Chinese version of eBay, but they do seem to have your back if something goes wrong or parcel goes missing in the post. I haven't had many issues with AliExpress sourced items but for the few that I did, my money just got refunded after I filed a dispute without any further questions being asked.

Best thing to do for parts is when they are available, buy lots of spares. Like for me good AIO's are a pain to find in the UK. So I am on the mail list at UMT, YourFPV and HobbyRC for all the the things I want but can't get. I am also a night owl. So when that email drops that says component X has arrived in stock (usually falls in the box after midnight for UMT), I have bought up what I want inside the next hour. Last thing was those Darwin 1-3S AIO's. They came in and by 8am they were out of stock again. You have to be on the ball a late. Most other stuff I want can be sourced at other places, but FC related tends to be UMT only.

Also even with the discount code, HobbyRC are intrinsically more expensive and on some level I find the way they do business, specifically the whole shutting down the market for other competitors to be somewhat distasteful and reminiscent of the way Microsoft, Google and Apple do business. But i still do some business with them, but mostly I use UMT and YourFPV (if I can).

I also get stuff from Ali and Xinte via ebay, from time to time. Mostly motors that never seem to be in stock over here. Stuff like those HM 1204's I've had my eye on. But we do have less availability compared to back in '21. Back then there wasn't such a shortage of AIO's and other things. I also don't think you can blame the whole Ukraine/Russia war for it. The US and it's current chip wars with China probably isn't helping matters either, but then China doesn't have clean hands either with it's piss take level weather balloon bollocks.