I'm sure that most of you are subscribed to Pawel's and Bruce's YouTube channels, but if you aren't or you missed their recent videos, then links to them are below. This is probably also related to what I was talking about in my post of another thread (HERE) about people giving up and abandoning the hobby. Not just through boredom and wanting to find something new to challenge themselves with, but also because of all the red tape and effort you now have to go through for something which should be an enjoyable relaxing hobby to do and not a chore or a hassle where you are constantly trying to evade any "Karens" or the authorities. I am regularly seeing posts on the Facebook FPV Marketplace group advertising whole FPV setups for sale because (in their own words) the seller is "leaving the hobby".

Some of the comments under the videos also make it clear what peoples feeling are on the whole situation.

quoting your post from the other thread
snowleopard:
"JB and some of the other YouTube influencers already have their part 107 license, and some also have a HAM license which is also required to legally fly a model aircraft in the US. However, there are no qualifications that allows you to fly FPV without a spotter in the US as far as I know. Having a part 107 license certainly doesn't allow doing that. The bottom line is that if you don't have a spotter with you then you need to make damn sure that no-one who might have an axe to grind with model aircraft pilots sees you and either confronts you, or reports you to the authorities, whether that be in person or from video footage posted on the internet. What this ultimately means is that FPV pilots will get pushed out to flying spots where there is no other civilisation, and as a result the hobby will start to die out as people just can't be bothered with all the hassle. This is probably exactly what the authorities are hoping for so they can start to clear the 0-400ft airspace for fee paying commercial flights by people just voluntarily giving up the model aircraft hobby through sheer frustration at all the rules and regulations they are legally supposed to follow."

there might be also a possible solution? we are getting smaller and our force to protect the hobby even shrinks. we need a mighty group which enlarge our influence. i believe the best group therefor are children, they just match for marketing :-) like described the plane in the park and he is still addicted, provide good content to the community and is us fpv-rant-priest xD
to protect the hobby, one strategy could be using tiny - toy looking crafts. tiny whoops does match that very nice, they attract childrens and dogs :-) they are small and nice :-) they show the absolute irrationality of laws against our hobby. to tell a children a whoop is very illegal and dangerous is going to be very difficult xD no one will believe in a danger or these laws... being illegal with a whoop is style :-) the cops will feel stupid by themself too if there will ever come a confrontation :-)
it would bring fpv out of the shadow we are going into.... there for whoops and analog fpv could still be the future of fpv ;-)
children will cry days and days for their whoop :-) this force is unbeatable :-)

flying a few packs on a whoop twice a week, in a park or sport area... any place where peoples can watch you! that could make a difference for our hobby in longterm :-)
while there might be ups and downs, overall i still believe there is alot room for fpv to grow - its an awesome addictive hobby, this wont change :-)
instant soups might bring more peoples into the kitchen, maybe more rtf is needed for some sort of pilots

what do you think about a "very-very!-very!-criminal-whoop-strategy" to protect our hobby out of the illegality?

what might the frequency of post on this forum tell about the market? it looks good for fpv :-)

I guess you will have to fly any whoops in the park by LOS.....until all the kids come swarming over, after which you will then have a whole army of spotters

FPV as we know is not an "easy" hobby. Most of the times there are no physical places to buy parts, and if there is such a place, typically is not cheap, so you have to be ok with online ordering, and still there is a bunch o people that is not ok with that. Then you have the technical barrier, that is a steep curve. Only the curious and tinkerers like to feel overwhelmed and the challenge per se. Now you have the legal barrier, so you have to register and so on, and even then you are still a criminal flying without a spotter. I think Bruce is spot on. My fear is that stuff just gets too expensive because companies start decaying and closing and no new efforts are put in hardware. I'm ok with what we have now if only this could last like it is.
I'm in Europe, I know that most of what I've written doesn't make sense in US.

Flying drones legally is getting more difficult than ever. In the future, I am sure we will encounter more restrictions. FPV will not end, but most of us continue to fly illegally. Unfortunately, this is the reality. We should be aware that our freedom in every way(not only drone specific) will be taken more and more everyday.

Ehh ... I am a fan of Pavel and somewhat of Xjet (I tend to think he can be a bit dramatic though hence the "somewhat"). And I certainly agree with their feelings about the FAA no doubt about that.

But dead? Zombie? Apocalypse? End of days?? Let me just ask this: how many among us have run into legitimate legal issues from flying their drone? I don't mean a dick cop or a-hole karen calling the cops and telling you to leave. I mean a legit statement by the FAA that says you are officially ... effed. I would be surprised if there was one among us. Just trying to add some balance here.

It is still a lot easier to do FPV than to say ride a motor cycle. The motor cycle lessons + test takes a lot of time and $. The FAA test takes 5 min, and is free. Registration is only $5, and only for quads over 250g.

Shooting is even more involved in testing and registration. (most places)

I get that people don't want to have to take the FAA TRUST test, or pay $5 to register, but when compared with other hobbies it doesn't seem so bad to me.

Then there is Racing. I used to want to start amateur racing, then I researched the fees + Race Licensing + Racecar certification +ect ect ect... Now THATs a hobby that takes a lot more than we have to put up with.

(13-Jul-2021, 11:01 PM)MrSolo Wrote: It is still a lot easier to do FPV than to say ride a motor cycle. The motor cycle lessons + test takes a lot of time and $. The FAA test takes 5 min, and is free. Registration is only $5, and only for quads over 250g.

Shooting is even more involved in testing and registration. (most places)

I get that people don't want to have to take the FAA TRUST test, or pay $5 to register, but when compared with other hobbies it doesn't seem so bad to me.

Then there is Racing. I used to want to start amateur racing, then I researched the fees + Race Licensing + Racecar certification +ect ect ect... Now THATs a hobby that takes a lot more than we have to put up with.

I used to be crazy into super bikes for a good decade of my life in South East Asia. I gave up and sold my last bike in 2017 because of the legal crap on the roads and the prohibitive costs and formalities of trying to do legal track days.

Now I live in Adelaide where the top speed limit on 99% of the roads is 60km/hr

I found my new love in FPV but it seems they are slowly catching up to us again.

I last messed with RC about 15 years ago with surface RC, a nitro basher truck the HPI Savage X. Here recently I picked up a little Losi Mini T for my cat to chase. Gave me the itch to give a lipo powered monster truck a try, an Arrma Kraton, what a beast and a blast it is. My point for bringing it up is in researching it I came across ArrmaForum.com and can't believe the amount of activity on there. It seems that last year with so many people on lockdown and some still working from home have found time for RC as a hobby. 

Messing around and watching videos on the Kraton I found a channel with abysmal views but he was running a Skydio drone with a tracker on the truck so it would follow it as he ran it up and down the field with his ramp in the field. The deal with those trucks is most of the time you're trying to send it or to the moon. On the same channel they were running the cars with some FPV pilots and that's when I realized I took up the wrong RC hobby. 

Either one of these surface or air is a lot of work. Being able to operate the truck takes little time compared to FPV, but I would say the maintenance work on the surface vehicles can be as time consuming or more to perform maintenance or tear down to replace parts on a basher compared to these quads. So many people can barely operate a screwdriver and would need a lot of hand holding to get them through all the hurdles to get up an running in one of these hobbies.

(13-Jul-2021, 11:59 PM)sevro Wrote: I last messed with RC about 15 years ago with surface RC, a nitro basher truck the HPI Savage X. Here recently I picked up a little Losi Mini T for my cat to chase. Gave me the itch to give a lipo powered monster truck a try, an Arrma Kraton, what a beast and a blast it is. My point for bringing it up is in researching it I came across ArrmaForum.com and can't believe the amount of activity on there. It seems that last year with so many people on lockdown and some still working from home have found time for RC as a hobby. 

Messing around and watching videos on the Kraton I found a channel with abysmal views but he was running a Skydio drone with a tracker on the truck so it would follow it as he ran it up and down the field with his ramp in the field. The deal with those trucks is most of the time you're trying to send it or to the moon. On the same channel they were running the cars with some FPV pilots and that's when I realized I took up the wrong RC hobby. 

Either one of these surface or air is a lot of work. Being able to operate the truck takes little time compared to FPV, but I would say the maintenance work on the surface vehicles can be as time consuming or more to perform maintenance or tear down to replace parts on a basher compared to these quads. So many people can barely operate a screwdriver and would need a lot of hand holding to get them through all the hurdles to get up an running in one of these hobbies.

I own a hobby shop in nj and I can tell you for sure arrma is the shit these days. I sell more arrma then everything else combined.

I was watching JB Live stream last night.. He said it could be a click bait.. lol idk man.

Youtube click bait. It's not hard too find an unpopulated place to fly drones around. No one is going to bother you.

Not sure what part of the world others are living in but the hobby is thriving in Chicagoland. I'm meeting more folks than ever and every single day I'm getting invites to spots.

Are people getting bored? I'm sure. Did Covid cause a spike in FPV? Wouldn't surprise me. But I don't believe for a minute that people are leaving because of Karens and police. The idea of having to "evade" them seems kind of hyperbolic to me (no disrespect meant, Snow). I've probably flown 5 days a week for the past 3 months, and in that time I've been told only twice to leave, and we simply went to another spot. I've had FAR more people interested and asking questions about FPV than giving us grief.

If I had to guess what makes people leave the hobby, it's the frustration that comes with the learning curve. Sometimes parts go bad - seemingly for no reason. There are so many things to learn - how to wire this part with that, why my receiver isn't binding, etc...and painfully little documentation (Thank GOD for this forum). It can be overwhelming if you don't put the time and effort in, or if you don't know anyone who flies. It's not an easy hobby, and a couple of beginners I've flown with have said the same thing - "why isn't this easier to start?"

On the other end, social media is flooded with FPV stuff, if you follow it. I got off Instagram yet again a month ago because just opening it and seeing nothing but FPV videos was starting to burn me out. Not to mention the self-imposed pressure to put up a cool video can kill a lot of the fun too. I've been going without the gopro for a bit now, and enjoying the flying.

But this whole "end times" talk is exaggeration, IMO. Maybe it's just where I live, but I'm not seeing an end to FPV here any time soon.

(14-Jul-2021, 02:46 PM)txbdan Wrote: Youtube click bait. It's not hard too find an unpopulated place to fly drones around. No one is going to bother you.

To some degree this ^^. I was just too wimpy to say it out loud lol.

IMHO,

Pawel is a douche..