Configuring and Tuning

When you buy a car and drive it off the lot, you really don't need to configure it or tune it.  Sure there are some settings and preferences to make it fit you better.  But as far as the motors, tires, suspension and handling, the manufacturer has taken care of that for you.  After all, you want to drive the car (most likely) and have it get you from point A to B and back again.    How and Why it all works is not something the manufacturer wants you, the driver, to be concerned with.

FPV quadcopters CAN be the same way.   You can purchase a RTF (ready to fly) kit that just needs your personal touches (bound to your radio) and you can be off and flying.   And that can be a lot of fun with the instant reward and satisfaction of quadcopter flight.

But what if you WANT to make it more your own.  What if you want to understand more of the "how" and the "why" , the ins and outs ?  What if you want it to fly more aggressive for racing or have different flight characteristics ?  Well, all of that is possible in the fpv quadcopter hobby.

For the majority of quadcopters, Betaflight and its companion software, Betaflight Configurator, will be a place to do the vast majority of configuration and tuning.   Although some aspects of configuration and tuning can be had in the radio transmitter (stick configuration, switch functions/layout, audio and visual cues)  and the fpv system (image aspect ratio, brightness, contract, video reception antenna selection... to name a few), the bulk of manipulating how the quadcopter flies is controlled in the flight controller software.