🔤 RC Glossary

Every RC term, decoded

Cars, crawlers, boats, planes, helis, drones, tanks and radios — every real term, plain English, no jargon left behind. New to RC? Start here.

447
Terms
17
Categories
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ABCDFHLOPRSTV

A

🎥 Acro Mode Full manual flight with no self-leveling — the standard mode for FP… 🎥 Analog vs Digital FPV Two video-link technologies: analog is cheap, low-latency and degra… 🎥 Angle Mode / Horizon Mode Self-levelling flight modes where the quad returns to level when yo… 🎥 Antenna Polarization RHCP or LHCP — the transmit and receive antennas on an FPV video sy…

B

🎥 Betaflight The most widely used open-source flight-controller firmware for FPV… 🎥 Blackbox A flight-data log recorded by the flight controller — used after a…

C

🎥 Camera FOV (Field of View) How wide a view the FPV camera captures, usually quoted as a diagon… 🎥 Camera Tilt (Uptilt) How far the FPV camera is angled upward from level, which sets how… 🎥 Cinewhoop A small FPV drone with ducted (shrouded) props, built for smooth, s…

D

🎥 DShot A digital signal protocol between flight controller and ESC that se… 🎥 DVR Digital Video Recorder — records the FPV feed (in the goggles or on… 🎥 Diversity Receiver A goggle receiver with multiple antennas that automatically picks w…

F

🎥 FPV First-Person View — flying or driving via a live video feed from an… 🎥 FPV Goggles The headset a pilot wears to see the live video feed from the aircr… 🎥 Flight Controller (FC) The onboard "brain" board on a drone — reads the gyro/accelerometer… 🎥 Frame Size (5-inch, 3-inch, X-Class) An FPV drone's size class, named by prop diameter — 5-inch is the r… 🎥 Freestyle Flying FPV for tricks and style rather than racing against other pi…

H

🎥 Ham (Amateur Radio) Licence An amateur radio licence, which in the US is generally needed to le…

L

🎥 LOS Line Of Sight — flying or driving while looking directly at the veh… 🎥 Lost Model Beeper An audible alarm you can trigger from the transmitter to help you f…

O

🎥 OSD On-Screen Display — telemetry (battery voltage, flight timer, GPS,…

P

🎥 PID Proportional-Integral-Derivative — the tuning values that set how a… 🎥 Part 107 The US rule set for flying small drones for non-recreational purpos… 🎥 Prop Propeller — for planes/drones/boats. Rated by diameter and pitch; p…

R

🎥 Rates How fast a drone rotates for a given stick deflection in acro mode… 🎥 Remote ID A US requirement for most drones to broadcast an identification and…

S

🎥 Spotter (Visual Observer) A second person standing with the pilot who keeps their own eyes on… 🎥 Stack (FC/ESC Stack) The flight controller and ESC combined into a compact bolted-togeth… 🎥 Sub-250 g A class of very light aircraft weighing under 250 grams ready to fl…

T

🎥 TRUST (Recreational UAS Safety Test) In the US, a free online safety test that recreational flyers must… 🎥 Tiny Whoop A tiny, lightweight ducted-prop FPV drone (typically 65-75mm) safe… 🎥 Turtle Mode (Flip Over After Crash) A flight controller feature that reverses selected motors so an ups…

V

🎥 VLOS / BVLOS (Visual Line of Sight) VLOS means you can see the aircraft with your own unaided eyes thro… 🎥 VTX Video Transmitter — the onboard transmitter that beams the FPV came… 🎥 VTX Power (25mW–600mW+) How much power an FPV video transmitter puts out — higher power rea…