A first drone
The best drone for a beginner is a machine under 250 grams with satellite position hold, a return to home function and cheap replaceable propellers, bought in the hundred to three hundred pound band. That is a description of a class rather than a model, and it is deliberate: models are replaced every eighteen months and the description outlives all of them. What a first drone needs is forgiveness, and forgiveness is made of three specific things that most beginner listings never mention.
Where this class sits
Typical take-off weights for this class, on the same scale used on every class page, so the twelve can be read against one another. The only figure here with legal force is the 250 gram line.
What a first drone actually is
A first drone is a small multirotor aircraft chosen for how well it survives the mistakes a new pilot has not made yet, rather than for what it can do once those mistakes stop. It is a category defined by the pilot, not by the hardware, which is why it overlaps with several other classes and is sold under a label of its own.
The distinguishing number is 250 g. A first drone that weighs less than that sits in the lightest class the Civil Aviation Authority scheme recognises, carries the least paperwork, and does the least damage when it arrives somewhere unplanned. It is also, at that weight, cheap enough to replace and light enough that a fall onto grass usually does less damage than the same fall would do to a heavier machine. Every part of the beginner problem gets easier below that line, which is why the whole entry market has moved there.
What a beginner is sold instead is a different thing entirely. The listings that use the word beginner most heavily are usually describing the cheapest machines in the shop: no satellite positioning, no altitude hold worth the name, a fixed camera and a claimed resolution number that is produced by software. Those are toy drones with a beginner label attached, and they teach a new flyer that drones are frustrating. What a drone actually is describes the whole family this class is drawn from.
What separates a first drone from the rest
The one specification that separates a genuine first drone from the machines sold beside it is position hold from satellite navigation, backed by a barometer and a downward looking sensor. This is the feature that makes the aircraft stop and stay when you let go of the sticks. Without it a drone in a light breeze drifts steadily downwind, and the beginner spends every flight chasing it rather than flying it.
Three features do the work, and a first drone needs all three:
- Position hold, which anchors the aircraft over a fixed point when the sticks are centred.
- Altitude hold, which keeps the height you left it at instead of sinking whenever you look away.
- Return to home, which flies the aircraft back to its take-off point on command, on a lost link, or on a low battery.
What physically follows from position hold is that a beginner's flight becomes recoverable. A new pilot's worst moment is disorientation, the two or three seconds after the aircraft turns around and every stick input goes the wrong way. On a machine with position hold, the correct response is to take your thumbs off the controls, and the aircraft simply stops and waits while you work out which way it is facing. On a machine without it, taking your thumbs off makes everything worse. That single difference is worth more to a beginner than any camera specification.
Caution
Propellers on even a small drone spin fast enough to cut a finger and to damage an eye, and they can start unexpectedly if the aircraft is armed and the throttle is nudged. Put the aircraft on the ground before you touch it, and take the battery out before you handle the propellers or hand it to anybody else.
What a first drone costs
A first drone costs between roughly a hundred and three hundred pounds, and both ends of that band are defensible. Below a hundred pounds the position hold either is not there or is not reliable enough to do the job. Above three hundred pounds you are buying picture quality, which a beginner cannot yet use.
| Band | What it gets you | What it leaves out |
|---|---|---|
| Under fifty pounds | An aircraft to learn the sticks on indoors | Position hold, useful camera, any wind tolerance |
| Fifty to a hundred pounds | Altitude hold and a recorded picture | Reliable satellite hold, return to home |
| A hundred to three hundred pounds | Satellite position hold, return to home, sub 250 g weight | Low light picture quality, wind margin |
| Three hundred to six hundred pounds | A larger sensor and a stronger radio link | Nothing a beginner needs. This is a second drone. |
Paying more stops improving the first six months at about three hundred pounds. Beyond that the aircraft is not easier to fly, does not hold position more visibly and does not forgive a mistake more readily. The one thing worth buying above the base machine is a second and third battery, because flying time, not capability, is what limits how quickly a beginner improves. Camera drones sets out where the extra money does start to matter, which is in the picture rather than in the flying.
What to check before buying a first drone
Check these in the order a buyer meets them in a shop or on a listing. Each is a fact stated in the specification, and none of them requires a review to verify.
- Read the take-off weight in grams with the battery fitted, and check that it is under 250 g if you want the lightest class.
- Look for GPS or GNSS in the specification, not just the words altitude hold. Positioning by satellite is the feature that does the work.
- Confirm that return to home is listed, and that it triggers on low battery as well as on command.
- Check the price and availability of spare propellers, and buy two sets with the aircraft. A beginner breaks propellers, not airframes.
- Check whether propeller guards exist for the model, because early flying is usually done nearer to obstacles than it should be.
- Count the batteries in the box. One battery is between fifteen and twenty five minutes of learning a week.
- Check what the controller is. A dedicated controller with real sticks teaches control; a phone screen with virtual sticks does not, and is awkward with gloves in a British winter.
- Check that the aircraft folds or fits in a bag you already own, since a drone that needs a special trip is a drone that stays in the cupboard.
What flying a first drone is like
Flying a first drone for the first ten minutes is mostly a matter of nerve rather than skill. The aircraft takes off on its own, climbs to a couple of metres and sits there, and the beginner discovers that hovering is free. What follows is a slow expansion of a circle: forward and back, then left and right, then a turn, and then the moment when the aircraft is pointing at you and the controls appear to reverse. That moment is the entire beginner learning curve compressed into three seconds.
The skill this class demands is orientation, which means always knowing which way the aircraft is facing. It is learned by flying with the nose pointed away from you until it is boring, then turning ninety degrees and repeating that until it is boring, and only then flying towards yourself. Most people are through it in a few batteries.
A first drone punishes three habits in particular. It punishes flying near trees, because a hedge or a canopy will keep the aircraft and satellite hold will not save it. It punishes flying in more wind than the specification suggests, since the machine loses ground on the way home and the battery goes into reserve. And it punishes flying until the battery warning appears, because the warning is the point at which the aircraft has just enough left to come back, not the point at which the flight can continue.
The UK rules that apply to a first drone
A first drone under 250 g lands in the lightest weight class of the Civil Aviation Authority scheme, which is the least demanding one, though a camera on board still brings its own registration requirement and a heavier first drone brings more. Whatever it weighs, the ceiling is 400 feet, roughly 120 metres, and the aircraft stays in sight of your own eyes throughout. The Civil Aviation Authority publishes the requirements and revises them, so read the current version there, and read the pages on this site covering registration and where you may fly before the first flight rather than after it.
A first drone against the alternatives
The beginner class competes with three siblings, and there are readers for whom each of those siblings is the right buy instead.
Toy drones are the better answer for a child, and for an adult buying a present rather than a hobby. A ten year old given a three hundred pound aircraft will lose it, and will be told off for losing it, and that ends the interest. A twenty pound machine flown around a living room until it stops working teaches the same first lesson and costs nothing when it ends badly. Toy drones are also the correct choice when the flying is indoors, because a satellite hold is of no use inside a house.
Camera drones are the better answer for an adult who is not really a beginner at all. Somebody who wants aerial photographs of a coastline, has flown radio controlled models before, or is simply patient and careful can skip the beginner label entirely and buy for the camera, since the flying part of a modern machine takes an afternoon to learn and the picture is what they will live with for years.
FPV and racing drones are the better answer for a reader whose interest is flying itself. That discipline has a far steeper curve and it is learned on a simulator before it is learned in the air, but it teaches real stick control, and a beginner drone will bore that person within a month.
Is a first drone the right buy for you?
Yes, if you have never flown anything before and you want to find out whether you enjoy it without losing three hundred pounds discovering the answer. This class suits somebody buying their own first aircraft, flying in a park or a field at weekends, who wants footage of where they walk and expects to make a few mistakes doing it.
No, if you are buying for a child under about ten, in which case the money is better spent at the toy end, or if you already know exactly what you want the drone to produce, in which case buy for that purpose and treat the learning as a week's work rather than a category of machine. The beginner label is a stage, not a permanent kind of aircraft, and most people leave it behind faster than the market assumes they will.