Eachine Q90C Flyingfrog - Your Gateway to FPV

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I ordered the Eachine Flyingfrog three months ago. It looked like an interesting package. For about $90, you get everything you need to get a taste of flying an FPV quadcopter. There’s a brushed-motor quad, a remote control, and a set of FPV goggles. You even get a battery and a simple USB charger.

I’ve been carrying this box around in my car for weeks, but I keep forgetting to give it a try. I recently added a Ryze Tello photography drone to my oversized backpack. These two drones are trying to meet different needs, but there will be some overlap for some people. Even though they are meant to serve different purposes, there are two obvious similarities. They both use 8520 brushed motors, and they are both priced at around $100.

You won’t be doing any photography with the Flyingfrog. A lot of people seem to think they’ll have fun flying their Tello in FPV using their phone. If you’re more interested in flying FPV than taking pictures, you’ll have a lot more fun with the Flyingfrog.

It will be a while before I collect enough photos and video to decide if the Tello is worth the price, so I figured I should write about the Q90C Flyingfrog first!

You get what you pay for

I’m going to get this part out of the way. The experience isn’t great. The goggles work, but the screen is tiny and difficult for me to focus on. The remote control works, but they have a huge dead zone near the center of the sticks.

It isn’t like flying a proper FPV racing or freestyle quad. I’ve flown several micro quads with brushed motors just like the Q90C Flyingfrog, but I flew all of those other brushed quads with a $200 radio. There are no dead zones on Taranis or Spektrum radios. As an experienced FPV pilot, the dead zones on the Flyingfrog’s remote control are infuriating.

You still get a lot for your money

I started flying FPV quadcopters more than a year ago. At the time, all the veterans told me how good I had it. I only had to pay $200 for a radio, $100 for a set of entry-level goggles, $250 for an overpowered bind-n-fly racing quad, $50 for a charger, and $25 per battery. It was so much cheaper than when they got into the hobby two years earlier.

That was still over $600 just to get in the air. Things have improved since last year. You can probably get in the air today with a BFight 210, a Taranis Q X7, and a $50 set of box goggles for well under $400. The BFight 210 is an excellent quad at an amazing price.

That’s still three or four times more money than the Eachine Flyingfrog, and that $400 only gets you entry-level gear. Do you want to spend $400 just to learn whether you’re interested in the hobby?

Even with its faults, I think the Flyingfrog is an excellent way to try FPV. Let’s talk about what’s in the box.

The goggles

Why am I talking about the goggles first? If you decide that flying FPV quadcopters is a fun hobby, the goggles are the only thing in the box that you will be able to use with your future quadcopters.

The goggles work surprisingly well. They’re the smallest set of box goggles I have ever used, but they also have the smallest screen. They have an internal battery that charges over USB. They are standard 5.8 Ghz analog FPV goggles.

I can definitely fly with these goggles. The reception is surprisingly good, and I have even flown one of my most expensive FPV quads with them. They work fine, but I switched back to my Fat Shark goggles as soon as I verified that the Eachine goggles work!

If you do get into the hobby, you’ll definitely want to upgrade the goggles. That said, though, you could most certainly limp along with these goggles for your first few months. You’ll also be glad you have a spare set. They will make an excellent set of spectator goggles.

The Q90C Flyingfrog quadcopter

The Flyingfrog is an overgrown Tiny Whoop. It is a bit large for flying indoors, but that didn’t stop me from trying. It has enough power to fly outdoors on a breezy day, and it can manage to do some simple acrobatics.

The Q90C has props guards, and I would highly recommend using them indoors. The trouble is, the prop guards are way too fragile for a quadcopter this heavy. I don’t even think mine has been in the air for 30 minutes yet, and I’ve already broken two.

It works a lot like our full-size miniquads. It can fly in angle, horizon, or manual modes. In angle mode, the quadcopter will level itself, and it will only tilt to a limited angle. Beginners usually prefer this mode—if you get in trouble, just let go of the left stick and the quad will flatten itself out.

If you want to do acrobatics, you’ll want to fly in the Flyingfrog’s manual mode. Manual mode is equivalent to Betaflight’s rate mode. That means you have to keep the throttle above zero during acrobatic moves—even when you’re upside down! Most pilots use Betaflight’s air mode so we can drop our throttle all the way and still have a responsive quadcopter.

This is difficult for me to get used to, and this is why I fell out of the sky in my video when trying to do a power loop!

The radio

We refer to it as a “radio” or “transmitter”. You might call it a remote control. It is the thing with the sticks that allows you to control your quadcopter.

The Q90C radio feels terrible. For the price, though, I find it difficult to complain. It has huge dead zones at the center position of each stick. When you’re trying to perform delicate maneuvers, you’ll push the stick slowly, then all of a sudden the quad will respond to your input more rapidly than you intend.

This makes it difficult to fly with precision, but the Flyingfrog isn’t exactly a precision machine. It is a toy meant to give you a taste of what it feels like to fly a real FPV racing quad. It does that job well enough. If you’ve never flown before, you’ll probably get used to it quickly.

Flying in the simulator

This is probably the best part about the Flyingfrog. You can use the included hardware to fly in most FPV simulators!

Setting it up is a bit convoluted. You have to plug the Flyingfrog quadcopter into your computer. Then you hit the CH/GAME button on the remote control. It should be detected as a USB joystick.

I tested it in the Liftoff simulator running on Linux. Everything worked just fine.

The simulators are awesome. For Christmas, we got my 13-year-old nephew a 5” BFight 210, a Taranis X9D+, and everything else he would need to fly FPV. We put him in the simulator for an hour or so two days in a row. We took him out to the park, and he flew around the big, open field.

That night, we let him practice flying through race gates in Liftoff. The next day, he was flying through our race gates with his real quad. It took me a month of real-world practice to do that without having a simulator.

If you can fly well in the simulator, you are probably ready to fly a real racing quad!

What is the upgrade path?

I firmly believe practicing in the simulator is the fastest and cheapest way to learn to fly. Being able to use the Eachine Flyingfrog’s controller in the simulator is a good first step, but you will quickly hit a wall. Even if you could manage to get used to the dead zones, the stick gimbals are quite awful anyway.

The first thing you should do is upgrade your radio. You’ll want to upgrade to something you can use with all your future quadcopters. You should definitely get a FrSky radio. I am a fan of the $190 Taranis X9D+, but the $110 Taranis Q X7 is also a fine radio. You can plug either of these radios into your USB port to use with the simulators. They are the radios of choice for most FPV racing and freestyle pilots.

Once you’re ready for a full-size miniquad, there are a lot of options. I’ve already written about two of them. You can build your own, or you can buy something that has already been assembled. The parts are comparable. It is a lot like the difference between buying a computer or building your own.

My friends and I are all fans of the BFight 210. I’ve written about it several times. At around $140, it is quite inexpensive, but you get a lot for your money. It flies great out of the box, and it is light for a 5” miniquad. My friends regularly get 9-minute flights out of theirs. Even if you are heavy on the throttle, it is tough to get less than 5 minutes out of a single battery.

Most experienced pilots build their own quads. You’re going to be spending time repairing them, so you may as well build exactly what you want. I wrote about my 5S quadcopter builds for 2018. Those two quads are fairly high-end, and extremely durable. You can build something like that for around $350. You can spend more. You can spend less. It just depends on what your goals are!

You could also stick with micro quads. Brushless micro quads are finally starting to feel and fly very much like a full-size miniquad. I carry a Leader 120 in my backpack. It is priced at about $90—same as the Flyingfrog kit, but it doesn’t come with goggles, transmitter, or receiver. It is a fantastic little quad. I’d pay quite a bit more than $90 for it, but it is awesome that I didn’t have to!

Other alternatives

I was talking to my friend Mike. He borrowed my Flyingfrog and Ryze Tello for a Boy Scout event. When he stopped by to pick up the gear, we chatted about other alternatives.

Maybe you don’t want to get straight into FPV. Most of us started our journey flying toy drones line of sight. Mike recommends the SYMA X5C-1 from Amazon. For less than $60, you get a relatively large quadcopter, a couple of batteries, a controller, and some spare props. That’s everything you need to get started and keep flying for a while!

The SYMA drone is too big to fly indoors. If you want a cheap, indoor toy, you should be looking at the Eachine E010. For around $13 shipped, you’ll have everything you need to get flying. The Eachine E010 is a clone of the Blade Inductrix. It doesn’t have enough power to fly outside unless it is a completely wind-free day, but it is fantastic for flying around in the house!

I’ve not flown the Eachine branded model, but I have flown toy drones that look identical. I imagine they come out of the same factory. They fly just fine, but you get what you pay for. That said, they’re cheap enough that you can buy one for everyone in the family!

If you don’t want to wait for the $13 quadcopter to arrive from China, the JJRC H36 Mini Drone at Amazon looks identical to the Eachine. It is currently $20 with Prime shipping.

Eachine also has a Flyingfrog-style combo package—the Eachine E013, but it includes a Tiny Whoop clone instead of a Flyingfrog. I haven’t tried it, but Stew at UAVFutures says it is pretty good. I assume it is comparable to my Flyingfrog. It is also $30 cheaper than the Flyingfrog!

I like the lower price, and if you want to fly indoors, the Eachine E013 is probably a better fit than the Flyingfrog. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the E013 can be used to control a simulator.

Conclusion

If you haven’t flown an FPV quadcopter, the Eachine Q90C Flyingfrog is an inexpensive way to test the waters. Before I got into FPV, I had a $230 Spektrum DX6 radio and a $60 Blade Nano QX. I had no camera and no goggles. The only advantage I had with that setup over the Flyingfrog was the high-quality radio.

The Spektrum radio was a huge advantage, but I would have happily given that up at the time for FPV—especially if I got to keep the other $200 in my pocket!

If you want to try FPV, it is hard to beat the Eachine Q90C. You can spend $90, and be flying around your back yard or a park in no time.

How did you get started in FPV? Do you agree that the Eachine Flyingfrog would be a good way for a newbie to test the waters? Do you have a better idea? Let us know what you think in the comments, or join us on our Discord server!

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