Definition
An unmanned aircraft system flown by a remote pilot who controls it using a live video feed transmitted from a camera on the aircraft, displayed on goggles or a screen, giving the pilot the visual perspective of being onboard the aircraft rather than watching it from the ground.
Plain English
A drone flown by someone wearing video goggles (or watching a screen) that show what the drone's camera sees, so the pilot flies it as if they were sitting inside it.
Context Anchor
Seen in unmanned aircraft operations, especially when discussing how a drone is being controlled and how the operator is keeping track of it in flight.
Derivation
First Person View comes from gaming and film, where the viewpoint is from the character's own eyes rather than from outside. Applied to drones, it means flying from the aircraft's point of view instead of the ground observer's.
Why Pilots Care
Awareness of First Person View UAS helps manned pilots anticipate their flight behavior, visibility limitations, and regulatory requirements when sharing airspace.
Intuition Check
Do not assume “First Person View” means a person is onboard the aircraft. In this term, the person is remote and is seeing live video from the unmanned aircraft.
Example Sentence 1
Because she was flying a First Person View UAS, her partner stood beside her as a visual observer to keep eyes on the aircraft.
Example Sentence 2
First Person View UAS operations still require the pilot to maintain visual contact with the aircraft as specified in the regulations.