Behind The Scenes
Mantis FPV was born during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown period. This will be a year EVERYBODY will remember. Proof that ideas brew when you’re bored out of your skull during a lockdown. Maybe we should have more of it to solve our planetary problems.
Here, we shall share with you the journey we’ve taken to where we are now.
2024 will be our biggest year yet!
Sincerely,
Adriano, Felix, Sway, Chris(2x), Lewys, Chrysos, James & Kelvin
Adriano
General Manager & Co-Founder
Adriano is the real boss. He runs the show. An organisation is dependant on how well organised it is. Adriano makes sure we run a tight ship.
Felix
Shop Assistant & Consultant
Felix is an FPV all-rounder. He’s our jack-of-all-trades but master-of-none kinda dude. Of course we are joking. He knows his way around all things FPV plenty good, and loves helping our customers in any way possible. Ultimate nice-guy.
Sway
FPV Oracle & Consultant
Sway (short for “Swayam”) has big shoes to fill after the legendary Zeph. He’s our new FPV oracle, handling all your support tickets, new builds, repairs, tuning and everything else in between.
Chrysostomos
Shop Assistant
Another new addition to our team, Chrysostomos is also an FPV all-rounder.
Chris (CGO)
Drone Racing Consultant
If there’s ever anything about drone racing that Chris doesn’t know, it is probably not worth knowing.
Lewys
Tech Support & Ultimate Geek
We generally consider ourselves as geeks, but Lewys can out-geek anybody. He’s a walking all-things-tech wikipedia. Ultimate nice guy and a gentle giant 🙂
James
Commercial Ops Support
James is a new addition as of March 2024. He’ll be providing support to our commercial operations within MantisFPV.
Chris
Content Producer & Marketing
Chris drives brand growth and showcases the exciting world of FPV through epic video and photography. Check out his work here.
Kelvin
Bean Counter, Pseudo Boss & Co-Founder
Every organisation needs an old dude with a little grey hair who can do math. Kelvin’s the pretend boss who thinks he runs the show, but he’s just a glorified calculator who answers the phone every now and then. To be fair, the result of our very FAST and beautiful website is Kelvin’s doing. If it isn’t FAST nor beautiful, he’d love your feedback please.
Interesting BTS and timeline stories…
Social Send-Off 2023
14th December 2023
Thanks everyone for coming and making this year fantastic. Happy holidays! We can’t wait for more FPV fun next year.
Official 2023-2024 FPV Pilots Jersey
16 September 2023
The MantisFPV pilot sponsor jersey 2023-2024 is a limited edition jersey to celebrate the year and our awesome brand partners. Thank you to our brand partners for supporting 2023/24 release.
We have a new home
15th August 2023
We moved! Newer, bigger and a very much less house-looking place! 🙂
Find us here.
We’re still setting up the place! More photos to come soon. 😉
Our first Podcast!
21st July 2023
Adriano joined @onigiriandco’s podcast to talk about his drone history, owning a FPV store, community responsibilities, and opening a store in Australia during a global health crisis!
Sit down, grab a coffee and have a listen here.
Or watch below! 🙂
A Tale of Two Subcultures
01 July 2023
A dive into Parkour and FPV with Michael Khedoori
We turn 3!
11th June 2023
Another year has flown by, and we’re grateful to our bosses (our customers). Here’s to an even bigger year ahead! 🙂
Not too much cake Adriano…
Happy Chinese New Year - the lunar year of the RABBIT.
22 Jan 2023
To our customers and suppliers who celebrate the new year, we wish you all a very prosperous year ahead. May you all spend quality time with your families and loved ones.
School Holiday Drone Racing Workshop
04 Jan 2023
Our first school holiday FPV drone racing workshop was a success!
With Jac (13) and Julius (15), there is some promising young talent.
Pilots are learning from coach CGO that speed is not always a winner, but rather who has the smoothest lines.
Official 2022-2023 FPV Pilots Jersey
04 September 2022
The MantisFPV pilot sponsor jersey 2022-2023 is a limited edition jersey to celebrate the year and our awesome brand partners. Thank you to our brand partners for supporting 2022/23 release.
Our first farm stay weekend for team building
23 July 2022
Our first MantisFPV team building trip at our friends at Glen Donald Estate.
We turn 2!
11th June 2022
2 years passed by so quickly, we barely noticed. The pandemic didn’t help but we soldiered on.
First major shipment of Dogcom batteries
28 April 2022
Our first major shipment of Docgom batteries arrives! It is all hands on deck!
RadioMaster sponsored FPV station
19th January 2022
RadioMaster sponsored FPV simulator station is now running!
Trial group courses launched with great success!
11th December 2021
We’ve been working hard on bringing to the community, our introductory courses to FPV beginners. We’ve just conducted our first trial course with great success, hoping to roll this out in 2022 🙂
If you’re keen (or know somebody who is), go here.
Not really a milestone.
9th December 2021
All that hard work has earned Adriano a little snooze time.
Our first sponsored club! AFPVR
10th October 2021
We’re proud to be supporting the boiz over at Adelaide FPV Racing Club AFPVR!
Checkout Stuart AKA SQuiD-FPV clocking in some serious lap times around the track.
Official ToolkitRC repair and support centre for Australia and New Zealand
30th August 2021
We have partnered with ToolKitRC to become their official warranty and repair centre for Australia and New Zealand! 🇦🇺
This means after-sale support for your ToolkitRC products will be faster and much closer to home.
ToolkitRC is innovating FPV charging solutions. We’re keen to support them, and our customers.
FPV Club Sponsorship program launched
16th August 2021
While we sharpen our knives during our harsh NSW lockdown, we thought it’d make great sense to help support your local FPV clubs in some way. Check it out here.
A BOOM is to follow this dreaded lockdown – so let’s get ready!
NEW TEAM MEMBER - Zeph G
3rd August 2021
He looks angry, but he’s the sweetest, most helpful and knowledgeable FPV dude. He’s a cuddly bear. But he’s pretty mean on the sticks, so get out of his way when the goggles are on. Check him out at: @nerdling_fpv
Lights, FPV simulator, lap times chart and goggles
13th July 2021
Never dull. Our FatShark goggles arrived today! Adriano couldn’t help but to secure a pair for himself. He thinks he’s ready to take on the legends. That’s cute.
Check out our bespoke custom made FPV LED (neon-like) lights too!
We’ve setup a dedicate PC running LIFTOFF (behind Adriano). We urge our customers and visitors to have a crack and beat the best times!
ONE YEAR OLD!
14th June 2021
We turn ONE. The 12 months flew past swiftly. We’ve learnt considerably and made a ton of mistakes while we’re at it. We shall write a book one day…
BTW, we didn’t have a proper cake, so we stacked up some FPV quads to make a shitty looking FPV cake as a substitute. At least we used some professional lighting for the photo.
Not bad for a new business who started in the infamous year of 2020.
1000 orders
29th April 2021
We hit our first 1000 orders. We are honoured to be able to serve and treat our FPV addicted customers. However, we can never cure the addiction 🙂
Thank you.
We have a new home
30th January 2021
We were tripping over props at our old place. It was getting out of hand. So, we got a bigger place. No biggie.
Sydney-siders, select “local pickup” and come say hi. We are here.
First 500 orders
15th December 2020
We hit our first 500 orders. We are stoked and so very thankful to our customers whom we wake up everyday to serve.
Thank you.
Not forgetting, the addition of Joseph to the team. Check out some of his vomit inducing work here.
So, we made some custom flags and gates...
10th December 2020
Our first crack at making some of our own flags and gates. V2 coming soon.
First custom built heavy lifter FPV drone
5th November 2020
Built our first custom ordered heavy lifter drone (based on the Shen-drones Thic frame), this X8 was built for our friends at Sky Monkey for the use of Sony’s FX6 cinema camera debut, chasing drift cars 🙂
Exclusively at MantisFPV - premium custom goggle straps by FATSTRAPS
28th September 2020
We are wrapped (and strapped)! These premium custom goggle straps by FATSTRAPS became exclusively available by MantisFPV. Check them out here.
Work that branding, baby!
11th September 2020
These kevlar FPV battery straps are da bomb. Special thanks to Warren (@kenworthit)
More goodies...
21st August 2020
We might’ve just bought the last few DJI FPV goggles available in the country (at the time)
First batch of RadioMaster TX16s arrive
21st August 2020
Always brings happiness to the heart to see brand new hot property landing in our warehouse. These sold quickly!
MantisFPV branded tools in stock
13th August 2020
Optimus agrees, these are siik FPV tools. Check it all out here.
First 100 orders
4th August 2020
Wow, we are stoked. We didn’t think we’ll achieve 100 orders for many months. We are humbled. Thank you to our bosses – our customers. We hope to continue to satisfy your FPV addiction 🙂
"I want an FPV mentor" program launched
27th July 2020
Starting a new hobby/sport/interest isn’t easy. Lord Bardwell can only do so much (and he does plenty). We find many of our customers need a personal touch towards getting guidance. Simply register your interest, and we’ll try our best to connect you with an FPV mentor nearby.
"Become an FPV Mentor" program launched
22nd July 2020
One of our greatest goals, is to promote the sport/hobby of FPV drones to as many people as possible. We launched the “Become an FPV Mentor” program to help connect with new uprising stars. If you’re worthy, please apply within. There might just be some worthy incentives too 🙂
First BLOG written
13th July 2020
Gotta cherish the firsts! We’ve never been into BLOGs. I guess we are now! Check it out here.
First shirts made!
19th June 2020
The little things count. Like printing shirts! In a business where most things comes from China, it is rather refreshing to be able to do things locally. Shout out to our buddies at Teamkit Australia.
Our first customer!
13th June 2020
Alex (from Kess Media | Sky Monkey) is our very first online customer! We’ll always remember our first!
Website Launch
13th June 2020
Website launched without a hitch, midnight of 13th June 2020. All ducks were lined up. It was rather event-less actually. Then we went to bed.
Branding Design
4th May 2020
Our buddies at Get Noticed Media got cracking with our concept behind the Peacock Mantis Shrimp (or should we be calling it a “prawn” in Australia?). Anthony delivered us a cracking brand for MantisFPV. See our brand pack here.
Building in silence
2 May 2020
Many many many many hours of building a new and fast e-commerce website, that runs very efficiently and just blazingly fast. Kelvin got obsessed with making sure the website loads in under 1 second. He is proud to say, he now measures load times in miliseconds. For the keen eyed (footer reference), no – the server doesn’t really run on Raspberry Pi, nor is it powered by 2x CR2023s. However, it does run on Linux on our custom cloud servers, hosted at the fastest datacentre in Australia. We can’t really tell you where it is of course.
With the special help of Martin and Zac, Adriano smashed through the creation of products online. Again, many hundred hours dispensed without a roster. It was just full steam. Made with love.
Special mention to Paul L, our FPV shifu, telling us what to stock. We pretty much did the opposite to what he said most the time thereafter.
Company registered, domain name licensed, email server created
30th April 2020
All those mundane but essential things, done. Amazingly, this was done within the span of 3 hours. We’re that good. Infact, it might’ve taken us longer to think of this subheading than the actual doing.
Mantis FPV starts
27th April 2020
Hey Adriano, how about we start an FPV store?
