Getting into drone racing can be exhilarating, but the barrier to entry can be daunting, you need a good racing drone, for starters. For those that are not quite ready to buy professional gear, just want to try out a hobby racer and see about getting started in the sport, let’s explore some inexpensive racing drones.

Our goal today is to stay under a $250 price point, but we may squeeze above a tad, if the machine warrants it.

Best racing drones under $250

1. Walkera Rodeo 110
2. Walkera Rodeo 150
3. Fat Shark 101
4. Blade Inductrix drones

Fun camera drones:

Drone legal and safety

Drone Pilot Training   |   Drone starter guide

Drone racing is a relatively new sport. While it has been fading from the limelight a little lately, the sport is as strong as ever. Prizes for competitions are as big as ever. The machines are as fast and agile as ever. It’s a fun time to be involved in the sport of racing drones.

We can’t all just hop into a race car and start winning races, we have to start somewhere. Today we propose you start with a racing drone under $250.

110 class

Walkera Rodeo 110

$170.00

MSRP

January 2017

Release Date

Walkera makes some fun racing drones. One of the best is the tiny Walkera Rodeo 110. Make no mistake, this machine is not the fastest or most agile or powerful around, it's just a solid offering for a small starter racing drone. You'll want a larger machine, and likely to build your own custom machine from the ground up, if you want to go pro, but a few of these booting around the backyard is great fun.

All the basics are covered in this little racing drone, so check out the Walkera Rodeo 110 for $170 today.

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Walkera Rodeo 150

A little larger and a little more refined aesthetically than the 110, the Walkera Rodeo 150 is a decent racing trainer. Not as resilient as some of our other options, we might recommend you save this machine until after you’ve got the hang of the 110 or other drone from our list today.

Check out the Walkera Rodeo 150 for $219 on Amazon today.

Fat Shark 101 trainer

Please forgive us for not adding this Fat Shark drone sooner. This is the Fat Shark 101 trainer. We first encountered this fun little drone at CES 2018, it was scooting around the Drone Rodeo making friends with everyone, whether they wanted to meet it or not. Actually, we were very impressed with how complete of a flying package you get for the price, Fat Shark built the perfect kit here for the beginner with drone, remote and goggles. Granted, the kit may not scale up and grow with you very well, but at least it’s fun and worth its price.

Check out the Fat Shark 101 trainer for $180 today.

Micro racing: Blade Inductrix drones

Blade makes a few drones, most based around the Inductrix airframe. The main Blade Inductrix is a tiny quadcopter that is little more than a toy, but is adaptable to different uses and accessories. One of the leading benefits of the Inductrix is that it can connect to advanced 2.4GHz controllers. If you have a powerful transmitter from your full-fledged racing drone, or an RC airplane, you can bind it to the Inductrix as well. 

• The base Blade Inductrix is around $40.
• The Blade Inductrix FPV is $58, with a built-in 1080p camera.
• The Blade Inductrix Switch is $70, which converts from drone to fixed-wing craft, and even converts into a hovercraft.

There are more

We’re going to stop our list here for today. We know there are other drones out there that offer a great beginner’s experience for under $250, but we think these machines provide some of the best speeds and decent resilience to crashes.

Related reading: Best drones for beginners

Hit us up in the comments below if you have a fun and functional drone or two you’d like to add to our list.