Meet Bangkok's most viral drone pilot

An Austrian locksmith. A drive to capture better hiking shots. A lifelong grip on a PlayStation controller. 

Simon Frühwirth was 24 when he bought his first drone. Nothing grand about it – he just wanted better shots from his hiking trips. A way to capture the mountains the way they actually felt, not just the way a camera pointed upward would see them. He started with standard drones. Then FPV came along.

First Person View (FPV)  is exactly what it sounds like. Goggles on, live feed straight to your eyes. It shifts a bit from control to immersion. From steering to actual flying.

FPV is now his signature. You might not recognise his face – he's almost always behind the goggles, controller in hand – but you've almost certainly seen the work. 

A drone moving through Thai hotels in one long unbroken take. Down corridors, across pools, up staircases, entire spaces mapped without a single cut. Effortless on screen. Anything but in practice.

Now 31, drifting between cities but always somewhere in Southeast Asia and always booked solid, Simon Frühwirth is still chasing what he calls ‘the flow state’. The same feeling he first found on an Austrian hiking trail with a brand new drone and not a care in the world.

This is how the right hobby, in the right hands, under an open sky, can make a life.

 

Let’s rewind to the moment you first picked up a drone

I was working as a locksmith, spending my free time hiking in the Austrian mountains and playing PlayStation (FIFA specifically). Those were my two things. Then I started wanting to actually capture the trails properly – make little videos of what I was seeing up there. Then it hit me: drones! 

I got a normal one first, one of those point-and-shoot ones then FPV came later.

So gaming actually trained you for flying drones?

Yes! – more than I realised at the time. 

The controller felt natural. I’d been holding a PlayStation controller for who knows how long, so the muscle memory was already there. I didn’t feel like a beginner with the controls because, in a way, I wasn’t.

In a weird way, those two things made me really good at this. Hiking sparked the desire for better landscape shots and PlayStation trained my hands. I’ll make a statement here: a lot of serious drone pilots are gamers! The spatial awareness, the reflexes, reading movement quickly, it all transferred. 

At what point did this turn from a passion into your profession?

October 2024. I quit my job and bought a one-way ticket to Bali.

I was four years into flying drones, two of those seriously on FPV and I kept entering this flow state where it was just me and the drone.

It was in Bali that I finally had room to grow into it. Daily flying built discipline and clarity around turning this into a profession. 

From Bali's beaches to Bangkok's high-rises – how did that happen?

Bangkok is a completely different conversation from Bali. Bali gives you nature mostly. Bangkok pulls you inside – vertical, dense and layered in the best way. 

Hotels, high-rises, long corridors of glass and steel that make every shoot feel alive. The client appetite here is unlike anywhere else – hotels especially – and the mix of commercial work and online coaching has turned into something genuinely sustainable. FPV commercially in Bangkok is still a rare thing. But Bangkok has always had room for everything creative.

Your Instagram shows you flying in real time alongside the actual footage in a split screen. What made you start editing it that way?

Honestly, right now I'm mostly flying for work in Bangkok – hotels especially. I'm not flying for fun as much as I imagined I would be. Commercial work has its own discipline. But the thing I always come back to is my editing style on Instagram – that split screen of me in the goggles, controller in hand, working the shot. Because not many people will sit through a long drone take. But show them the feeling behind it, the moment I either catch or crash – that's where the emotion lives. The realness, behind-the-scenes stuff is what people love to see.

How long before things actually took off online?

My breakthrough took about a year – 10,000 followers just happened. I was in Bali at the time doing the exact same thing. Once it moves, it moves fast.

Do you think about the algorithm or just post?

I don’t study algorithms at all. I don’t care about them. But I do post every day, at any time. I don’t even read the comments haha!  

I think when you create consistently people always see something on your page and somehow it gets rewarded. Certain videos don't blow up, certain ones do – nature of the business. The split screen is the real motion though. I just keep showing up and I genuinely think that's what got me here.

What actually happens on a hotel shoot when the people in front of your lens aren't always actors?

A lot of the prep is handled by the hotel’s marketing team before I even step on set. They choose the right people, maybe not actors, but well briefed and ready. 

By the time we roll, everything is in place. Locations are locked, areas cleared, or guests informed. I focus on flying, chiming in where it helps. Two to four takes usually does it. 

How heavy is the responsibility of flying commercially abroad?

Operating through an agency makes it easier. Most importantly, you have to carry the right insurance, you have to learn the rules and you respect them. Working through proper channels is how you build trust, which is everything when you're working with high-end hotel clients who are putting their brand in your hands. The permit process in SEA is more navigable than most people assume.

Any drone casualties along the way?

Broken a few. More than a few went into a pool. I’d say you don't really lose them – you just find them somewhere they really shouldn't be!

What's the most intense flying moment you've had so far?

There's a video that went a bit viral. I'm flying from the sea and a dog comes charging out of nowhere and could possibly take the drone clean out of the air – no drones or dogs were harmed, for the record!

But on top of that, it wasn't even the first take. I'd already crashed before that and switched to the backup drone. Then on that very take, the dog nearly ate that one too. Still makes me laugh.

Anyone in the FPV world you genuinely rate?

Two creators I follow, @kaivertigoh and @sembler8, produce good videos and have sharp techniques.

If restrictions didn't exist for one day, what would you shoot? 

Inside the BTS! Flying straight through the carriages, dodging the poles, going through the whole thing. That would be incredible. And honestly pretty hilarious too.