We finished our team built DJI Flame Wheel last Wed, so today we got to fly it. We were flying indoors in manual mode because we couldn’t get a good GPS signal. I was kind of nervous but I shouldn’t have been. Turns out that flying a quadcopter is a lot easier than flying an RC airplane. Amazing what advanced electronics can do for you. I can’t wait to finish mine and get it in the air.
Our team built Flame Wheel uses the DJI Naza flight control system with a Futaba radio. I’m using a Holybro Pixhawk control system and FrSky Turnigy radio. Setup for the class build was easy. I don’t know how hard mine will be to get going since I can’t find much documentation. From what I’ve read, the Pixhawk is a lot more complicated to set up than the Naza but is a lot more versatile.
Sometimes I just can’t control myself…
I should really cut up my credit cards. I haven’t even finished my F450 and I’m already buying parts for my next projects. The first is a DJI F550 Hexacopter. Instead of buying the ARF kit I just got the frame. I also ordered custom motors (T Motor 3110 series) and I’ll be running T Motor carbon fiber props. My reason for going with a hexacopter instead of a bigger quad is camera safety. If you lose a motor on a quadcopter it’s going to crash. The idea of crashing a $400 GoPro Hero 5 doesn’t appeal to me very much, so I decided on the extra safety of the hexacopter.
My second project is a pair of CrashTestHobby Pelican RC airplanes. I got both the polyhedral and aileron versions of the kit. The poly wing is for learning to fly RC (I’ve done it in the past, but it was a lonnnggg time ago). The aileron version will hopefully become a mini fixed wing drone with full avionics. I also want to get a Finwing Pelican since that’s what the class is using for fixed wing, but my wife is starting to question how much I’m spending. That one might have to wait…