Still flying kwyji~3 for this and the chicken church. Kwyji~6 the Y~6 was too bulky and untested to drag overseas. Next time. Meanwhile, it's still the fixed gopro2 at 720/60 on the 450 flamewheel (now) Naza-controlled quad. Kwyji~6 will shoot something interesting after xmas.

Jungle Cruise (3 min 1 sec)

Giant Chicken Church (2 min 20 sec)

I've been obsessed with getting a Y6 for a long time, now. Ultimately I got the Droidworx standard-lift version.

AXi 2217/20 motors on DYS30A SimonK ESCs spinning XOAR 10"x5 wooden props.

All run by a Wookong-M FC. Have flown it once and it was beautiful; handled very nicely in light winds with gains all default 100. Wound the gains up to the mid-100s all round.... but 100 each on yaw and vertical seems fine with only this rough test to go by, didn't have these elements on dials. I wish DJI would open more channels for gain adjustment and more, take advantage of that SBus.

Haven't mounted the gimbal on it yet, which is an AV130 from Photohigher. I think I'll be flying that with 11" Graupner electroprops. Just wanted to see how she flew and also test out the new wooden props. They are lovely and quiet.

Am considering keeping the wooden props on the lower motors. May try a few different prop combinations.... as a long-time Y6 fanboy, I have read a lot of the theory on how best to use/circumvent prop wash in the co-axial set-up. As all the lower props are CW and the upper CCW, I wonder whether smaller props all on the bottom might make the yaw work harder when yawing clockwise... I imagine that is a fairly delicate part of the code to get right, keeping the craft stable in level and altitude while yawing... and if left and right have different physical properties, I'm sure that could confuse a wee FC.... but they are ridiculously smart....Continue Reading

Green's Pool (3 min 1 sec)

Magical little beach near the town of Denmark on the south coast of Western Australia.
Shot from a quadcopter on GoPro2, fixed. A tad vibey on descents, sad face. Set to 720p at 60 frames per second. As usual.
Quad is DJI Wookong-M, iPower 2814-10 motors, Graupner 11" Electroprops, DJI Flamewheel F450 frame, DYS 30A ESCs (SimonK firmware), XAircraft landing gear (and the mangled bits of one of their gimbals cobbled together for the fixed camera-mount), Turnigy Nano-Tech 3000 mAh battery (AUW~1.7kgs, ~9 minutes flight time).. GPS Atti mode. Flown line of sight, not FPV.

Adventures of a Kwyj (3 min 58 sec)

Kwyji~3: Eastern Kimberleys and Pilbara (3 min 40 sec)

It's rough and ready and anything but clean, but I love my shambolic little DJI F450 with Wookong.

Just put new motors on in the hope that they'd be more out-of-the-box balanced, but alas... the iPower 2814-11s, 750kV, are shakier and harder to balance than the SunnySky 2814-10s, 710kV motors they've replaced. I have to get Avrotos or AXIs if I want to keep running this kind of set up. Or RCTigerMotors. Why are these so hard to get a hold of? Avrotos are out forever and AXIs are that much more expensive. The 10" Graupners are a tad small for these motors, I know, even on 4s (this guy struggles on 3S), but it performs well and lifts landing gear and housed gopro pretty comfortably on 3000mAh 4s Turnigy Nanotech for around ten cruising minutes... 7 or 9 with a bit of zinging around.

The Sbus connection makes my day every time I think about it. Since I have a psychotic inability to arrange anything with the kind of precision order I see around here, the single servo cable Rx to FC is perfectly unchaotic. I also completely removed the ESC power cables, which clears out the nest. I never use the bullet connectors on motors anymore and soldered these directly to ESCs. Admittedly the LEDs are a particularly hatchet job, but they break as often as props, so I'm always stitching another bit into place.

That's what I love about this machine, though. It's tough and easy to repair. Perfect for taking out bush and taking risks. Not perfect for maintaining...Continue Reading

Kwyji~3 in the Kimberley (4 min 53 sec)

Still learning.... Against the best backdrops.

Kwyji~3 Goes to the Beach (1 min 54 sec)