This build was a total experiment. I wanted to see what kind of flight times I could get out of some very unusual, and very inexpensive parts. The V-Spec 1808 2400kv motors were on sale for $5 each, and I used fairly inexpensive components for the entire build (with the exception of the FPV camera which I already had on hand). These tiny motors on 7" props and 3S voltage are doing pretty much exactly what I intended. The setup cruises at about 30mph at around 100 Watts and easily reaches 45-50mph at around 180 Watts, with max speeds around 60mph and about 250 Watts. The max current draw I saw was around 50A for very short bursts on hard recoveries, etc. I had some QAV-R2 Slam plates on hand so I cut some custom light-weight arms to fit the dumb 16x12 M2 mount pattern on the motors. The resulting low weight from both the frame design and the light-weight components kept the weight down to a pretty reasonable ~315g or so without the battery. Flying weight ends up at about 510g with a 2200mAh 3S, and 640g or so with a 5200mAh 3S. The low weight keeps the build surprisingly agile even with the tiny motors. Definitely needs a lot more gains on the PIDs, and prop wash handling is obviously lacking, but overall, I was remarkably pleased. With the 2200mAh 3S, I'm getting about 10 minutes of flight time, and I hit 20 minutes with the 5200mAh. That was some flips, rolls, higher throttle runs, and general shenanigans thrown in as well, so not exactly trying to go easy on the pack. The most remarkable thing here is the build cost though. If you throw in a micro HD camera instead of the SDR2, you can easily have an HD capable endurance and long-range rig that has significant range for a very minimal investment. I'd say overall this experiment was a remarkable success!

Here's my second endurance flight with it on a not fully charged 5200mAh pack.